I almost didn't write in here today. That's how it goes when you come home at the end of the day, only to realize, as you trudge up the hill from the BART station, that you've spent every single one of the past 480 minutes angry.
Why was I angry? It's not important. The results of a mis-conceived career are not always pretty. You end up as fodder for whoever wants to mess with you. And there's not a darn thing you can do about it. Walking around looking dangerous may make you feel better for awhile, but all it does in the long run is make people want to steer clear of you.
So I came home and walked the dog, gave him some dinner and slugged down a beer while reading "Entertainment Weekly." For anyone who still thinks I demand some kind of basic level of sophistication from my reading materials, you can pretend I was reading this week's "New Yorker." The truth is, the quality of the beer I was drinking (Full Sail Amber) was far more important to me than the intellectual challenge presented by the magazine. I'm not picky. I read true crime books sometimes.
But then Sandra Bullock came home, all flush with the radiant glow one can only get after a few hours of hopscotching between Target, Barns & Noble and Best Buy. She dutifully listened to me complain for a half-hour or so, then reminded me that, as twisted as it may seem to the gainfully employed among you, writing in here daily is at least as important to my overall worldview as the thousands of words wrung out of me every day by my employers.
So here I am.
I did one good thing today: I googled the Jawa's computer teacher and found that, in addition to acting as an information superhighway guide to the students of Brandeis Hillel Day School, she is also one-half of an electronica group called "Eats Tapes." Sharing that information with the Jawa was undoubtedly the high point of my day.
He couldn't believe it. Remember that at twelve years old you are absolutely convinced that your teachers are shrink-wrapped at the end of each school day, then stacked like firewood in the teachers lounge by Robert, the omniscient custodian, or by Mrs. Bondoc, whose great powers include the ability to distribute band-aids and determine whether or not a student is healthy enough to return to class.
I knew he'd flip out but his response was still better than I could have hoped. He immediately went to his computer (enjoying the use of his new keyboard, purchased after he shorted out his old one by spilling water on it, unwittingly recalling a "Saturday Night Live" skit from the Three Mile Island era that I'm going to assume I'm alone in remembering) and googled "Eats Tapes." For the next hour, he played youtube videos of the band, letting out an involuntary whoop! or shriek every few minutes. "Dad! Check this out!" he said. "It's her!" He showed me a video of his teacher, looking exactly like she does at school only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, hunched over what looked like an old Moog synthesizer, squeezing out blips and beeps and other electro noises.
From there he expanded. He went to iTunes and shouted, "They've got four CDs!" Since eight o'clock, I've heard one particular song a dozen times. Turns out he could only afford to download one track. I will miss the best part, unfortunately, which will take place on Monday, when he goes to computer class and spills the beans to his teacher.
Can you remember what it would have felt like to be a seventh-grader and have that kind of information about a teacher? I can only imagine how large she must loom in his mind right about now.
But wait; there's more. Even as I type this, the Jawa is loading his iPod into the stereo. He wants us to hear something he just made with some mysterious free software he downloaded. He took the Cut Chemist song "What's the Altitude" and remixed it under his DJ name, "DJ Volcano." That's right; it's the DJ Volcano Mix. Scratching included without charge.
And I've got to tell you, through my suddenly wet eyes and puffed-up chest full of parental pride, it's pretty good. So's the impromptu dance he's presently executing in the middle of the living room. Likewise the look of unfettered happiness he's wearing on his mug. To paraphrase Holden Caulfield, it's beautiful. I wish you could have been here to see it.
So there you go. Right now San Francisco's public schools are jumping through hoops trying to get themselves excised from the state's "Worst Performing Schools" index while simultaneously trying to satisfy a district full of parents who just want their kids to go to school in the neighborhood but cannot, due to the district's primary commitment to diversity above all else, which has resulted in a formula for school assignment that may or may not include Planck's constant.
Meanwhile, we've got a computer teacher who right now is probably out with friends (some bar in the Mission, of course), having no idea of the impact she's having on one of her students. The Jawa's plan tonight was to watch "Mythbusters" on demand until his eyes fell out of his head. Instead, he's spent the past hour downloading DJ software and messing with his favorite songs, all because he was inspired by the effort it took to get his mind around the radical idea that his computer teacher had a life outside the BHDS computer room and man, what a life it turned out to be! If you ask me, that's pretty cool. The next time I see his computer teacher, I'll be sure to tell her all about it.
And if among the three of us we can find a way for my Jawa to avoid ever having to come home from work on a Friday carrying around the realizion that he's just spent 480 consecutive minutes on the verge of going postal and morphing into Michael Douglas in "Falling Down," I will consider us paragon examples of the value of a good education. A Jewish Day School education, and don't you forget it.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
163 days to Bar Mitzvah: in the ghetto
Today I took a little time out from driving around San Mateo County not eating frozen yogurt to think about what we've given the Jawa by choosing to send him to a Jewish Day School. That's the correct term, you know: Jewish Day School; as in "I chose a Jewish Day Schooleducation for my child," or, "yes, after all is said and done, I'm glad to have gotten a Jewish Day Schooleducation."
It's not "a Jewish school." Nor is it "religious school," though, as I am fond of reminding my fellow San Francisco Jews, we are able to write off our Annual Fund contributions because when we sign those checks we are contributing to a non-profit faith-based charity.
It is certainly not "Jew school," a pejorative I've been known to use myself, once famously in the presence of a (unknown to me) strident and stridently obnoxious Jewish woman I'd just met at a going-away party in Santa Monica for my friend Mod Mark. "You're ghettoizing yourself," she sneered.
At the time, I thought she was referring to my throwaway "Jew school" line, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think that the issue was with the decision to choose a Jewish Day School education for my one and only Jawa. She wouldn't be the first person -- and far from the first Jew -- to hold that opinion.
In fact, there was a period of time when philanthropic Jews purposely gave huge sums of money to non-Jewish causes, creating controversy within the religion and not, in my opinion, accomplishing what they'd set out to do, which was to build bridges between us and the non-Jewish world. The thinking, I guess, was along the lines of, "Hey, Monseignor, these Jews aren't so bad! They gave us all that money for the new freshman dorm!" (I use that example on purpose; the freshman dorm at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit school and my alma mater, was named after the very Jewish Martin Swig.
I'm not sure the efforts worked. It doesn't seem like we're any better received by the non-Jewish world today than we were before we decided to extend tzedakah to include the gentiles.
If, however, you define the word "tzedakah" not as "charity" but as "balance," as we were taught in a recent family education program at Temple Emanu-El, then these efforts make sense.
As an aside -- the family education programs were led by Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, a very charismatic and engaging Rabbi who, we learned today, just had a heart attack. He's home and "resting comfortably," but if you've got any good mojo out there, send it his way.
As an effort to "create balance," giving to non-Jewish organizations makes a kind of sense. I'm of the opinion that it was a failed effort, but that's not the fault of the people dishing out the dough.
Back to the Jewish Day School education: "ghettoizing" was the last thing I wanted for my child, I think. I'm not sure. Having grown up in a world without Jews (also known as inland Orange County), I learned early on to treat other Jews like fellow secret agents. "I see you there, but I'm going to play it cool with all these other people around." Ridiculous, I know, but there it is.
So maybe I did want my kid to be a tiny bit ghettoized. Given that Sandra Bullock famously brings no ethnicity to the table, the Jawa is a default Jew. And you know what that means: you can run, but you can't hide. So why not surround him with other Jews? Why not make his Bar Mitzvah a real community-type event, where all of his friends are there and everyone knows how to act because they've already been to three dozen Bar and Bat Mitzvahs this year?
Why not have him never have to deal with Richard Parks gift-wrapping a box of matzo ball soup mix and presenting it to him in 9th grade drafting class and everyone, including the teacher, busting a freaking gut because it's so funny? Matzo ball soup mix! For the Jew in the class! Hilarious!
I can see both sides of the argument. While I personally tend not to seek out other Jews -- with the one major exception being the feeling of total relief and acceptance I felt upon starting school at Brandeis Hillel Day School -- there are some life experiences and attitudes that only other Jews get. You know, it's a Jew thing.
It's common for BHDS kids to leave school feeling "totally Jewed out." This is why almost nobody lists the Jewish Community High School on their initial wish list of high schools. Everyone checks it out, though. We're Jews; we're big on obligation.
