A sign, a grade book, and a bathtub are just a few of my memories of Hyde School

I had the honor of spending two days in Bath, Maine, recently, visiting with the eleventh and twelfth grade students of Hyde School. I taught them about storytelling, performed my one-person show in the evening, and hosted a story slam on the final afternoon of my visit. 

It's a fantastic school, filled with some of the hardest working teachers who I have ever met and a diverse group of students who are ready to take on the world. 

Great storytellers, too. They had incredibly compelling stories, and they told them so well. 

I had many big, beautiful moments at Hyde School that I will never forget. Moments with students and teachers that will stay with me forever. But a few of the smaller things that I loved:

This sign is posted in the main academic wing of the school. I just love it.

I met a teacher who is still using the identical attendance and grade book that my teachers were using when I was in high school. The nostalgia of seeing the grade book was almost overwhelming. I found myself staring down my French teacher, Mr. Maroney, arguing about a test grade, or debating my homework completion with Mr. Compo. 

It's funny how a single object can transport you to the past so quickly and easily.

I also took my first bath in a clawfoot bathtub. I was in Bath, Maine, and the bathtub was beautiful. It felt meant-to-be. 

The bath lasted about four minutes before I got bored and decided to take a shower and be more productive.  

I've never understood the allure of a bath. 

4 good ideas and 4 bad ideas about book clubs

PopSugar's Elyssa Friedland offers 10 tips for a successful book club.

I've been a member of a book club for more than a decade. Six people - three couples - meet and talk about books over dinner 6-8 times per year.

I've also visited with well over 100 book clubs over the course of my publishing career. It's been interesting. I've learned that book clubs are as diverse as the books themselves.

I've seen some crazy things.  

I love my book club, and I love visiting with book clubs. That said, I'm not a fan of this PopSugar list.  

I didn't like the list right from the start because it has ten items. When it comes to list, I never trust round numbers, and ten is the worst round number of all. A list of ten items almost always means that that effort was made to bring the list to this round number, so it's likely that a less-than ideal item was added to the list to bring it to ten or a useful item was left off the list to reduce it to ten.

Why magazine editors like this number so much is beyond me.

Would "Want to Have a Successful Book Club? Here Are 9 Tips" been so bad?

I also strongly oppose some of the ideas on the list. The most egregious:

1. Don't do it with your best friends.

While I appreciate the idea that diversity in a book club can offer a variety of perspectives, a book club is supposed to be fun. If I can't hang out with my closest friends and talk about books, that's probably not going to be fun.

3. Send out advance questions and pass them out at the book club.

This sounds like an excellent way to turn reading into work, the equivalent of a teacher assigning a book report. Can you imagine being handed a list of questions prior to your book club meeting?

I can't.

If this happened to me, I think I'd find myself trapped between the desire to tear up the list in the person's face or fold it into a paper airplane and throw it at the person's eyeball.

Don't make a book club more than what it's supposed to be: A conversation about the book.

4. Do it at work.

I hate this advice. It presumes that most American workplaces offer employees control over their time and space. It's simply not true. Millions of Americans are working in factories, retail establishments, the service industry, and for the government, not to mention the enormous numbers of people who are unemployed, retired, or opting out of the workforce. For a majority of Americans, conducting a book club at work would be impossible.

Do you want your local DMV worker using taxpayer money to discuss the intricacies of the latest Jonathan Franzen novel?

Do you really think the sales rep at Best Buy or the waiter at Applebees or the mechanic at Pep Boys is going to be afforded the time to gather with fellow employees in the break room to debate the portrayal of racism in Huckleberry Finn? 

Do you really think that your hairdresser or furnace technician will be gathering at the end of the day to discuss the brilliance of the latest Matthew Dicks novel?

This is advice for the precious few whose boss might think it lovely for employees to gather and discuss literature or who have the opportunity to take a long lunch simultaneously. 

This just doesn't happen for most people. 

Also, alcohol always makes book club better. Can't drink at work. 

9. Have a cell-phone bowl (like a key party).

No, this is not like a key party at all. A key party is a strategy used by swingers to determine their sexual partners for the evening. Keys are randomly selected from a bowl, and the key you choose corresponds to the person who you will be having sex with later that night.

This sounds like an exciting new model for a book club, but I don't think it's what Elyssa Friedland meant when she proposed collecting phones at the beginning of the meeting.  

This is a proposal to treat adults like children, which never sits well with me. If your book club is populated by adults, and one of them is staring at his phone all night, say something. Ask him to stop. Un-invite him from the book club. Don't impose rules that stop adults from being adults. 

All that said, I like a few of Friedland's ideas a lot. 

