How Poor Were You?

I spent last weekend in the company of Elysha's 94 year-old grandmother. We call her Nana, and I always love speaking to her. In the midst of our chat, I was reminded of a conversation Nana and I had a couple of years ago. 

Nana told me about a game that she had played with friends called "How Poor Were You?" Players were challenged to provide evidence as to the extent of their poverty at some previous point in their life, and accolades were given to those who could prove themselves to have been the most poverty-stricken.

The game wouldn't have gone well during our visit, as I suspect that Nana (who grew up during the Great Depression) and I were the only people present to ever feel the sting of real poverty, but it sounded like a fun game just the same.

But I also recall that Nana said something to me in the midst of this discussion that I understood fully, and something that I do not think those who have not experienced poverty could ever truly understand. She said, “We were poor, but there were times when it was fun to be poor. You had to be really creative to survive, and to even eat, and there’s a certain joy in that.”

I couldn’t agree more. There have been times in my life when I was barely able to feed myself, but it was often fun trying to do so. 

So in the spirit of "How Poor Were You?" I thought I’d offer some of my poorest moments here.

From kindergarten through high school, I was eligible to receive free breakfast and free lunch from our school system, and during the summers, I also received free lunch from the park service. I can recall enormous blocks of WIC (Women, Infants and Children) cheese being delivered free-of-charge to my home for much of my childhood, and there were days, and perhaps weeks, when this cheese made up a good portion of my diet.

I received my first pair of snow boots at the age of nine after many New England winters spent in tennis shoes wrapped in bread bags.

After high school my roommate and I were so poor that we could not afford to turn on the heat in the winter. We would eat boxes of elbow macaroni (5 for $1) and sit under blankets together on the couch, huddled to keep one another warm while we watched The Simpsons on an ancient black-and-white television set atop an old baby-changing table. The apartment was so cold that the pipes burst in the bathroom and we could routinely see our own breath.

After being homeless and living in my car, I was taken in by a family of Jehovah Witnesses who allowed me to share a converted pantry off the kitchen with a guy named Rick (who spoke in tongues in his sleep) and their indoor pet goat. I did this for almost two years.

I like to think that these challenging times in my life helped to make me the person and the writer that I am today. The constant, almost daily struggle, the need for persistence and perseverance, and the opportunity to experience a varied range of the human condition, from hunger and near homelessness to enormous success and accomplishment, have equipped me with a vast storehouse of memories, experience and understanding from which I can draw.

Sometimes I feel sorry for the people who were born into relative comfort and ease.

Nana was right: Being poor can be fun.

Anyone else experience poverty in their lifetime?

If so, want to play "How Poor Were You"?

Disillusioned by the Presidential election this year? Vote for Clara.

Clara just hung this on the pantry door and announced that she's running for President of the Upstairs.

"Upstairs needs some rules," she says.

Her platform:

1. Make your bed. (which she does not do)
2. Put away your books. (which she does not do)
3. Cuddle your stuffed animals
4. Give kisses and hugs at bedtime

She's currently keeping 50% of her promises. 

Not bad for a politician. 

A trip to the plumbing store, because that's where all kids want to go. Right?

My son's ongoing obsession with water treatment facilities, electrical grids, and underlying infrastructure of our world (and more recently, the human body) perhaps reached its apex this week when he asked my wife to stop at a plumbing supply store so he could examine the items in stock.

Credit my wife for taking the time to stop and allow him to satisfy his curiosity. I'm not sure where all this interest in infrastructure will lead, but hopefully it includes an enormous college scholarship and a lifetime of gainful employment.  

First day of preschool apparently went well

I only wish I could've been there.

Also, I'm still waiting for a restaurant chain to hire him as a spokesperson. That "thumbs up" is perfection.

I think my wife is hitting on me.

Elysha's no dummy. If she's trying to woo me, she knows exactly how to do it.

Nothing is sexier than finding Organizing magazine on the kitchen counter.

I left her a note.

I know way too much about boll weevils

My daughter, Clara, age seven, at 6:40 AM:

"Dad, I want to know what a boll weevil is. It's a beetle. I know that, but I want to know more. I want to know if it's an invasive species, because I'm guessing that farmers do not like the boll weevil, and I want to know if they live around here, because they eat cotton, and I really love cozy, cottony things."

Ten minutes later, with a manuscript still waiting to be completed and almost a week late, I know too much about boll weevils.