Funny thing is that almost every parent I've talked to has raved about JCHS, which in no way helps sell the school to their Jewed-out kids. I think a few BHDS kids go there every year, about the same number that goes to St. Ignatius, which by the way is presently on the top of our list, the thinking being that after eight years of the Jewish Day School experience, it might be nice to balance that out with a more traditional, less hand-holding, more "normal" high school experience.
But honestly, I think that viewpoint is a response not to the Jewish Day School experience but to the San Francisco independent private school experience, which leaves some of us thinking that our highly-empowered children might benefit from leaving the shallow end and wading out to where the sharks are.
But overall, despite my almost-constant complaining, I think the Jawa has benefited from his Jewish Day School education. And I don't think he's been ghettoized, though it would have been easy to do so.
I just like to kvetch.
It's not "a Jewish school." Nor is it "religious school," though, as I am fond of reminding my fellow San Francisco Jews, we are able to write off our Annual Fund contributions because when we sign those checks we are contributing to a non-profit faith-based charity.
It is certainly not "Jew school," a pejorative I've been known to use myself, once famously in the presence of a (unknown to me) strident and stridently obnoxious Jewish woman I'd just met at a going-away party in Santa Monica for my friend Mod Mark. "You're ghettoizing yourself," she sneered.
At the time, I thought she was referring to my throwaway "Jew school" line, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think that the issue was with the decision to choose a Jewish Day School education for my one and only Jawa. She wouldn't be the first person -- and far from the first Jew -- to hold that opinion.
In fact, there was a period of time when philanthropic Jews purposely gave huge sums of money to non-Jewish causes, creating controversy within the religion and not, in my opinion, accomplishing what they'd set out to do, which was to build bridges between us and the non-Jewish world. The thinking, I guess, was along the lines of, "Hey, Monseignor, these Jews aren't so bad! They gave us all that money for the new freshman dorm!" (I use that example on purpose; the freshman dorm at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit school and my alma mater, was named after the very Jewish Martin Swig.
I'm not sure the efforts worked. It doesn't seem like we're any better received by the non-Jewish world today than we were before we decided to extend tzedakah to include the gentiles.
If, however, you define the word "tzedakah" not as "charity" but as "balance," as we were taught in a recent family education program at Temple Emanu-El, then these efforts make sense.
As an aside -- the family education programs were led by Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, a very charismatic and engaging Rabbi who, we learned today, just had a heart attack. He's home and "resting comfortably," but if you've got any good mojo out there, send it his way.
As an effort to "create balance," giving to non-Jewish organizations makes a kind of sense. I'm of the opinion that it was a failed effort, but that's not the fault of the people dishing out the dough.
Back to the Jewish Day School education: "ghettoizing" was the last thing I wanted for my child, I think. I'm not sure. Having grown up in a world without Jews (also known as inland Orange County), I learned early on to treat other Jews like fellow secret agents. "I see you there, but I'm going to play it cool with all these other people around." Ridiculous, I know, but there it is.
So maybe I did want my kid to be a tiny bit ghettoized. Given that Sandra Bullock famously brings no ethnicity to the table, the Jawa is a default Jew. And you know what that means: you can run, but you can't hide. So why not surround him with other Jews? Why not make his Bar Mitzvah a real community-type event, where all of his friends are there and everyone knows how to act because they've already been to three dozen Bar and Bat Mitzvahs this year?
Why not have him never have to deal with Richard Parks gift-wrapping a box of matzo ball soup mix and presenting it to him in 9th grade drafting class and everyone, including the teacher, busting a freaking gut because it's so funny? Matzo ball soup mix! For the Jew in the class! Hilarious!
I can see both sides of the argument. While I personally tend not to seek out other Jews -- with the one major exception being the feeling of total relief and acceptance I felt upon starting school at Brandeis Hillel Day School -- there are some life experiences and attitudes that only other Jews get. You know, it's a Jew thing.
It's common for BHDS kids to leave school feeling "totally Jewed out." This is why almost nobody lists the Jewish Community High School on their initial wish list of high schools. Everyone checks it out, though. We're Jews; we're big on obligation.
Funny thing is that almost every parent I've talked to has raved about JCHS, which in no way helps sell the school to their Jewed-out kids. I think a few BHDS kids go there every year, about the same number that goes to St. Ignatius, which by the way is presently on the top of our list, the thinking being that after eight years of the Jewish Day School experience, it might be nice to balance that out with a more traditional, less hand-holding, more "normal" high school experience.
But honestly, I think that viewpoint is a response not to the Jewish Day School experience but to the San Francisco independent private school experience, which leaves some of us thinking that our highly-empowered children might benefit from leaving the shallow end and wading out to where the sharks are.
But overall, despite my almost-constant complaining, I think the Jawa has benefited from his Jewish Day School education. And I don't think he's been ghettoized, though it would have been easy to do so.
I just like to kvetch.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
164 days to Bar Mitzvah: on the guest list
The guest list. As a former rock and roll journalist, let me tell you, there's no better place to be.
But for the purposes of this discussion, lets forget about that guest list. No one is paying a cover charge -- except for Sandra Bullock and me -- to get into this gig. That doesn't mean, however, that tickets won't be nearly impossible to come by.
Who gets invited to the Bar Mitzvah? Where do you draw the line? If we invited everyone we wanted to invite, the total cost of this event would equal the annual operating budget of a Fortune 400 company. We are a humble, middle-class family. Trying to finance such a Bar Mitzvah would have meant financial ruin.
So we had to make a guest list.
Remember all those times when, as a child, you vowed that once you were the adult you'd do things YOUR WAY? How great that felt, knowing that someday you'd be in charge. You may have been ten years old, penniless and at the mercy of the adults, but you knew that some day, things would go your way. You'd have the power.
Except for two instances: you wedding and your kid's Bar Mitzvah.
I shouldn't complain. In the almost eighteen years that have passed since our wedding, our familiar guest list obligations have lessened. Each parental team submitted a guest list in single digits.
Which leaves us free to allot the remaining 150 or so slots among the people we know and have known. Using our holiday card list as a guide, we began compiling a list of people we'd like to see at the Bar Mitzvah. Our first list, akin to the list of home improvements kept in a manila folder by my bride of 17-plus years, was fantastic and unrealistic. Our total party was pushing 300.
So we started cutting. Out went people we used to know really well but no longer see. We felt cold and unfeeling, as if we were treating our friends like old clothes hanging in our closet; haven't spoken in the past year? Not invited to the Bar Mitzvah. It wasn't quite that extreme, but you get the idea.
The problem is that we have lived in a few places and have accumulated friends along the way. We have some friends from before we met, people from the years we lived in Seattle, people from school, people we know here in San Francisco, work friends, family members, people we don't see much anymore but used to know really well and couldn't imagine cutting them out of this event since they played a pretty significant role in our wedding, almost eighteen years ago.
One of the few things Sandra Bullock and I have in common is that we like to host parties. Over the years, we've put on an average of one party per year, not counting the impromptu gatherings we've become known for on Surrey Street. We are the Kool-Aid family. We take it seriously.
Unfortunately, when it comes time to create the guest list, whatever the event, we invariably over-invite. I remember a party we once had when we lived in Federal Avenue, in Seattle. Our one-bedroom apartment was so crowded that people had to go out through the front door, walk around the building, climb a flight of stairs and enter through the back door to use the bathroom. They simply couldn't get through the apartment otherwise.
We want everyone to be there. We want everyone to have a good time. Naturally, this usually means that we end up spending no more than five minutes with any one particular party guest. Hopefully, they're having a good time talking to each other.
For our joint 40th birthday party, instead of having a tasteful cocktail gathering, we bought a keg and threw it in the backyard, hung a disco ball downstairs and let the good times roll.
So to say that trimming our Bar Mitzvah guest list has been painful is an understatement. We've still got five-plus months and at least two more passes to go.
Right now we're at about 180. That's the list. It mostly accounts for individual invites that result in multiple guests, including my cousin and his reputed five children who we've never met.