2. Rotate who chooses the book (a policy my book club uses).
5. Call the writer (I'm often called and asked to visit).
8. Give ample time between sessions.
10. Venture into nonfiction.

These are all good ideas. Reasonable and doable ideas. 

Friedland says that book clubs sound amazing in theory but in practice tend to fall short. She gives the average book club about three meetings before the deterioration begins. 

This has not been my experience. My book club has not wavered in the slightest, and the book clubs that I visit are enthusiastic, tightly-knit groups of mostly women who love reading and discussing literature.

Even mine. Happily so. 

Being a jerk and needing food stamps are mutually exclusive conditions

I was standing in line behind a man at a local convenience store, waiting. His credit card was being rejected, and he was clearly getting frustrated.

He turned to me. "Do you want to go first?" he asked.

"I'm fine," I said. I was catching up on the day's news. I didn't mind waiting. But I was curious now, so I leaned over to determine the source of the problem. The customer was trying to buy a gallon of milk and a carton of orange juice. He swiped his card again and again.

Still rejected.

The cashier was also becoming frustrated. The two men raised their voices and argued over why the card wasn't being accepted. The customer insisted that it should be accepted, and the cashier insisted that there was nothing he could do.

Their interaction quickly became contentious. 

Finally the customer took some crumpled bills from his pocket and paid in cash. As he slid his card back into his wallet, I noticed that it was a SNAP card: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. 

As the man left, the cashier turned to me. "These damn food stamp guys think they own the world. I hate these guys. Such idiots."

Ordinarily I try not to respond to comments like this, but this one was too much to resist. 

"I grew up on food stamps and was still hungry all the time," I said. "And my parents worked." 

The cashier just stared at me. I'm not sure if he didn't know what to say or failed to understand the purpose of my statement.

I continued. "Being a jerk and needing food stamps are mutually exclusive conditions."

He just kept staring.

I pushed my soda forward, and he scanned it without saying a word. I paid with my debit card and turned. I wanted to add, "And it's bad business to talk about customers behind their backs. Cowardly, too."

But I didn't. I decided that I has said enough and would like to return to this convenience store in the future.

But it's remarkable to me how Americans can watch HUD Secretary Ben Carson pay $31,000 for a conference table or Trump cabinet members spend millions on first class airline tickets and private planes or Trump himself cost American taxpayers more on security for his constant trips to his golf resort in one year than Obama cost Americans in eight years in office, and yet so many of them shrug off these unnecessary, exorbitant expenses as the price of doing business.

But help an American bridge the gap between meals and you become a "food stamp guy," worthy of your anger and derision. 

I performed in the dark. Without amplification. The results were surprising.

The worst experience I ever had while telling a story was on election night 2016 at a live show of Slate's The Gist. I was telling the story about my run for the Presidency of my college when things started to turn in the election returns and eyes quickly shifted from me to phones. 

Trump was winning. The world was ending. People were literally hugging one another in the audience. And I was still blabbering onstage. There was a moment in my story when I nearly said, "I should stop. This is ridiculous. You don't want to laugh. I want a hug, too."

I persevered, but I'm quite certain that no one has the faintest recollection that I performed that night. Deservedly so.   

My second worst onstage experience was during the Mayor's Charity Ball years ago. I was emceeing the event, and while the entire evening was lovely, but no one was terribly interested in what the emcee had to say. It was nearly impossible to get anyone's attention, and once again, I'm fairly certain that no one has the faintest recollection that I was even there. 

I thought that last night might go just as poorly. I was scheduled to tell stories at a benefit for a local television network, but strong wins from the Northeaster had knocked the power out about an hour before I was set to perform, depriving me of a microphone or any light save candlelight. The room, which I have performed many times as a DJ, minister, and storyteller, isn't easy even with a microphone. It's long, cavernous, and unforgiving. 

Trying to get the attention of 200 people with no amplification in the dark was not going to be easy.

One of the organizers proposed that we just scrap my performance. People were laughing, drinking, and having a good time already. No sense in disturbing their fun in these conditions.

"Yes!" I thought. "Cancel me. This isn't going to work!"  

Ultimately it was decided that I should give it a try, so reluctantly, I slid two wooden boxes over to the center of the room, climbed atop them, asked a few people to point their cellphone lights at me, and I started speaking.

Loudly. 

Instead of telling three stories covering 30 minutes, I told two stories that filled about 15 minutes before my voice wasn't going to allow me to tell a third. Though I didn't capture the attention of the entire room, I managed to grab a sizable portion and made them laugh with two stories that I punched up on the fly.

I wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. People listened and laughed.

When I was done, I sat down beside a woman who I know but hadn't seen in years. It turns out that she hosts a show on the TV network now with three friends. She asked me appear as a guest.

