Useless Blogging

I get walking out so that there’s no quorum, and no business can be conducted. I do. I think that sometimes, it’s a necessary evil so that actual discussion can take place on a bill that’s being seemingly rammed through; a consensus can be reached (or at least adequately explained) on an issue that deserves a few extra moments.

This type of stunt though, where you decide to stall other things so you can get your way on something unrelated: not cool.

Work it out.

A window into my life: what’s currently in the bathoom book container:
– Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys by Dave Barry
– The College Solution by Lynn O’Shaughnessy
– Mummy: The Resurrection (White Wolf)
– When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? By George Carlin
– The Higher Arithmetic (7th Ed.) by H. Davenport
– Dead Magic II: Secrets and Survivors (White Wolf)
– War of Ages (White Wolf)
– Teachings of Zen edited by Thomas Cleary
– Dilbert Gives You The Business by Scott Adams

Transparency like you never wanted.

New foster at the house.

The MAN!

I seem to be getting to a point where I don’t think I’ve been since college.  Three nights a week I’m out and about, I’ve got beaucoup work responsibilities, and I’m PTA president.  Man, I’m busy.

It even seems like my downtime needs to be scheduled at this point.  It’s a weird place to be.  Not fully certain I like it here.

There’s a meme floating currently on Facebook, and as I refuse to install an application just to participate in the fun, I’ll be playing along here.

Said meme is “five albums that shaped me”. I’ve been mulling this one for a couple of days, and I think I’ve got enough to work with.

• Pearl Jam: Ten – Probably one of the first albums that meant something to me more than fun noise. One of the very first CDs that I owned; it was a gift that came with my first CD player, and it came with the big ol’ CD longboxes before they did away with those way back when.
• George Carlin: Class Clown – This one is the top of the Carlin heap. I played the hell out of this LP, but An Evening With Wally Londo, The Little David Years, and FM/AM (and on the side, Occupation: Foole) are right up there as well. The fact that I could recite these albums by the end of sixth grade probably explains a lot about me.
• Bill Cosby: Why Is There Air? – Again, this one is a placeholder for a collection, this time including Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow… RIGHT, To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With, Wonderfulness, and I Started Out As A Child. Other kids listened to their tapes of Tone Loc and Tiffany. I spun Cosby and Carlin 33s for hours on end.
• Temple of the Dog: Temple Of The Dog – My first CD purchase. This CD taught me that music was more than sound: music could be a release, a coping mechanism, a different place and time.
• Faith No More: Angel Dust – I don’t know if this one shaped me, or if it’s on this list more for the period of time that it represents. I borrowed this tape from my friend Chip for way too long, and the whole CD evokes images of playing ActRaiser in his room.

There you go. Meme accomplished.

I think I lived a fairly normal childhood. While I had a propensity for remaining indoors to play, I also did bowling and baseball for as long as I can remember. I had very few neighborhood friends, owing primarily to the makeup of the neighborhood by the time my parents finally got around to having me, I think, but that didn’t seem to inhibit my social growth (at least, not in my eyes then, nor upon reflection tonight).

I think that’s what makes Emma’s struggles so baffling to me. I’ve been as keen as I can be to offer her every opportunity I had and then some, and still something seems off. Some of it, I know, is her. I won’t deny THAT bit. There always seems, though, like there’s something amiss with the rest of the world as well. Emma, given to drama as she can be, often thinks the world is out to get her, and the more time wears on, the more I think it’s not just all in her head.

I can’t remember — ever — fighting with my friends (at least, not the people I called “friends”; there are some folks that were more than passing acquaintances that made it onto my pre-teen list). I certainly don’t remember having repeated disagreements that led to repeated dissolutions of the same friendship, over and over again. Is this a function of female-to-female friendships? Just Emma? Did everyone else go through this growing up? Am I just quirky (or AWESOME?) enough that I sat in the middle of my web, immune to this common issue? Seriously, I want to know. As it stands, I watch my daughter struggle to keep even one friend, and I worry, because I completely lack a base from which to operate here, and I don’t know if it’s because I had a charmed life or if it’s because Emma’s is particularly uncharmed.

There are myriad ways I’m a lousy father. I do my best, but I know I fall short. Providence has landed me in the arms of a great woman who is both able and willing to pick up my copious slack in that department.

One way I know I miss the mark is believing my older daughter. She never made it particularly easy with her penchant to exaggerate, just as I know that my fondness for teachers and a general belief in their absolute desire to do what’s best for the children in their care exceeds realistic levels. I kept telling Emma — and myself — that it couldn’t ever be as bad as she describes it. I don’t know what clicked, in her and in me, but something did, and I’m grateful.

To that end, today is my daughters’ last day at Middle River Baptist Child Development Center. I’ve watched this daycare:

• Let my five year old autistic daughter run a quarter mile home
• Lose my daughters’ things and try to blame them, changing their story no less than three times in the process
• Have its teachers set my older daughter up for ridicule and embarassment
• Send writeups home bearing witness to the bad behavior of my older daughter, only to learn that none of the people who signed as a witness actually saw my daughter do any of the things they described
• Break their OWN policy in informing the parents that ringworm was discovered in one of their kids, and not see an ounce of apology in the letter that finally did come home

There’s certainly more, ranging from ‘things that got on my nerves’ to ‘why are you a teacher again?’, but I feel that’s a decent bullet point list.

I’m sorry that I didn’t believe my daughter more the first time through, and I’m sorry that my inaction caused her grief. (And if you’re reading, MRBCDC, that is an apology. Not apologizing for how people feel, but rather apologizing for the actions that were in the wrong.) I’ll be working to make it better.

So the last few days have been an interesting mix of purgatory and hell, health-wise. My symptoms would be tolerable and controllable during the daylight hours, and then jump straight into chills and a spiked fever when the nighttime hit. I finally but the bullet on Friday and stayed home to try to sleep it off, and it seems to have worked.

So if you’ve missed me, that’s why. If not, feel free to disregard. Coming later: thoughts on social networks.

I’m fairly well off, but I’m not horribly affluent. The economy affects me, but hasn’t crippled me. So I think I’m decently qualified to take a stab at what a decent stimulus package ought to do.

For the bored: Keynes is right. Tax cuts do jack, and in a time like this, they only stand to exacerbate the situation. Tax cuts come when everyone has money. First, we need to get some. I’m frankly loathing hearing anyone talk about tax cuts and how it puts money into the hands of the consumer. No, it doesn’t; leaving you with more is not the same as seeing that you have more, especially when people are scraping to get by (and are likely least affected by taxes in general).

Create work. Create jobs. Pay people. THAT puts money into pockets, and lets people spend again.