Other cousins weren't so lucky. We were thick as thieves with my Uncle Jules' kids when we lived in Pennsylvania and they lived in New York. Not so much after we moved to California. Last time I saw any of them was 1986. When my mom asked me if I was going to invite them, I said, "Do any of them have any kids? Have any been Bar Mitzvahed? I have no idea."
Mom understood.
Because our guest list threatened to get away from us, we had to cut all of the "Boy, it sure would be nice to see" people. It would have been great to see them, but it's not going to happen. Maybe we should have devised a short quiz to give those on the bubble. If they can correctly answer nine out of ten questions about our present life, they're in.
Q. What was the name of the Jawa's first girlfriend?
Q. Who is Sandra Bullock's employer?
Q. What sort of dog is Shack?
And then there's the question of our fellow Brandeis Hillel Day School parents. Though we've been told that we should not base our invitation policy on whether or not we're invited to other people's Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, we're hoping that our invite list matches the list of blessed events we receive invitations to. So far so good. When I tell people that I've tried to alienate as many people as possible to avoid difficult Bar Mitzvah guest list decisions, I'm only halfway kidding.
There is an unwritten (or maybe written; like I'd know) rule that says anyone can attend a Bar or Bat Mitzvah service, be they the lady who drags around the box or a classmate's parents. So we've gone to a few, which has been nice. I mean, we've known these kids since they were five years old. It never stops being a mind-blower to watch them up there, rattling off the Hebrew and making speeches.
More uncomfortable is the moment you arrive to collect your pre-teen or teen at the Bar or Bat Mitzvah party you have not been invited to. I think as the year's gone on it's gotten better, but there's always this little moment of tension when the hosts, who you've also known for eight years and may or may not have done things socially with, perform the tricky dance required when greeting non-guests at your party. Almost always, they hosts tell you to help yourself to cake. We break bread; in this way, all is serene.
I can't speak for everyone, but I haven't yet felt snubbed by a non-invite. I'm pretty sure I'm far from the only person to feel this way. We get it. I guess it's a nice gesture that everyone feels they should be at least vaguely apologetic, because it is kind of weird, showing up in your jeans and fleece when these people that you've never before seen dressed up are hosting one of the biggest events of their lives.
Overall, I think we've got about a half-dozen Brandeis families on our guest list. If that seems a bit low, chalk it up to my concentrated alienation program. These things don't happen by accident, you know.
And for everyone else, especially the people who made the cut so many times before but are now left on the sidelines, people we've known for a long time and have so many fond memories of, we wish you could all be there and feel weird talking about it on Facebook and in this blog. Knowing that at least a couple of you will be very unpleasantly surprised when your invite never comes feels awful.
And if you are on that list, and you receive one of the invites pored over by Sandra Bullock's design team, please RSVP. By the time August rolls around, we will be full to the brim with surprises. A little predictability will be much appreciated.
But for the purposes of this discussion, lets forget about that guest list. No one is paying a cover charge -- except for Sandra Bullock and me -- to get into this gig. That doesn't mean, however, that tickets won't be nearly impossible to come by.
Who gets invited to the Bar Mitzvah? Where do you draw the line? If we invited everyone we wanted to invite, the total cost of this event would equal the annual operating budget of a Fortune 400 company. We are a humble, middle-class family. Trying to finance such a Bar Mitzvah would have meant financial ruin.
So we had to make a guest list.
Remember all those times when, as a child, you vowed that once you were the adult you'd do things YOUR WAY? How great that felt, knowing that someday you'd be in charge. You may have been ten years old, penniless and at the mercy of the adults, but you knew that some day, things would go your way. You'd have the power.
Except for two instances: you wedding and your kid's Bar Mitzvah.
I shouldn't complain. In the almost eighteen years that have passed since our wedding, our familiar guest list obligations have lessened. Each parental team submitted a guest list in single digits.
Which leaves us free to allot the remaining 150 or so slots among the people we know and have known. Using our holiday card list as a guide, we began compiling a list of people we'd like to see at the Bar Mitzvah. Our first list, akin to the list of home improvements kept in a manila folder by my bride of 17-plus years, was fantastic and unrealistic. Our total party was pushing 300.
So we started cutting. Out went people we used to know really well but no longer see. We felt cold and unfeeling, as if we were treating our friends like old clothes hanging in our closet; haven't spoken in the past year? Not invited to the Bar Mitzvah. It wasn't quite that extreme, but you get the idea.
The problem is that we have lived in a few places and have accumulated friends along the way. We have some friends from before we met, people from the years we lived in Seattle, people from school, people we know here in San Francisco, work friends, family members, people we don't see much anymore but used to know really well and couldn't imagine cutting them out of this event since they played a pretty significant role in our wedding, almost eighteen years ago.
One of the few things Sandra Bullock and I have in common is that we like to host parties. Over the years, we've put on an average of one party per year, not counting the impromptu gatherings we've become known for on Surrey Street. We are the Kool-Aid family. We take it seriously.
Unfortunately, when it comes time to create the guest list, whatever the event, we invariably over-invite. I remember a party we once had when we lived in Federal Avenue, in Seattle. Our one-bedroom apartment was so crowded that people had to go out through the front door, walk around the building, climb a flight of stairs and enter through the back door to use the bathroom. They simply couldn't get through the apartment otherwise.
We want everyone to be there. We want everyone to have a good time. Naturally, this usually means that we end up spending no more than five minutes with any one particular party guest. Hopefully, they're having a good time talking to each other.
For our joint 40th birthday party, instead of having a tasteful cocktail gathering, we bought a keg and threw it in the backyard, hung a disco ball downstairs and let the good times roll.
So to say that trimming our Bar Mitzvah guest list has been painful is an understatement. We've still got five-plus months and at least two more passes to go.
Right now we're at about 180. That's the list. It mostly accounts for individual invites that result in multiple guests, including my cousin and his reputed five children who we've never met.
Other cousins weren't so lucky. We were thick as thieves with my Uncle Jules' kids when we lived in Pennsylvania and they lived in New York. Not so much after we moved to California. Last time I saw any of them was 1986. When my mom asked me if I was going to invite them, I said, "Do any of them have any kids? Have any been Bar Mitzvahed? I have no idea."
Mom understood.
Because our guest list threatened to get away from us, we had to cut all of the "Boy, it sure would be nice to see" people. It would have been great to see them, but it's not going to happen. Maybe we should have devised a short quiz to give those on the bubble. If they can correctly answer nine out of ten questions about our present life, they're in.
Q. What was the name of the Jawa's first girlfriend?
Q. Who is Sandra Bullock's employer?
Q. What sort of dog is Shack?
And then there's the question of our fellow Brandeis Hillel Day School parents. Though we've been told that we should not base our invitation policy on whether or not we're invited to other people's Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, we're hoping that our invite list matches the list of blessed events we receive invitations to. So far so good. When I tell people that I've tried to alienate as many people as possible to avoid difficult Bar Mitzvah guest list decisions, I'm only halfway kidding.
There is an unwritten (or maybe written; like I'd know) rule that says anyone can attend a Bar or Bat Mitzvah service, be they the lady who drags around the box or a classmate's parents. So we've gone to a few, which has been nice. I mean, we've known these kids since they were five years old. It never stops being a mind-blower to watch them up there, rattling off the Hebrew and making speeches.
More uncomfortable is the moment you arrive to collect your pre-teen or teen at the Bar or Bat Mitzvah party you have not been invited to. I think as the year's gone on it's gotten better, but there's always this little moment of tension when the hosts, who you've also known for eight years and may or may not have done things socially with, perform the tricky dance required when greeting non-guests at your party. Almost always, they hosts tell you to help yourself to cake. We break bread; in this way, all is serene.
I can't speak for everyone, but I haven't yet felt snubbed by a non-invite. I'm pretty sure I'm far from the only person to feel this way. We get it. I guess it's a nice gesture that everyone feels they should be at least vaguely apologetic, because it is kind of weird, showing up in your jeans and fleece when these people that you've never before seen dressed up are hosting one of the biggest events of their lives.
Overall, I think we've got about a half-dozen Brandeis families on our guest list. If that seems a bit low, chalk it up to my concentrated alienation program. These things don't happen by accident, you know.
And for everyone else, especially the people who made the cut so many times before but are now left on the sidelines, people we've known for a long time and have so many fond memories of, we wish you could all be there and feel weird talking about it on Facebook and in this blog. Knowing that at least a couple of you will be very unpleasantly surprised when your invite never comes feels awful.