As I was leaving the building, an attorney stopped me in the lobby and asked if I would be willing to consult on storytelling and communications with his firm.

Someone in the parking lot then stopped me and thanked me for the laugh. A tree had fallen on his house that night, and he was heading home to inspect the damage. "I didn't think I'd be laughing at all tonight. I really appreciate it."

I'm constantly counseling people to say yes when an opportunity presents itself, even when that opportunity is less than ideal. I know people who would've refused to perform under those conditions last night, and honestly, I wouldn't have blamed them. It was an awkward, almost impossible situation. Had they asked me to cancel my performance, I would've happily obliged.

But I agreed to entertain an audience, so when they proposed that I give it a shot, I said yes. I stood up on those precarious wooden blocks, spoke with all the volume I could muster, and told two funny stories 

It wasn't perfect, but people laughed and enjoyed the performance. I received an offer to appear on a television show, an offer to consult at a local law firm, and I brightened the evening of a man who was having an otherwise very bad day. 

Not bad for performing in the dark, without amplification, under the light of a handful of phones. 

One of the best podcast episodes of all time

I started listening to podcasts when podcasts first became podcasts. 

Way back in 2005, as Elysha and I were moving from an apartment on one side of the street to an apartment on the other, I was listening to podcasts. In the beginning, I was listening primarily to This American Life and tech podcasts (which were popular and plentiful back then, given that listening audiences required a background in technology in order to download episodes onto MP3 players and pre-iPhone cellular phones).

After listening to tens of thousands of hours of podcasts, it's impossible to choose a single best episode of all time, but this episode of the very excellent podcast Heavyweight is one of my favorites of all time. 

I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

If you're wondering what Heavyweight is about, it's hard to say. From Gimlet Media's website:

Maybe you’ve laid awake imagining how it could have been, how it might yet be, but the moment to act was never right. Well, the moment is here and the podcast making it happen is Heavyweight. Join Jonathan Goldstein for road trips, thorny reunions, and difficult conversations as he backpedals his way into the past like a therapist with a time machine. 

Resolution update: February 2018

PERSONAL HEALTH

1. Don’t die.

I had the flu in February, but I recovered in less than three days. Record time.  

2. Lose 20 pounds.

Still four pounds down. After a great start in January, no progress in February.

3. Eat at least three servings of fruits and/or vegetables per day. 

I had three servings of fruits and/or vegetables on 19 of 28 days in February.  

4. Do at least 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 3 one-minute planks for five days a week.

Done. 

5. Identify a yoga routine that I can commit to practicing at least three days a week.

No progress.

6. Stop using the snooze button.

Done. And I must tell you, I feel so much better when I climb out of bed when that first alarm sounds or I simply wake up.

Science is right. Snoozing is a terrible practice that you must end immediately.   

WRITING CAREER

7. Complete my seventh novel before the end of 2018.

I'm in the process of revising my next novel for the UK, so the launch of this novel has not yet commenced.

However, I sent a long document to my agent outlining all of my ideas. She and I will decide on the next book in the coming week.  

8. Complete my second middle grade/YA novel.

I'm in the process of revising my next novel for the UK, so the launch of this novel has not yet commenced.

9. Write at least three new picture books, including one with a female, non-white protagonist. 

No progress. 

10. Write a proposal for a memoir.

No progress. Once my revisions are complete, my agent and I will discuss which of these memoir ideas should be written first.

11. Write a new screenplay.

No progress.

12. Write a musical.

Initial talks for the plot, characters, number of songs, and deadlines have begun.

13. Submit at least five Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times for consideration.

I submitted one piece to The New York Times for consideration. It was a piece of advice for millennial. They passed, so I revised and posted to my blog.

14. Write a proposal for a nonfiction book related to education.

No progress. 

15. Submit one or more short stories to at least three publishing outlets.

No progress.

16. Select three behaviors that I am opposed to and adopt them for one week, then write about my experiences on the blog.

No progress. I'm also looking for possible behaviors to adopt. Suggestions welcomed. 

17. Increase my author newsletter subscriber base to 2,000.

4 subscribers added in February. 67 overall. At this pace, I will hit the goal by December.  

18. Write at least six letters to my father.

None written in January.

19. Write 100 letters in 2018.

Twelve letters written and mailed in February. Recipients include students, my fellow performers in Kansas City, and letters of thanks to a local business, and a person at The Moth, and a friend.

20. Convert Greetings Little One into a book.

No progress.  

21. Record one thing learned every week in 2018.

Done! My favorite from February:

Robert Lincoln, first son of Abraham Lincoln, was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.