These were not the conversations I ever expected to have with my daughter when I dreamed of fatherhood years ago.. 

Preschool is destined to disappoint my son.

Charlie made his first preschool visit yesterday.

As we ate breakfast, he asked me to come to school with him

When I told him I had to go to work, he said, "I'm so sorry that you have to work, and I'm so sad you can't come. I want you to come. I will miss you so much."

So I was basically wrecked for the day.

Then he said, "My teacher better know a lot about water treatment facilities and how electricity gets into our house."

Suddenly I felt a little less sorry for myself.

Damn Canadians are ruining my book.

Clara handed me this broken percussive instrument. "Can you fix this?" she asked.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Charlie and I are playing camping. We made a tent and everything. And Charlie's a Canadian woodsman. This is his axe. He was chopping trees, and then he tried to chop down the wrong tree. Which was actually the stairs. His axe broke. Can you fix it, because it's getting cold, and we're going to need more firewood."

All this while I try to finish the revisions on my novel... 

My daughter demands death.

Ants have invaded the room in our house where the kids play. They are angry. Outraged, really. They told us to call an exterminator.

So we did. He arrived yesterday. I started to explain the problem, but Clara and Charlie interjected, bringing him to the room and explaining the problem themselves. 

I just watched and listened.

After determining where the ants were getting into the house, he told the kids what he was going to do. "I'm going to put some ant food in the cracks of the windows and doors for the ants. They'll find the food and bring it back to their nest, and the food will put all the other ants to sleep."

Clara leapt off the couch. "Sleep? I don't want them to go to sleep! I want you to kill them!"

The exterminator was taken aback by Clara's bloodthirsty response. He stared silently at her for a moment, dumbfounded.  

So I explained. "They've been stomping on the ants all week. They are both very comfortable with murdering insects."

It was sweet of the exterminator to try to protect my children's innocence, but when it comes to ants in the room where they play, my lovely, precious, delightful little kids would not object to the use of nuclear weapons if necessary.    

Mom and Dad had a reely big show last nite

Earlier this month, Elysha and I produced and performed in a show at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, CT. Having been in that theater before to see some incredible musical acts, it was a thrill to take the stage and perform. 

Our storytellers were outstanding that night. One of our best shows ever.

I'll always remember our first night on that famous stage, but the thing that makes me smile the most about that night is what our daughter, Clara, put into her newspaper the next day. 

I'm not entirely sure why I'm not standing onstage alongside Elysha in the picture, but I love how Clara views Elysha (and perhaps me) as people who stand onstage and speak to large audiences.

Hopefully help her to do the same when her time comes.  

The Solar System. Obviously.

Am I wrong to think that my daughter's art is amazing and already worth thousands of dollars?

Seriously. Is this not fabulous, or am I simply blinded by fatherly love?

7 things that we all agree should exist but still don't. Unless you're four years old.

Seven things that we all agree should exist and are within our power to bring into existence but still don't.

1. A vacation from a vacation
2. The four day work week
3. The elimination of all dress codes
4. Cellular telephone jamming technology in every movie theater
5. Decent rest areas along the Saw Mill and Taconic Parkway
6. Five more seasons of The Office
7. A national holiday on the Monday following the Super Bowl

We all yearn for these things that seem within our reach and are yet so far away. 

Except for my son.

This was the start of his vacation after a vacation. 
He also has a zero day work week, and he doesn't work on the Monday following the Super Bowl.

Being four years-old is amazing. 

My son meditates. Seriously. How did this happen?

I thought I heard Charlie calling me from his bedroom. It was about 6:30 AM, earlier than he usually wakes up, but not impossibly early for him.

Charlie is four year-old, but he still sleeps in his crib. We keep our kids in their crib as long as possible because it makes our lives easier, but we'll have to transition him to a bed soon. Until then, he calls me every morning and I pluck him from the crib.

Then he snuggles with Elysha or Clara.

It's one of my favorite moments of every day.

I open his door, and I find Charlie sitting in his crib with his legs crossed. He's looking down at his lap.

"Did you call me?" I ask him.

"No," he says. "My light isn't green yet."

Charlie has a traffic light alarm clock. We set it on red at night as we put him to bed, and when it switches to green at 6:45 AM, he's allowed to call for me. He doesn't always adhere to it, but he almost always does.