And if you are on that list, and you receive one of the invites pored over by Sandra Bullock's design team, please RSVP. By the time August rolls around, we will be full to the brim with surprises. A little predictability will be much appreciated.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
165 days to Bar Mitzvah: the patience of a saint
Unlike hunting, fishing, holding a public event or, notably operating any kind of vehicle on a road or in airspace, you don't need a license to become a parent. Anyone with the proper equipment can do it, and does.
For the purposes of this argument, I'm not talking about teenage parents, those frightening girls we see on PBS documentaries directed by Rory Kennedy, living in trailers and accumulating offspring the way others collect curios or stamps. No one that I know was completely prepared for the paradigm shift the day their first kid arrived. It took awhile, and for some people, the role of "parent" just never took.
Which carries with it an unusual kind of guilt. Those of us who don't live in trailers surrounded by kudzu, or on the 11th floor of Cabrini-Green just sort of assumed that we were cut out to be parents. The more arrogant of us figured that it was our responsiblity, since "they" were going ahead and having little broods of their own. What other way was there to preserve an environment of culture than to fight back by procreating?
For us, pregnancy came as the result of a concerted effort. Some were lucky (like us, for whom three weeks of "trying" produced a Jawa, with the great upside being that we never had to walk around telling people we were "trying." It just happened.), while others depended on science to help move along the process.
One thing we knew was that we would be good parents. Lord knew we'd prepared enough. We spent the run-up months haunting IKEA, buying nursery furniture and reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting." We attended Lamaze and breast-feeding classes, even when we were the only prospective father there and had tickets for the Mariners game that day.
We toured the new maternity ward at Swedish Hospital, just down the street, whiled away afternoons at Baby GAP, got our beeper (in those pre-cell phone days, the beeper would alert the father if labor had begun) and settled in.
There's one key component to being a parent that you can't buy, however. It's just as available to the girls in the trailers as it is to the eighteen year-old college freshmen whose life, as they know it, has ended, and to the thirty year-old, two-income professionals who spent last Saturday painting the nursery. It's patience, and if they ever do require a license to parent, 75% of the questions on the written test should determine whether you have any. Because once you've had your kid, it's too late.
There are many ways a child can test his parents' patience. One is by misbehaving. It's the obvious test and perhaps the easiest for parents. After all, who can blame you for losing your patience with a misbehaving child? They are a test, aren't they?
But what about the times when you think if you hear "Hey, Dad?" one more time you'll jump out of your skin? What about when you ask your child to pick the clothes up off his floor and he picks up everything except one sock? Surely, you should be able to handle those situations with poise. They're everyday occurances. If you can't handle that, well...
Like my father before me, I have an erratic relationship with patience. Under the correct circumstances, I can be very patient. I can easily provide answers to life's big questions, taking the time to craft lucid explanations, welcoming questions and, as I learned while getting my (unused) Masters in Education, checking for understanding.
Unfortunately, when my patience goes, it goes all at once and without warning. So while the tenth "Hey, Dad?" may elicit a pleasant response, the eleventh might bring down thunder worthy of the Seven Plagues. Of this I am not proud.
Since there's no way I would have passed the "Patience" portion of the Parenting License exam, I take solace in knowing that we at least stopped at one kid. I shudder to think of how I would balance the "Hey, Dads" of multiple children, or what methods I would use to separate them when they're at each others' throats. No, I'm maxed out at one. I mean, I can usually handle it. Having lived in the adult world for awhile, I've gotten more used to swallowing anxiety and anger than I was 20 years ago. Me as a teenage dad? Forget about it.
Sandra Bullock, though more consistent than me, is also no virtue of patience. Of the many hackneyed phrases you might hear bandied about our house, "(He)(She) has the patience of a saint," will not be included.
And of course our reward for this is that we've passed it directly down to our Jawa, who can often be found pounding on his keyboard and/or yelling at his computer when our wireless connection fails, or producing a child-sized version of the "Grrrr" growl I often use descriptively when words are simply too pedestrian.
I would like to be more patient and in fact vow to be in the wake of every single disagreement I have, not just with the Jawa but with everyone in my world. At work, I tell myself I will not overreact the next time the sales people ask me to do something I hate. Next time, I say, I will just accept my fate. I'm going to have to do whatever they want anyway, so why waste energy getting mad?
Next time I will not get angry at the guy who waits in the middle of the intersection for an entire cycle of the traffic light before turning left. Years ago, I conquered the urge to run across busy streets as the "Walk" sign winds down. Maybe I can do that while behind the wheel, too.
As for parenting, it is a job that requires constant (and constantly-changing) patience. And just when you master one element, when you've figured out the most effective means of engaging with your Jawa, whatever his mood, well, that's when he changes the rules again, forcing you to hit reset on the whole thing.
And it's not like you have downtime for these constant adjustments. Between the constant changing and almost as constant challenges, I'm about ready to quit my gym membership. I'm getting all kinds of a workout just by walking through the front door every night.
For the purposes of this argument, I'm not talking about teenage parents, those frightening girls we see on PBS documentaries directed by Rory Kennedy, living in trailers and accumulating offspring the way others collect curios or stamps. No one that I know was completely prepared for the paradigm shift the day their first kid arrived. It took awhile, and for some people, the role of "parent" just never took.
Which carries with it an unusual kind of guilt. Those of us who don't live in trailers surrounded by kudzu, or on the 11th floor of Cabrini-Green just sort of assumed that we were cut out to be parents. The more arrogant of us figured that it was our responsiblity, since "they" were going ahead and having little broods of their own. What other way was there to preserve an environment of culture than to fight back by procreating?
For us, pregnancy came as the result of a concerted effort. Some were lucky (like us, for whom three weeks of "trying" produced a Jawa, with the great upside being that we never had to walk around telling people we were "trying." It just happened.), while others depended on science to help move along the process.
One thing we knew was that we would be good parents. Lord knew we'd prepared enough. We spent the run-up months haunting IKEA, buying nursery furniture and reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting." We attended Lamaze and breast-feeding classes, even when we were the only prospective father there and had tickets for the Mariners game that day.
We toured the new maternity ward at Swedish Hospital, just down the street, whiled away afternoons at Baby GAP, got our beeper (in those pre-cell phone days, the beeper would alert the father if labor had begun) and settled in.
There's one key component to being a parent that you can't buy, however. It's just as available to the girls in the trailers as it is to the eighteen year-old college freshmen whose life, as they know it, has ended, and to the thirty year-old, two-income professionals who spent last Saturday painting the nursery. It's patience, and if they ever do require a license to parent, 75% of the questions on the written test should determine whether you have any. Because once you've had your kid, it's too late.
There are many ways a child can test his parents' patience. One is by misbehaving. It's the obvious test and perhaps the easiest for parents. After all, who can blame you for losing your patience with a misbehaving child? They are a test, aren't they?
But what about the times when you think if you hear "Hey, Dad?" one more time you'll jump out of your skin? What about when you ask your child to pick the clothes up off his floor and he picks up everything except one sock? Surely, you should be able to handle those situations with poise. They're everyday occurances. If you can't handle that, well...
Like my father before me, I have an erratic relationship with patience. Under the correct circumstances, I can be very patient. I can easily provide answers to life's big questions, taking the time to craft lucid explanations, welcoming questions and, as I learned while getting my (unused) Masters in Education, checking for understanding.
Unfortunately, when my patience goes, it goes all at once and without warning. So while the tenth "Hey, Dad?" may elicit a pleasant response, the eleventh might bring down thunder worthy of the Seven Plagues. Of this I am not proud.
Since there's no way I would have passed the "Patience" portion of the Parenting License exam, I take solace in knowing that we at least stopped at one kid. I shudder to think of how I would balance the "Hey, Dads" of multiple children, or what methods I would use to separate them when they're at each others' throats. No, I'm maxed out at one. I mean, I can usually handle it. Having lived in the adult world for awhile, I've gotten more used to swallowing anxiety and anger than I was 20 years ago. Me as a teenage dad? Forget about it.
Sandra Bullock, though more consistent than me, is also no virtue of patience. Of the many hackneyed phrases you might hear bandied about our house, "(He)(She) has the patience of a saint," will not be included.