• Lincoln was not present at his father's assassination. He was at the White House, and rushed to be with his parents.
• At President James A. Garfield's invitation, Lincoln was at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., where the president was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and was an eyewitness to the event. Lincoln was serving as Garfield's Secretary of War at the time.
• At President William McKinley's invitation, Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where the president was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901.

I learned this after reading a fascinating book about the assassination of James Garfield entitled Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.

STORYTELLING

22. Produce a total of 12 Speak Up storytelling events.

We've produced one show so far in 2018. 

23. Deliver a TED Talk.

I'll be delivering a TED Talk at both Wesleyan University and The Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City in April. 

24. Attend at least 15 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended two Moth events in February: a StorySLAM in Queens and a GrandSLAM in Boston.

25. Win at least three Moth StorySLAMs.

Success! I won my 35th StorySLAM last night in Queens. One down. Two to go. 

26. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

Done! I won my fifth GrandSLAM in Boston in February. 

27. Produce at least 25 episodes of our new podcast Storyworthy. 

Logo created. Format decided. Now we just need to record.

28. Perform stand up at least four times in 2018. 

No progress. I had to cancel my paid standup performance in February due to the flu. It is rescheduled for March. 

29. Pitch my one-person show to at least one professional theater.

No progress.  

30. Pitch a new Moth Mainstage story to the artistic director of The Moth. 

No progress.  

NEW PROJECTS

31. Write a syllabus for a college course on teaching. 

No progress, but I am frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed by developments with a local college in terms their curriculum for student teachers, so I'm doing a lot of thinking on this issue. 

32. Cook at least 12 good meals (averaging one per month) in 2018.

No progress. 

33. Plan a 25 year reunion of the Heavy Metal Playhouse.

No progress. 

MISCELLANEOUS

34. Pay allowance weekly.

Done! I was one day late in February, but I was in Maine and unable to pay the kids until I returned.

35. Ride my bike with my kids at least 25 times in 2018.

No progress. 

36. I will report on the content of speech during every locker room experience via social media in 2018. 

Done. I spent 20 days at the gym (including the locker room) in February, and I did not hear a single comment related to sexually assaulting women.  

37. I will not comment, positively or negatively, about physical appearance of any person save my wife and children, in 2017 in an effort to reduce the focus on physical appearance in our culture overall. 

Done. Once you stop commenting on physical appearance, you quickly realize how pervasive it is in our culture. I don't think it's a good thing at all.    

38. Surprise Elysha at least six times in 2018.

I surprised Elysha once in February, though she anticipated the surprise (dinner and a movie) by attempting to plan for the same movie on the same night. She was more surprised that I was trying to surprise her, but it counts.  

One down. Five to go.

39. Replace the 12 ancient, energy-inefficient windows in our home with new windows that will keep the cold out and actually open in the warmer months.

I've received some more reasonable estimates for this project. It might actually be doable.     

40. Clean the basement. 

I threw away a handful of items in February in preparation for a full cleaning later this year.  

41. Set a new personal best in golf.

No progress. 

42. Play poker at least six times in 2018.

I was forced to cancel my February game because a lack of players. A March game is scheduled. 

43. Spend at least six days with my best friend of more than 25 years.

No progress.   

44. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

I killed a whale. Also, I played golf in the snow.

I've been reading Slate and listening to Slate's podcasts for about 15 years. Though I've had the honor of appearing regularly on two of the podcasts, I've always dreamed of writing for Slate.

For years, The New York Times and Slate have been my white whales. 

Yesterday, I killed one of those two whales.

I published a piece in Slate entitled "Batting? Average. - Why I procrastinate by researching the fates of middling baseball players."

It's a piece for their Rabbit Holes series on the nature of procrastination. 

I've published four novels and have four more books on the way.

I've published work in The Hartford Courant, Reader's Digest, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Parent's magazine, Seasons magazine, and The Huffington Post.

I've written comic books for Double Take Comics. 

Still, it was a thrill to see my byline on the piece. May I never become jade about these little dreams coming true. 

If you're interested, my latest Seasons column, on the time I played golf in the snow, is also out now. You can read it here, on page 49.  

Anatomy of a friendship: Shep

In a recent interview, someone asked me how I've met some of my closest friends, and it occurred to me that although the path to friendship is oftentimes as simple as "I worked with the guy" or "She was a friend of my wife," sometimes the path is far more unexpected, circuitous, and odd.

Take, my friend, Shep.

Shep is my seat mate at most Patriots games. He is the first reader of almost anything that I write. He is the person who I want most at the poker table. If forced to choose one person to accompany me on a drive  across the country, I would choose Shep. 

How did we meet?