"Oh," I say. "I thought I heard you. You ready to get up?"

"No," he says.

"No? What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking about my dreams and my life," Charlie says. "Until the green light comes on."

I couldn't believe it. My boy is meditating in his crib.

Later on, after he was out of his crib, I asked him if he thinks about his dreams and his life everyday. He said no. He told me he only thinks like that if he wakes up before the light changes green. 

"Do you like to think about your dreams and your life?" I asked

"Yeah!" he said. "It's important!"

It took me 42 years to begin meditating. Charlie figured it out while still sleeping in a crib. 

My children don't understand the purpose or use of a sofa

I stepped into the room. They were both watching television.

Like this.

I'm raising a couple of lunatics. 

I think my daughter is becoming cool.

Clara came downstairs yesterday morning, asked Alexa (the name assigned to the Amazon Echo) to play Francis England (her favorite musician, who she found independently on Spotify), and then just sat and listened.

One of the best things about our Amazon Echo is the control it's given our kids over the music they love. It's not uncommon for either one of them to walk into the room and ask for music if none is playing. 

But yesterday morning was especially great. Given television, iPads, or breakfast, Clara chose music.

She might be bordering on becoming legitimately cool. 

Writing advice from a toddler that authors should heed carefully

When my daughter was three years old, still unable to read, she taught me three invaluable lessons about the craft of writing. Specifically, she offered three specific pieces of criticism made an impression on me as an author and remain with me today.

1. Don’t overwrite. More importantly, don’t refuse editing. 

After watching some of its more famous musical numbers on YouTube, Clara and my wife sat down to watch Mary Poppins in its entirety for the first time.

Three years later, she still has yet to see the complete film.

While her interest admittedly waned throughout the film, her most telling comment came just over thirty minutes into the movie when she stood up from the couch and said, “Too long!”

She’s right. At 139 minutes, the film is far too long for most three-year old children, and it might be too long in general. As much as I loved Mary Poppins as a child, a two hour and nineteen minute children’s musical probably could have stood a little more time in the editing room.

Authors often have a great deal to say. We try to restrain ourselves as much as possible, but it often requires the expertise of an agent and an editor to bring our stories down to a length that will maintain a reader’s interest. It’s not an easy process. My agent has chopped whole chapters out of my book. My editors has murdered my characters. Hours and hours of work and strings of carefully honed, treasured sentences lost forever.

But better to lose an entire chapter than to have a reader toss down the book and shout, “Too long!”

2. Conflict is king. Backstory and resolution are secondary.  

With almost any television show that Clara watches, she exhibits the same pattern of interest:

As the conflict in the story rises, she remains riveted to the program. But as soon as the resolution is evident, even if it has not yet happened, her interest immediately wanes. She will walk right out of the room before the resolution even takes place if she can see it coming. 

It’s a good lesson for authors to remember. It is conflict that engages the reader. Backstory and resolution are necessary, but these elements should occur within the context of the conflict as often as possible and should probably occupy the fewest number of pages as possible. Keep the tension high throughout the story and keep the conflict ever-present in the readers’ minds and you will hold their interest throughout.

3. Keep your promises to the reader.

Clara does not appreciate when a television show goes off-book or changes genres midstream. Her favorite show for a long time was The Wonder Pets. It’s a program about three preschool class pets who moonlight as superheroes, saving baby animals around the world who are in trouble.

But occasionally the writers of The Wonder Pets decide to step outside this proven formula. In one episode, The Wonder Pets save an alien who is trying to return to his planet. In another, two of The Wonder Pets must save the third from peril. One episode is essentially a clip show in which the baby animals that they have already saved return to thank The Wonder Pets for their help. 

Clara hated these episodes. The alien episode scared the hell out of her. She fled the room saying, “Not this one! Not this one!” The other more experimental episodes never manage to keep her interest.

Clara is invested in The Wonder Pets because of the promise of baby animals being saved and returned to their parents by the three characters who she adores. 

It’s a good lesson for authors who sometimes offer the reader one thing but then give them another. This can happen when authors fail to remain faithful to the genre in which they are writing, infusing their fantasy novel with a sudden splash of science fiction or bringing serious social commentary into what was supposed to be an escapist detective or romance story.