And of course our reward for this is that we've passed it directly down to our Jawa, who can often be found pounding on his keyboard and/or yelling at his computer when our wireless connection fails, or producing a child-sized version of the "Grrrr" growl I often use descriptively when words are simply too pedestrian.
I would like to be more patient and in fact vow to be in the wake of every single disagreement I have, not just with the Jawa but with everyone in my world. At work, I tell myself I will not overreact the next time the sales people ask me to do something I hate. Next time, I say, I will just accept my fate. I'm going to have to do whatever they want anyway, so why waste energy getting mad?
Next time I will not get angry at the guy who waits in the middle of the intersection for an entire cycle of the traffic light before turning left. Years ago, I conquered the urge to run across busy streets as the "Walk" sign winds down. Maybe I can do that while behind the wheel, too.
As for parenting, it is a job that requires constant (and constantly-changing) patience. And just when you master one element, when you've figured out the most effective means of engaging with your Jawa, whatever his mood, well, that's when he changes the rules again, forcing you to hit reset on the whole thing.
And it's not like you have downtime for these constant adjustments. Between the constant changing and almost as constant challenges, I'm about ready to quit my gym membership. I'm getting all kinds of a workout just by walking through the front door every night.
Monday, March 8, 2010
166 days to Bar Mitzvah: five-minute warning
Sometimes, you have days like this, where an incident lasting a total of five minutes completely changes the complexion of your day, changing it from "passable" to "horrendous." Sometimes, the five-minute incident occurs at the hands of your Jawa. Often it happens on days where said Jawa had no school and therefore woke up at 7:30 a.m., parked himself in front of his computer and stayed there until you returned home from work at 5:30.
To be fair, you get me at 5:30 on a Monday, you're not getting me at my best. Eight-plus hours of being reminded what screwing around in your twenties can lead to, career-wise, doesn't put you in the best frame of mind. Over the weekend, perhaps you forgot the realities of your professional situation, so added to the chronic low-level ache of underacheivement is the element of surprise, believe it or not.
Add to this the usual battle to get home, dodging hipsters dragging their bicycles onto BART despite the many posted signs telling them not to, using skills that would be quite at home in the paint on an NBA court as you box out all the people attempting to cut in line, inhabiting as little space as possible once on the train, so as to minimize the number of elbows, messenger bags and purses that will poke you every time the train moves, completely disrupting whatever crossword puzzle or solitaire game you are working on.
And then exit BART and walk uphill three blocks to get home. Not so uphill as to make the heart pump wildly and thus qualify as exercise; just enough, though, to guarantee that you will spend your first five minutes at home wiping buckets of sweat from your balding dome.
It is this tableau that I carry with me each day when I return home. Today, I wanted to get inside, offload my bag, my enormous coat, my hat and quickly change into workout clothes. Downstairs, the new stationary bike awaited.
So call me nitpicky (or more accurately, call me the second coming of Gerald L. Rosen, whose unpredictable, cluttered house-fueled eruptions remain the holy benchmark of effectiveness and unexpected humor to which I aspire) when I react to entering a home pockmarked by randomly-placed items -- a glass on the coffee table, some kind of wrapper on the kitchen counter, an empty macaroni and cheese box on the island -- and immediately plunge into a bad mood.
The poor Jawa. Completely oblivious to his sins (and that's part of the problem), he cheerily called out to me upon hearing the front door open and close. Alas, his mood would soon darken. Caught off-guard for the zillionth time by my insistance that he clean up after himself, he sifted through the rubble of his bedroom and sprinted out to the living room, where he quickly picked up the glass, the wrapper and the macaroni and cheese box, raising his degree of difficulty by simultaneously carrying on a non-stop commentary about how he DID put away various other items, including the plate he used to eat his macaroni and cheese.
You've got to be kidding me, right?
Unfortunately, Sandra Bullock was about ten minutes out, so I had to go it alone, without the help of the parenting book she's been reading, and quoting to me every night as we lie in bed. With no parenting book advice to lean on, I had only my wits at my disposal. Once again, they proved inadequate.
The whole thing lasted five minutes. By the time S. Bullock arrived home, I was already downstairs on the stationary bike, pedaling away my frustrations, listening with something approaching amusement as the Jawa stomped around upstairs, forced against his will to clean his room.
A few minutes in, I began to hear high-pitched outbursts coming from upstairs. This could only mean one thing: Sandra Bullock had picked up right where I'd left off. The one-two combination had worn the Jawa's defenses completely away, so now he was yelling incoherently at his mother, who responded by taking Shack for a walk. I heard the front door close, and then, silence.
In the middle of it, I heard someone slam the basement door. It locks from the outside, and I figured the odds were even that the Jawa had locked me in. Given all that he had endured after what had probably been a nice, hassle-free day, I thought I'd give him that. He could lock me in. If it made him feel like he had a little bit of power in this struggle, then the minute or so I would have to stand there in the dark, knocking on the door until someone opened it, would be worth it.
As it turned out, he had not locked it. The mere act of slamming the door had met whatever need he had. By the time I came upstairs, 45 minutes later, all was serene and agreeable in my house. Until dinner, when we reminded the Jawa that he needed to complete his Bar Mitzvah study requirements for the day before returning to the movie he'd been watching.
That earned us a re-run of the scene from an hour before.
Right now, it is almost nine o'clock. Two-thirds of my family is watching "Lord of the Rings," Bar Mitzvah requirements long since met, minus any drama. Unsurprisingly, the Jawa is enthralled by "Lord of the Rings," which I chalk up to the devious influence of his mother, as enthusiastic a follower of fantasy and science fiction as I am of drab realism.
I can't help but feel that we are simply in-between Jawa blow-ups, as it appears the teenage years include a marked tendancy to fight passionately for one's rights, even when logic and reason would suggest a different path.
It was only five minutes out of my day; ten, if you count the sarcastic dinnertime battle, but I'm not as good as sloughing off these battles as the rest of my family. I required a couple of hours alone in order to reset.
Twenty years ago, when I was a single guy out in the world, I dated a few girls who had the ability to ruin my day like noone every before or since. One of the earliest "go" signs I got from Sandra Bullock came when I realized that she couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do that. So then you have a Jawa who brings back the possibility of having five minutes ruin your whole day, but you grin and bear it because it's not like with those girls where it was battling egos looking to get ahead and you didn't sign up for it so when the going gets tough, you bail.
When it's your Jawa, it's EXACTLY what you signed up for, so there's not much you can do, other than file it away, try to learn from it and hope the next time you'll do better. Because that's your job, and if it costs you a few bad days here and there, well, that's just too bad.
Besides, it takes so little for a Jawa to turn your day into a good day, often even less than five minutes, that in the end you come out way ahead.
To be fair, you get me at 5:30 on a Monday, you're not getting me at my best. Eight-plus hours of being reminded what screwing around in your twenties can lead to, career-wise, doesn't put you in the best frame of mind. Over the weekend, perhaps you forgot the realities of your professional situation, so added to the chronic low-level ache of underacheivement is the element of surprise, believe it or not.
Add to this the usual battle to get home, dodging hipsters dragging their bicycles onto BART despite the many posted signs telling them not to, using skills that would be quite at home in the paint on an NBA court as you box out all the people attempting to cut in line, inhabiting as little space as possible once on the train, so as to minimize the number of elbows, messenger bags and purses that will poke you every time the train moves, completely disrupting whatever crossword puzzle or solitaire game you are working on.
And then exit BART and walk uphill three blocks to get home. Not so uphill as to make the heart pump wildly and thus qualify as exercise; just enough, though, to guarantee that you will spend your first five minutes at home wiping buckets of sweat from your balding dome.
It is this tableau that I carry with me each day when I return home. Today, I wanted to get inside, offload my bag, my enormous coat, my hat and quickly change into workout clothes. Downstairs, the new stationary bike awaited.
So call me nitpicky (or more accurately, call me the second coming of Gerald L. Rosen, whose unpredictable, cluttered house-fueled eruptions remain the holy benchmark of effectiveness and unexpected humor to which I aspire) when I react to entering a home pockmarked by randomly-placed items -- a glass on the coffee table, some kind of wrapper on the kitchen counter, an empty macaroni and cheese box on the island -- and immediately plunge into a bad mood.