I met Shep at a bridal show about 20 years ago. He was hunting for a DJ, and I was hunting for clients. Things worked out, and my partner and I became the DJs at his wedding. Though I knew we had a lot in common and would likely get along well if we were friends, the wedding ended and we went our separate ways. This was before social media had any chance to keep us connected beyond real life encounters.

More than a year later, Shep and his then wife, Kelly, attended another wedding where I was working again as the DJ. We reconnected at the end of the night, and in the process of catching up, I invited Shep and his wife over to my home to hang out and watch television.

The actual show escapes me.

Survivor, maybe?
Or possibly the Thursday night lineup of Seinfeld and Friends?

I'm not sure. Either way, Shep and his wife accepted my invitation, and soon they were making the weekly trek from Norwich to Newington - almost an hour each way - to spend an evening with me watching TV and hanging out. 

Around this same time, the librarian in my school, who was also a Patriots season ticket holder, began selling me her tickets to games. Needing someone to join me at the games, I asked Shep, and so began our excursions to Foxboro to watch the team we both loved.      

Shep and his wife ultimately divorced. He and I remained friends, continuing to attend Patriots games, adding card games and eventually my writing to the mix. 

About 15 years ago, Shep's cousin-in-law, Tony, was able buy two new Patriots season tickets, adding them to the season tickets he already partially owned with friends. He offered to sell them to Shep and me, and we agreed, becoming seat mates, tailgating professionals, and denizens of Gillette Stadium during the single greatest period of football in NFL history.

Shep and I have attended seven AFC championship games together and untold numbers of playoff games. 

We are in the process of writing a memoir of our 20+ years spent in Gillette Stadium.  

Odd to think that had Shep and his then wife not stopped by the DJ booth at the end of the wedding, and had I not invited Shep to hang out and watch TV with me, and had he and his then wife not agreed to make the almost hour-long drive to me home, much of the last twenty years would've been very different for me. 

And not nearly as good.

A bit of unsolicited, surely unwanted advice for my millennial friends

I have, on occasion, offended a millennial friend by making a gross generalization about their generation. I know that generalizations can be annoying, inaccurate, and offensive. I know that I should avoid them whenever possible. For that, I apologize.

But here's the thing:

I am a member of Generation X. When I was in my late teens and twenties, generalizations were made about my generation, too. We were called lazy. Shiftless. Aimless. Cynical. Disaffected.

“Slackers” was the word used most often. It was used a lot.

Movies like Dazed and Confused, Singles, Reality Bites, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Clerks, and Slackers were specifically made about us. They showed young people going nowhere, doing nothing, and not really caring about their lack of upward mobility. We were forced to listen to the Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation before them deride our unwillingness to work hard, take life seriously, respect authority, and advance society. 

But here is the difference between my experience and what I have seen from my millennial friends thus far:

My generation didn't care. We didn't give a damn about what the previous generation said about us. We never concerned ourselves with what people a decade or two older than us thought. We were never offended or outraged by these descriptors, because we knew how to ignore them. Like the hippies before us, we did our own damn thing and let the haters hate.  

My generation popularized the phrase, "Whatever."

We paid money to watch those movies that portrayed us as slackers and losers. We loved those movies.

By contrast, my millennial friends, and even millennials in the media, seem so deeply offended by the mere suggestion that their generation might not be ideal. That perhaps they possess some fairly universal flaws. They lose their minds over the notion that the response to my latchkey generation was one that was coddled, bubble-wrapped, and perhaps not-so-ready to take on the world. They characterize any bit of disparagement as a possible hate crime.

They are the generation that popularized the need for trigger-warnings and coined the phrase “micro-aggression.”

Perhaps these generalities about millennial are also unfair. Maybe some of these assumptions about this latest generation are way off. Maybe millennials are poised to save the world.

If so, excellent. I wish them the best. We need all the help we can get. 

Either way, I just wish they would stop caring so much about what others think of them. I understand that millennials are the generation of digital approval - the like, the follower, the subscriber, the friend request, the participation ribbon - but enough already. I realize that they grew up in a culture where parents cheered at every single soccer game regardless of the weather and a failing grade was call for an immediate parent-teacher conference, but it’s time to let go of the need for praise.

Not everyone is going to like you, my millennial friends. A lot of us think you should grow up a little. Or a little faster. Either do so or just ignore us.

Or perhaps try on a little Gen-X cynicism. Become slightly more disaffected. Maybe spout off the occasional, "Go to hell, old man!" or "Why aren’t you dead yet?"

Or perhaps a simple, "Whatever." 

Robbery fail leads to great cheer and a smidgen of empathy

As the victim of a violent, armed robbery that began with bricks through the windows of a McDonald's restaurant and led to a lifetime of post traumatic stress disorder, this video gave me some cheer. 