Authors make promises to readers and then must deliver on them because readers are not simply empty vessels awaiting for the author to impart whatever wisdom he or she deems worthy.  Readers are discerning customers who need to be able to trust an author before investing time and money into a book. There are many reasons that readers purchase books, but it is rarely because they think the author is a wonderful person and whatever he or she has to say will be worthy. Most often, they buy books because of a promise made by the author. A promise of genre or character or plot or quality of the writing.

Authors must be sure to keep these promises or risk having their readers shout, “Not this one! Not this one!"

My kind of princess

My daughter said this today:

"I'm a princess who never stays in the castle. That's because I'm a brave princess and I'm always looking for adventure."

Nothing wrong with a little girl wanting to be the right kind of princess.

Something to make you smile

I could write something clever but decided that nothing I write today will be as good as this:

My daughter outlines her position on the accumulation and distribution of capital in a market economy

For the third time in her seven years on this planet, my daughter has saved more than $100. 

On all three occasions, she has saved this money for specific items. In the past it was a dollhouse from Barnes & Noble and a Playmobile mall. 

This time she was saving for a Playmobile petting zoo. 

And because she earns $1.25 per week in allowance, it takes a long time to save this money. For this most recent purchase, it took more than eight months, and that included birthday money, tooth fairy money, found money, and occasional bonuses that she can earn for completing additional chores.

When we counted her money and discovered that she had finally exceeded $100 ($114 in all), I told her how impressed I was with her ability to save. 

"But Daddy," she said. "Doesn't everyone save their money?"

I explained that in many cases, people seek immediate gratification. They buy small items that make them happy in the moment but don't save for big items like houses and cars and retirement and emergencies. "Some people can't stop spending money on clothing and restaurants and gadgets, so they never get what they really want."

She was quiet for a moment. I could tell she was processing this. Thinking about this new reality that I had presented to her. 

I waited. 

Finally she spoke. "Well, that's kind of dumb, I think. I think saving for what you want is fun. And you don't have to just buy stuff all the time to be happy."

If only everyone adhered to the wisdom of my seven year-old girl. 

My son has become a non-stop death machine.

Ever since our cat, Owen, died last month, my four year-old son Charlie has been obsessed with death. 

Specifically his own death. 

This has not been good for me, given that I am obsessed about my own death more than anyone else on the planet. My mortality is something that I consider on a (no exaggeration) hourly basis at least. 

You may think I'm crazy, but I've died not once but twice and been brought back by paramedics both times. Had a gun was put to my head and the trigger pulled. I was also diagnosed with the adult-onset muscular dystrophy gene that eventually contributed to the death of at least three of my relatives, including my mother, and will one day effect me, too.

If anyone gets to have an ongoing, ever-present, overwhelming existential crisis, I think it's me.  

But now I have this four year-old existential reminder machine running around the house, constantly telling me that he doesn't want to die. Constantly reminding me of the thing I don't need to be reminded about.  

Our standard response to Charlie's declaration that he doesn't want to die has been, "You won't have to worry about that for a long, long, long time Charlie. You have a very, very, very long life ahead of you."

There's also talk of a heaven that I wish I believed in but don't and assurances that everything will be okay. 

It hasn't exactly eliminated his fear, but it's been enough to move him onto a new topic.

Yesterday morning, as I brought him downstairs, he saw a photograph of Owen. He walked over, touched the photo, and said, "Dad, I don't want to die."

Just what I wanted to hear at 6:30 AM.

I answered as I always do. "Don't worry buddy. That's not going to happen for a long, long, long time."

"But Dad," Charlie said, turning away from Owen's photo to look at me. "A long, long, long time means I am going to die someday."

Damn it. The kid understands. He knows. 

Honestly, my thoughts of death are my greatest burden. The thing I carry with me like a loadstone throughout my life. My existential crisis informs so much of what I do. It makes me who I am. It's responsible for much of my success. It's the guiding principle behind everything that I think and believe.

I'd hate to think that Charlie might suffer the same fate. 

I'd also hate to think that my son is going to continue to pick at this open wound for the rest of my life. It's hard enough already without this beautiful little boy hitting me over the head with an existential sledgehammer on a daily basis. 

I picked him up, hugged him, and did what I always do when my thoughts of death become too great to bear. I opted for distraction. 

"Want to go watch the Octonauts?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. And for an hour or so, we sat on the couch together and forgot about our mortality. The reality of our eminent demise. The terror of the void. 

At least he did. I hope.