The poor Jawa. Completely oblivious to his sins (and that's part of the problem), he cheerily called out to me upon hearing the front door open and close. Alas, his mood would soon darken. Caught off-guard for the zillionth time by my insistance that he clean up after himself, he sifted through the rubble of his bedroom and sprinted out to the living room, where he quickly picked up the glass, the wrapper and the macaroni and cheese box, raising his degree of difficulty by simultaneously carrying on a non-stop commentary about how he DID put away various other items, including the plate he used to eat his macaroni and cheese.
You've got to be kidding me, right?
Unfortunately, Sandra Bullock was about ten minutes out, so I had to go it alone, without the help of the parenting book she's been reading, and quoting to me every night as we lie in bed. With no parenting book advice to lean on, I had only my wits at my disposal. Once again, they proved inadequate.
The whole thing lasted five minutes. By the time S. Bullock arrived home, I was already downstairs on the stationary bike, pedaling away my frustrations, listening with something approaching amusement as the Jawa stomped around upstairs, forced against his will to clean his room.
A few minutes in, I began to hear high-pitched outbursts coming from upstairs. This could only mean one thing: Sandra Bullock had picked up right where I'd left off. The one-two combination had worn the Jawa's defenses completely away, so now he was yelling incoherently at his mother, who responded by taking Shack for a walk. I heard the front door close, and then, silence.
In the middle of it, I heard someone slam the basement door. It locks from the outside, and I figured the odds were even that the Jawa had locked me in. Given all that he had endured after what had probably been a nice, hassle-free day, I thought I'd give him that. He could lock me in. If it made him feel like he had a little bit of power in this struggle, then the minute or so I would have to stand there in the dark, knocking on the door until someone opened it, would be worth it.
As it turned out, he had not locked it. The mere act of slamming the door had met whatever need he had. By the time I came upstairs, 45 minutes later, all was serene and agreeable in my house. Until dinner, when we reminded the Jawa that he needed to complete his Bar Mitzvah study requirements for the day before returning to the movie he'd been watching.
That earned us a re-run of the scene from an hour before.
Right now, it is almost nine o'clock. Two-thirds of my family is watching "Lord of the Rings," Bar Mitzvah requirements long since met, minus any drama. Unsurprisingly, the Jawa is enthralled by "Lord of the Rings," which I chalk up to the devious influence of his mother, as enthusiastic a follower of fantasy and science fiction as I am of drab realism.
I can't help but feel that we are simply in-between Jawa blow-ups, as it appears the teenage years include a marked tendancy to fight passionately for one's rights, even when logic and reason would suggest a different path.
It was only five minutes out of my day; ten, if you count the sarcastic dinnertime battle, but I'm not as good as sloughing off these battles as the rest of my family. I required a couple of hours alone in order to reset.
Twenty years ago, when I was a single guy out in the world, I dated a few girls who had the ability to ruin my day like noone every before or since. One of the earliest "go" signs I got from Sandra Bullock came when I realized that she couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do that. So then you have a Jawa who brings back the possibility of having five minutes ruin your whole day, but you grin and bear it because it's not like with those girls where it was battling egos looking to get ahead and you didn't sign up for it so when the going gets tough, you bail.
When it's your Jawa, it's EXACTLY what you signed up for, so there's not much you can do, other than file it away, try to learn from it and hope the next time you'll do better. Because that's your job, and if it costs you a few bad days here and there, well, that's just too bad.
Besides, it takes so little for a Jawa to turn your day into a good day, often even less than five minutes, that in the end you come out way ahead.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
167 days to Bar Mitzvah: photo-sensitive
Shortly after we learned that we had a Jawa pending, I made a decision I regret, though not as much as you'd think. I decided that we would not buy a video camera. Our lives would be recorded through simple still photos. No one would have to endure an endless session watching recorded tape of a motionless -- yet no less amazing -- baby.
Sandra Bullock disagreed. She wanted a video camera, but for reasons I still can't explain, for this one decision she deferred to me. No camera.
Our only experience with moving images came at our wedding. We hired a guy employed by a friend, who put together an excellent, professional video that we watched twice, then put in a box with all of our wedding photos. I think we watched it again at our tenth anniversary. I didn't like watching it. I looked wooden.
A couple of years ago, the Jawa bought his own video camera. With it he's made some pretty cool shorts. He's old enough (or perhaps young enough) to use it for artistic purposes, not to make living recordings of everyday life. That's what photos are for.
Which brings up one of the hidden costs associated with Bar Mitzvahs: the video. Not to be outdone, the photos usually run a couple of grand as well. Call me a philistine, but I can't help thinking that these are two prime opportunities to cut costs. How hard can it be to take photos at a Bar Mitzvah?
What we don't want is a rerun of our wedding. On someone's recommendation, I can't remember who, we hired this very eccentric photographer who had a thin ponytail, a tired-looking wife and absolutely no patience for living subjects. In the half-hour he kept us captive after our ceremony while he arranged us and took pictures, he managed to earn the ire of both my bride and my mother; a neat trick, indeed.
Almost eighteen years later, everyone who was at our wedding still remembers the photographer. And not in a good way.
I'll give him credit, though. When the pictures came out, they were great. We did black-and-white because I was pretending that our wedding took place in 1964. In eighteen years, we've almost forgotten what a challenge that photoragpher was. His quirks have faded at least to the point where they are merely part of an amusing story about our wedding day.
For the Bar Mitzvah, though, the last thing we want is to have to grind the day to a halt and stand around while some perfectionist artiste sets up formal shots of the family. Now that I think of it, that was the last thing we wanted to do on our wedding day, too.
And to pay a premium for that privelege, well, that's just not going to happen. Not if I have anything to say about it. And other than telling it to the whole world here in this blog, I probably don't have anything to say about it. But lets pretend I do.
I can't see why we can't find someone -- an amateur, an enthusiast, a student -- to take pictures at our Bar Mitzvah for less than $2,000. What are we talking about here? We like candid photos better than posed, formal ones. Some of the best pictures from our wedding were taken by friends, including some truly bizarre ones taken by my truly unique friend Cameron, who was in my fraternity at Santa Clara and now lives about a mile away, though we hardly ever see him.
Right now, we're trying to talk a friend of S. Bullock into doing it, a guy who worked with her at Genentech and is now trying to set himself up as a pro photog. Sounds perfect. We can put this guy up at the hotel for two nights, feed him topflight food and give him a little extra for the effort and still come out way ahead. And I'll bet no one looks at our pictures and goes, "Wow, they really cut corners on the pictures, didn't they."
Look, I'm not saying I don't value photos. I'm sure if the Hayward Fault blew open and San Francisco caught fire, I'd be right there digging through the rubble looking for our photo albums. I get that. All I'm saying is that I think we can get good shots without shelling out big bucks. And that our only experience with a "professional" left us lukewarm toward that particular type of artisan.
As for the video, I'm even less inclined to want to throw down major jack for a videographer, because I think we'll watch it once and then sentence it to the dustbin. Maybe the Jawa will watch it a few times. Not enough to justify a major investment. If the add-ons are stuff like music and cool fades, we can do without. Heck, we could just have someone walk around with a camera, then give us the footage and have the Jawa himself shape it into something coherent.
Why am I so adamant? Probably because I was over visiting the Hammer yesterday and listening as she tallied up their Bar Mitzvah costs. She warned me that there are all kinds of little things that you think will cost less than they actually do. Our budget is already about $5,000 higher than I'd hoped. If there's any chance that we can lower it (and thus, potentially avoid a months-long period of poverty and financial recovery in the wake of this event) invisibly, without it being too obvious to our guests, well, I'm going to grab onto that faux brass ring and run with it until the merry-go-round stops.
I'll agree that we should have something. We were just talking yesterday about how after all this build-up, August 21 is going to come and go in a flash. Before we know it, it'll be over. Just like our wedding, which I can only remember in flashes now: there was a ceremony, I screwed up something about the ring and everyone laughed. Then we stood in a hallway shaking hands with people. After that, we walked around a big room while music played -- including the much-loathed "What I Like About You," which I had specfically requested not be played during an earlier meeting with our DJ -- and I was introduced to a bunch of people I haven't seen since. Then we got on Scott Morrell's motorcycle and drove away.