As a human being who understands that not all decisions are made in a vacuum and a person's worst decision should never define them forever, my heart also went out to the man who stood in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I said this to someone who thought I was insane. "He got what he deserved." 

Apparently I was speaking to an entirely infallible, perpetually righteous human being who had never found himself in a state of desperation.

How lucky for him. 

"Once or twice" is the sign of a lie

I overheard someone say on a plane last night say he had visited Africa "once or twice."

I didn't believe this person. I almost never believe someone who claims to have done something "once or twice."

There's a big difference between doing something of significance (like visiting Africa) once or more than once. Had the man said, "I've been to Africa three or four times," I would've accepted his statement. Even "two or three times" would've been okay with me.

But to be uncertain about doing something of import once or more than once?

No way. I don't buy it. 

 I think that when someone says they've done something of meaning and significance "once or twice," they've actually done that thing just once but want to give the impression that they may have done it more.

My daughter's art features an unusual and unexpected element

We were thrilled to find our daughter's piece of abstract art was hanging at the front of her school, in a position of great prestige. 

Then we noticed the top right corner of her piece, which appears to feature two cocktails. 

Anytime an alcoholic beverage appears on the work of a third grader, you have to wonder what is going on at home. 

It should at least give pause. 

But I almost never drink, and Elysha and I don't drink in the home or even at restaurants when our kids are with us. Clara has never seen her parents drinking cocktails. and as far as I can tell, she's ever even seen a cocktail, except she apparently has.

If so, where? And why has she placed them so prominently in her work of art?

The President of the United States relied on scripted empathy

Just in case you missed it, a Washington Post photographer managed to take this picture of the notes that Trump was holding while speaking to the parents of victims and survivors of gun violence in America's schools. 

Note #5 on the list:

"I hear you."

This is real. It's also terrifying.

Trump must rely on scripted empathy. Apparently a phrase like, "I hear you," was not immediately available to him. The narcissistic, egomaniacal, thin-skinned ignoramus is apparently not capable of expression empathy without the help of a staff member. 

Can you imagine another human being on the planet who would need help empathizing with the survivor of the Parkland shooting or the parent of the Sandy Hook victim?

Americans want greater gun control. Lawmakers do not.

When it comes to gun control, I have good news:

Americans are united.

In the most recent Quinnipiac poll:

97% of Americans support universal background checks.
83% of Americans support a mandatory waiting period on all gun purchases. 
66% of Americans support a ban on assault weapons.

In short, support for greater control has now hit a 10 year high.

This is also why so many teachers, students, and parents are enraged by the inaction of Congress. When public support for something like universal background checks is nearly 100% and we still don't have universal background checks, we no longer has representative democracy. 

Instead, we have a country run by special interests like the NRA who are paying politicians to behave in a specific way. 

Yesterday, while Stoneman Douglas students watched from the gallery, Florida legislators voted against moving a bill that would ban AR-15 rifles and other guns defined as "assault weapons" and large capacity magazines from committee to the House floor for questions, debate and a vote.

They didn't vote against the ban. They voted against debating and voting on the ban.

Why? They are cowards. They are afraid of a fight. They are afraid to debate gun control in a public forum. They are afraid to be held accountable by the vast majority of American voters who are demanding action. When the next school becomes a killing zone, they don't want to be on the record voting against a ban on the weapon that was used to slaughter students and teachers. 

Better to have students die barricading doors so other students can live.
Better to have teachers surrender their lives while protecting their students from a gunman.
Better to rely on thoughts and prayers than debate, research, expert testimony, and actual legislation.  

That way, they can still collect their blood money from the NRA and maintain their A+ grade.  

Fear not, Florida legislators. Despite your cowardice and inaction, there are plenty of courageous adults leaving for work this morning, ready to protect your students no matter what horror comes through their schoolhouse doors. 

As teachers, we can't remove an assault weapon from the hands of a killer.
We can't impose a universal background check before he purchases his gun.
We can't impose a mandatory waiting period before allowing him to purchase his gun.
We can't close the gun show and terrorist loopholes.

In short, we can't do all the things that the majority of Americans want done.

Instead, we can stand between students and bullets. We can think quickly and act wisely in the face of an attack. We can hide students and barricade doors. We can surrender our own lives in the preservation of student life. We can minimize the slaughter.

While you lack the courage to even debate and vote on gun control measures, we'll be busy protecting our students from the results of your cowardice and inaction.

They couldn't play tic-tac-toe because of bandwidth.

Yes, this is absolutely the worst game of tic-tac-toe every played. The fact that this all happens in front of thousands of people is even more embarrassing. 

But it's also an outstanding demonstration on the nature of bandwidth. 

Every human being has a certain amount of bandwidth available to them at one time. Some people can simply process input in greater quantities than others. 

The amount of input that you process at any one time is the measure of your bandwidth. 

Bandwidth is also context dependent. When I started playing golf, for example, all of my bandwidth was used on striking the ball with the head of the club. It needed to be in order to make contact. As I became a more experienced (but still terrible) golfer, I was able to use less and less bandwidth to hit the ball and began to incorporate other elements of the game into my thinking. Grip. Posture. Wind. Elevation. Contours of the course. 

The more experience a person has with a task, the better the chance of processing more input. 

I see this in new teachers all the time. While they are focused on delivering their lesson, they often fail to notice student behaviors that are as clear as day to me (and will hopefully one day will be to them). Once they become more confident and proficient in delivering content to students, more of their bandwidth will be freed up for other processes. 

As a storyteller, I am often changing and manipulating aspects of my story onstage. I can punch up the humor in a story if an audience is responding well or circle back on a part of the story that seemed to require more attention. I oftentimes find new and better endings to stories while performing. A memory will suddenly occur to me. A new collection of sentences will enter my mind. A divergent path to the conclusion will reveal itself to me in the process of telling the story and I'll manage to execute some verbal gymnastics in order to get there.

Twice in my life Elysha has accused me of holding back a great ending to a story in order to surprise her onstage. But neither time was it true. I simply realized onstage that there was a better, smarter place to end.     

But for my storytelling students, I would never advise this course of action. I tell them to take the stage with a plan and stick to it. I have the benefit of greater bandwidth onstage.

• I'm never nervous.
• I've performed hundreds of times in front of audiences of all sizes and in theaters, bars, libraries, auditoriums, bookstores, churches, and synagogues of all sizes and types.  
• I've crafted and told more than 120 stories in my seven year storytelling career. I have a familiarity and facility with stories that my students do not. 

I have a large amount of bandwidth available to me onstage. 

The two women in the video surely understand how to play tic-tac-toe better than they demonstrated that night. But their bandwidth was restricted by the other conditions of the game.

• Shoot baskets in order to put down an X or an O.
• Run.
• Play on a board hundreds of times larger than your typical board. 
• Perform in front of thousands of people. 

They were processing so much new information that a task as simple as tic-tac-toe became challenging for them.

Bandwidth must be considered by teachers at all times. It's why students might be able to complete all the required operations of a long division problem (division, multiplication, and  subtraction) and might even be able to explain the process of ling division to you, but when it comes time to actually complete a problem, they fall apart. 

It's bandwidth. Independently, these operations are not taxing on the student's mind, but put them all together in a complex system and simple errors quickly emerge.

This is why we must practice. We practice so that our minds can gain facility with a process such that bandwidth is no longer an issue. For some students blessed with greater bandwidth, this might mean far fewer practice problems. For students with reduced bandwidth, it might mean many more. 

Meet Antony Borges: American hero and a boy who has done more to curb gun violence in America than all of Congress.

Here is 15 year-old Anthony Borges, who was shot five times while protecting 20 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students by holding a classroom door shut to prevent shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz from entering.

Anthony Borges has done more to protect students from gun violence than every single member of Congress plus the President combined. While lawmakers in Washington offer their thoughts and prayers and accept millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the NRA, Anthony Borges placed his body between a killer carrying an assault weapon and his fellow students. 

While Congress refuses to even allow the CDC to study gun violence in America or move forward on their bipartisan agreement on banning bump stocks or close the gun show and terrorist loopholes, Anthony Borges turned his body into a human shield and saved lives.  

Anthony Borges is a hero. Our legislators in Congress and the President are cowards. Tools. Money-grabbing instruments of the National Rifle Association. 

Anthony Borges's Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, accepted $3.3 million dollars from the NRA last year and took to the Senate floor shortly after the shooting to explain who the assault weapon that pumped five bullets into Anthony Borges's body is not the problem. 

There is a GoFundMe account set up on behalf of Borges to support his long and difficult road to recovery. Both of his legs were shot, left upper thigh bone was shattered, and one bullet went through his back. As of this writing, Americans have donated 76,000 on Borges's behalf. 

Perhaps Marco Rubio should consider donating some of that $3.3 million dollars in NRA blood money to Borges. At the very least he could help an American who has actually done something to curb gun violence in America while he and his colleagues hunker down and hope this all goes away once again. 

I don't think it will go away this time. At least I hope not. The classmates of Anthony Borges, some of whom are alive today because of Anthony, are angry, and they are taking their case to the cowards in Washington. 