What I can say is that only because of our video do I know that I ate something at our wedding. And that I once had a head full of glorious, black curls. So yes, some kind of record should be kept of this day. I have a couple of albums from my Bar Mitzvah, which I'm pretty sure were compiled of photos taken by family members, not pros.
Just five us someone unobtrusive, not weird, not with a thin ponytail, and have them surreptitiously take pictures of people. Nothing huge. We can get that done for less than $2,000, can't we?
Sandra Bullock disagreed. She wanted a video camera, but for reasons I still can't explain, for this one decision she deferred to me. No camera.
Our only experience with moving images came at our wedding. We hired a guy employed by a friend, who put together an excellent, professional video that we watched twice, then put in a box with all of our wedding photos. I think we watched it again at our tenth anniversary. I didn't like watching it. I looked wooden.
A couple of years ago, the Jawa bought his own video camera. With it he's made some pretty cool shorts. He's old enough (or perhaps young enough) to use it for artistic purposes, not to make living recordings of everyday life. That's what photos are for.
Which brings up one of the hidden costs associated with Bar Mitzvahs: the video. Not to be outdone, the photos usually run a couple of grand as well. Call me a philistine, but I can't help thinking that these are two prime opportunities to cut costs. How hard can it be to take photos at a Bar Mitzvah?
What we don't want is a rerun of our wedding. On someone's recommendation, I can't remember who, we hired this very eccentric photographer who had a thin ponytail, a tired-looking wife and absolutely no patience for living subjects. In the half-hour he kept us captive after our ceremony while he arranged us and took pictures, he managed to earn the ire of both my bride and my mother; a neat trick, indeed.
Almost eighteen years later, everyone who was at our wedding still remembers the photographer. And not in a good way.
I'll give him credit, though. When the pictures came out, they were great. We did black-and-white because I was pretending that our wedding took place in 1964. In eighteen years, we've almost forgotten what a challenge that photoragpher was. His quirks have faded at least to the point where they are merely part of an amusing story about our wedding day.
For the Bar Mitzvah, though, the last thing we want is to have to grind the day to a halt and stand around while some perfectionist artiste sets up formal shots of the family. Now that I think of it, that was the last thing we wanted to do on our wedding day, too.
And to pay a premium for that privelege, well, that's just not going to happen. Not if I have anything to say about it. And other than telling it to the whole world here in this blog, I probably don't have anything to say about it. But lets pretend I do.
I can't see why we can't find someone -- an amateur, an enthusiast, a student -- to take pictures at our Bar Mitzvah for less than $2,000. What are we talking about here? We like candid photos better than posed, formal ones. Some of the best pictures from our wedding were taken by friends, including some truly bizarre ones taken by my truly unique friend Cameron, who was in my fraternity at Santa Clara and now lives about a mile away, though we hardly ever see him.
Right now, we're trying to talk a friend of S. Bullock into doing it, a guy who worked with her at Genentech and is now trying to set himself up as a pro photog. Sounds perfect. We can put this guy up at the hotel for two nights, feed him topflight food and give him a little extra for the effort and still come out way ahead. And I'll bet no one looks at our pictures and goes, "Wow, they really cut corners on the pictures, didn't they."
Look, I'm not saying I don't value photos. I'm sure if the Hayward Fault blew open and San Francisco caught fire, I'd be right there digging through the rubble looking for our photo albums. I get that. All I'm saying is that I think we can get good shots without shelling out big bucks. And that our only experience with a "professional" left us lukewarm toward that particular type of artisan.
As for the video, I'm even less inclined to want to throw down major jack for a videographer, because I think we'll watch it once and then sentence it to the dustbin. Maybe the Jawa will watch it a few times. Not enough to justify a major investment. If the add-ons are stuff like music and cool fades, we can do without. Heck, we could just have someone walk around with a camera, then give us the footage and have the Jawa himself shape it into something coherent.
Why am I so adamant? Probably because I was over visiting the Hammer yesterday and listening as she tallied up their Bar Mitzvah costs. She warned me that there are all kinds of little things that you think will cost less than they actually do. Our budget is already about $5,000 higher than I'd hoped. If there's any chance that we can lower it (and thus, potentially avoid a months-long period of poverty and financial recovery in the wake of this event) invisibly, without it being too obvious to our guests, well, I'm going to grab onto that faux brass ring and run with it until the merry-go-round stops.
I'll agree that we should have something. We were just talking yesterday about how after all this build-up, August 21 is going to come and go in a flash. Before we know it, it'll be over. Just like our wedding, which I can only remember in flashes now: there was a ceremony, I screwed up something about the ring and everyone laughed. Then we stood in a hallway shaking hands with people. After that, we walked around a big room while music played -- including the much-loathed "What I Like About You," which I had specfically requested not be played during an earlier meeting with our DJ -- and I was introduced to a bunch of people I haven't seen since. Then we got on Scott Morrell's motorcycle and drove away.
What I can say is that only because of our video do I know that I ate something at our wedding. And that I once had a head full of glorious, black curls. So yes, some kind of record should be kept of this day. I have a couple of albums from my Bar Mitzvah, which I'm pretty sure were compiled of photos taken by family members, not pros.
Just five us someone unobtrusive, not weird, not with a thin ponytail, and have them surreptitiously take pictures of people. Nothing huge. We can get that done for less than $2,000, can't we?
Friday, March 5, 2010
169 days to Bar Mitzvah: Friday musings
We got our invitations back from the printer. Six months in advance. They are all in lowercase, like mine were in 1978, except for where we screwed up and made the first letters of the Jawa’s name capitol. Please don’t notice.
This weekend we have no Bar Mitzvah to attend, which is a good thing, because on Tuesday, I had to take the Jawa’s one and only suit to the drycleaners. The hem needed to be taken down an inch. That’s right; while I’ve been watching myself grow out, the Jawa has been growing up.
This morning, the Jawa forgot to bring his saxophone to school. Yesterday, it was his lunch. I completely understand how frustrating it is to constantly be forgetting stuff. Eventually, he’ll have to come up with a plan – lists, something – to cover for his natural tendency toward forgetfulness.
His solution to this problem was to call me at work. “Dad,” he said, “I forgot my saxophone.”
“Well, I didn’t drive today. You’ll have to call Mom.”
I think I heard him growl involuntarily on the other end of the line. His anger was growing, replacing his shame at forgetting something as large and hard to miss as a saxophone.
Ten minutes passed and the phone rang again. “Mommy’s in meetings,” he said, his voice a strangled wail. “Can you get Tristen (our carpool partner) to bring it for me?”
Here I paused. I needed to, lest he know what I really thought of that ridiculous solution. When you’re twelve, I guess, it’s perfectly logical to ask someone who isn’t your parent to get in their car and drive to school with your saxophone. He doesn’t yet know the particular parenting rule that says ,“Parent A is only responsible for repairing his own child’s screw-ups. All screw-ups done by other children are the responsibility of their parents, i.e. Parent B.”
“We can’t do that,” I said.
“Why!”
“Because we just can’t. That’s not how you do things.”
“Fine!” he thundered. “I don’t care, anyway.” Click!
Yes, my son, who once sat on my lap while getting haircuts, who was moved to tears when I picked him up in the toddler room at daycare after being gone for a week, that same son hung up on me.
I sat there, shaking my head slowly.
I felt better after hearing from Sandra Bullock. Her luck with the enraged child had been no better than mine. “After I told him I couldn’t bring his saxophone to school,” she told me, “he just kept saying, ‘Okay, thanks for helping me out’ over and over.” I think I got off easy.
We’ve been trying to figure out ways for him to learn the consequences of his actions while still keeping him safe and happy. Could this be a good example, as stated by S. Bullock? My guess is that he went into the band room and told his teacher that we wouldn’t bring his saxophone to school. We’ll have to keep trying.
Yesterday, I did laundry. I’m all over laundry lately, churning out two loads every Tuesday and Thursday, roaring back from my low point of a month ago, when I sent two black pens through with the colors. Those days when huge piles of laundry threaten, blob-like to take over your home? They no longer exist for us as long as I’m kicking laundry’s butt.
The first load was whites. The second was colors. Between the two, I only came up with one pair of boxers for the Jawa. Had I lost a pair? Was there still a pair in the hamper? It had been two days since I’d done laundry. There should have been at least two pairs of boxers, even if the Jawa had worn the same pair during the day and to sleep.
Later, my worst fears were confirmed. He’d only worn one pair of boxers from Tuesday to Thursday. Worse, Sandra Bullock said that her Sunday loads of laundry had only turned up one pair from Friday to Sunday. We teamed up to present to our son a unified wall of disgust which he found somewhat amusing.
After I finished being disgusted, I thought back to my own teenage years, particularly the ones that took place after I started college. I remembered contests to see who could go the longest without a) doing laundry, or b) wearing underwear. Even though I appear to you today as a fully-domesticated middle-aged version of myself, I, too, flirted with grossness as a youngster. I take back the mantra – “What on earth would possess you to wear the same underwear two days in a row? – I chanted repeatedly for most of last night.
Which doesn’t mean that I wasn’t on him like a hawk this morning. “Did you put on new underwear? Are you wearing the same t-shirt you wore yesterday?”
This morning, I had to call some business owner about an ad he’d bought in our newspaper. Since the management team doesn’t care if I’m happy, they assigned me to write a series of “advertorials” for an upcoming special section in the paper. They also insisted I “interview” the advertisers instead of just getting information from their web sites.
Fine. So I spend Thursday calling all of these people, who are, to a man, confused, taken aback, not sure of what to say and then end up emailing me press releases or nice, coherent outlines of what they’d like me to write about. Today I called Superior Automotive, because the instructions I’d gotten said to call them Friday.
I knew I was in trouble when I asked the woman answering the phone for “Jessie.” “She’s not here,” said the woman who later turned out to be Jessie.
Turns out Jessie didn’t really care that I had been pushed unwillingly into doing this, that my real job was writing sardonic columns about real estate, that I had an advanced degree in creative writing or that, at times, I am a good father. Jessie wanted to vent. She’d been badgered by our newspaper repeatedly, even though she’d told that saleswoman, TO HER FACE, that she didn’t want to advertise.
How difficult is it to think of yourself as a misunderstood artist when you’re on the receiving end of the kind of diatribe usually reserved for telemarketers? Extremely.
As she ranted, I held the phone away from my ear. I shook it a few times, threw it up in the air and caught it. I jumped back on to say, “Well, I’m no happier about this than you are…” but she kept right on going. Finally, she took a breath, then said, “Who told you to call me?”
I was more than happy to tell her. If I could have driven over there to Superior Automotive, picked her up and delivered her directly to our sales staff, I would have. Instead, I gave her a name and quietly hung up the phone. Then I thought about taking a shower to get the sales funk off of me, but decided that maybe I’d just wear the same t-shirt and boxers for two days instead, to recapture the youthful feeling I’ve been lately lacking.
This weekend we have no Bar Mitzvah to attend, which is a good thing, because on Tuesday, I had to take the Jawa’s one and only suit to the drycleaners. The hem needed to be taken down an inch. That’s right; while I’ve been watching myself grow out, the Jawa has been growing up.
This morning, the Jawa forgot to bring his saxophone to school. Yesterday, it was his lunch. I completely understand how frustrating it is to constantly be forgetting stuff. Eventually, he’ll have to come up with a plan – lists, something – to cover for his natural tendency toward forgetfulness.
His solution to this problem was to call me at work. “Dad,” he said, “I forgot my saxophone.”
“Well, I didn’t drive today. You’ll have to call Mom.”
I think I heard him growl involuntarily on the other end of the line. His anger was growing, replacing his shame at forgetting something as large and hard to miss as a saxophone.
Ten minutes passed and the phone rang again. “Mommy’s in meetings,” he said, his voice a strangled wail. “Can you get Tristen (our carpool partner) to bring it for me?”
Here I paused. I needed to, lest he know what I really thought of that ridiculous solution. When you’re twelve, I guess, it’s perfectly logical to ask someone who isn’t your parent to get in their car and drive to school with your saxophone. He doesn’t yet know the particular parenting rule that says ,“Parent A is only responsible for repairing his own child’s screw-ups. All screw-ups done by other children are the responsibility of their parents, i.e. Parent B.”
“We can’t do that,” I said.
“Why!”
“Because we just can’t. That’s not how you do things.”
“Fine!” he thundered. “I don’t care, anyway.” Click!
Yes, my son, who once sat on my lap while getting haircuts, who was moved to tears when I picked him up in the toddler room at daycare after being gone for a week, that same son hung up on me.
I sat there, shaking my head slowly.
I felt better after hearing from Sandra Bullock. Her luck with the enraged child had been no better than mine. “After I told him I couldn’t bring his saxophone to school,” she told me, “he just kept saying, ‘Okay, thanks for helping me out’ over and over.” I think I got off easy.
We’ve been trying to figure out ways for him to learn the consequences of his actions while still keeping him safe and happy. Could this be a good example, as stated by S. Bullock? My guess is that he went into the band room and told his teacher that we wouldn’t bring his saxophone to school. We’ll have to keep trying.
Yesterday, I did laundry. I’m all over laundry lately, churning out two loads every Tuesday and Thursday, roaring back from my low point of a month ago, when I sent two black pens through with the colors. Those days when huge piles of laundry threaten, blob-like to take over your home? They no longer exist for us as long as I’m kicking laundry’s butt.
The first load was whites. The second was colors. Between the two, I only came up with one pair of boxers for the Jawa. Had I lost a pair? Was there still a pair in the hamper? It had been two days since I’d done laundry. There should have been at least two pairs of boxers, even if the Jawa had worn the same pair during the day and to sleep.
Later, my worst fears were confirmed. He’d only worn one pair of boxers from Tuesday to Thursday. Worse, Sandra Bullock said that her Sunday loads of laundry had only turned up one pair from Friday to Sunday. We teamed up to present to our son a unified wall of disgust which he found somewhat amusing.
After I finished being disgusted, I thought back to my own teenage years, particularly the ones that took place after I started college. I remembered contests to see who could go the longest without a) doing laundry, or b) wearing underwear. Even though I appear to you today as a fully-domesticated middle-aged version of myself, I, too, flirted with grossness as a youngster. I take back the mantra – “What on earth would possess you to wear the same underwear two days in a row? – I chanted repeatedly for most of last night.
Which doesn’t mean that I wasn’t on him like a hawk this morning. “Did you put on new underwear? Are you wearing the same t-shirt you wore yesterday?”
This morning, I had to call some business owner about an ad he’d bought in our newspaper. Since the management team doesn’t care if I’m happy, they assigned me to write a series of “advertorials” for an upcoming special section in the paper. They also insisted I “interview” the advertisers instead of just getting information from their web sites.
Fine. So I spend Thursday calling all of these people, who are, to a man, confused, taken aback, not sure of what to say and then end up emailing me press releases or nice, coherent outlines of what they’d like me to write about. Today I called Superior Automotive, because the instructions I’d gotten said to call them Friday.
I knew I was in trouble when I asked the woman answering the phone for “Jessie.” “She’s not here,” said the woman who later turned out to be Jessie.
Turns out Jessie didn’t really care that I had been pushed unwillingly into doing this, that my real job was writing sardonic columns about real estate, that I had an advanced degree in creative writing or that, at times, I am a good father. Jessie wanted to vent. She’d been badgered by our newspaper repeatedly, even though she’d told that saleswoman, TO HER FACE, that she didn’t want to advertise.
How difficult is it to think of yourself as a misunderstood artist when you’re on the receiving end of the kind of diatribe usually reserved for telemarketers? Extremely.
As she ranted, I held the phone away from my ear. I shook it a few times, threw it up in the air and caught it. I jumped back on to say, “Well, I’m no happier about this than you are…” but she kept right on going. Finally, she took a breath, then said, “Who told you to call me?”
I was more than happy to tell her. If I could have driven over there to Superior Automotive, picked her up and delivered her directly to our sales staff, I would have. Instead, I gave her a name and quietly hung up the phone. Then I thought about taking a shower to get the sales funk off of me, but decided that maybe I’d just wear the same t-shirt and boxers for two days instead, to recapture the youthful feeling I’ve been lately lacking.
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