I will be standing with them. As a teacher in a public school who might one day be required to make the same sacrifice as Anthony Borges, the very least I should expect from lawmakers in Washington is debate. Deliberation. Research. Statistical studies. Expert testimony.

Legislation, goddamn it. Do something or go home. 

Anything but the silence and the inaction that the NRA buys year after year with their millions of dollars in donations to Republican tools like Marco Rubio.

Brothers in name only

Just because our cats are brothers doesn't mean they are anything alike. 

One cat licks walls and faucets. 

The other one is learning math. One his own. With an abacus. 

Trump's attempts to gaslight Americans again. And again. And again.

Donald Trump spent the day and evening at his Florida resort yesterday attempting to gaslight the American people via Twitter. 

He's clearly a desperate man.

We need to be cautious and not allow this gaslighting to work. 

If you're unfamiliar, gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Trump attempts this constantly by simply, unabashedly, and shamefully stating falsehoods that Americans know are untrue in hopes that the lies will eventually crystallize into fact. 

• It's why he claimed enormous inauguration day crowds when all evidence proved otherwise. 
• It's why he repeatedly claims his tax cuts are the biggest in history (not even close). 
• It's why he claims that immigrants commit more crimes than non-immigrants when this isn't even close to being true.

Say something often enough and uninformed, undiscerning people start to believe it's true. 

Here are yesterday's examples: 

These first tweets blame the Democrats for the DACA problem, even though the problem was directly and specifically caused by Trump's refusal to re-authorize DACA protections to Dreamers. We had a solution, designed by Democrats and effective for years, but Trump removed it, creating this problem that he promised not to create. 

Yes he takes no accountability in hopes that Americans will forget his failure to reauthorize the protections. 

These next tweets are the sign of a man who does not understand that innocent people don't constantly profess their innocence, particularly while simultaneously disparaging the very organization investigating them.

Trump says, "No collusion" more than anything else these days. He wants those words to sink into our consciousness. He wants us to believe that "The Dirty Dossier" and "Uranium" are actual scandals, when in fact none of them are relevant or meaningful. This is why he doesn't explain anything in detail. He says, "Uranium" in hopes that Americans hear that word and think, "Clinton scandal" when most don't actually understand the situation at all.

Trump has claimed for months that the FBI investigation is a "witch hunt.: Now that Russians are indicted, he cannot claim this anymore. He does not acknowledge that he was wrong. Instead, he has shifted to, "The investigation proves no collusion via these indictments."

I don't know if Trump is guilty of collusion, but he sure as hell sounds like a guy guilty of collusion. 

Trump expects Americans to believe that a company that does not want to be linked to election tampering is the best source as to whether or not the ads that they accepted millions in Russian rubles to display swayed the election.

He attempts to make the VP of Facebook ads an unbiased, expert source of information. 

These next two tweets are interesting. Trump (and Trump supporter Michael Goodwin) would have us believe that the indictments against 13 Russians issued last week will be the only indictments forthcoming. Yes, it's true that last week's indictments do not prove collusion. A Trump campaign official was duped by the Russians, but he did not know that he was being manipulated.

But that's one guy. One set of indictments. There could very well be many more indictments to come. Give Mueller time. 

This last one is just stupid. 

The Russians decided to interfere with the American elections in 2014, particularly in order to prevent Hillary Clinton to become President. They didn't know who the candidates would be, but they established operations and simply waited for the weakest, most easily manipulated, most comprimised pro-Russian candidate to emerge. 

Trump appeared on the scene, the choice became obvious, and the team went to work. 

Anderson Cooper took on the administration on gaslighting in relation to the Rob Porter scandal. 

I highly recommend both of these commentaries.

My son loves his mother and sister AND NO ONE ELSE.

Elysha Dicks and I took the kids to an evening program at their school last week. While making our way to the gym, we passed some of their work hanging on the walls, including this bit of writing and art from my kindergarten son. 

I looked at the top of the paper. 

"One act of kindness I can do is..."

Notice what Charlie chose as his act of kindness?

"Tell my mom and my sister I love them."

Mom and sister only. What did his teacher think when she saw this?

Charlie's dad must be a real jackass.
That father must be pretty awful for his son not to include him on this assignment.
Does Charlie even have a dad?

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks a lot.

The best birthday gift for a teacher might surprise you

Here's one of the beauties of being a teacher.

Last night I had the opportunity to perform at the Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston as a part of The Moth's GrandSLAM championship.

It was the 20th GrandSLAM in my storytelling career, and on my birthday no less. 

The Cutler Majestic is a spectacular theater that seats 1,200 people, and last night the theater was packed. I was telling stories alongside some of my favorite storytellers from the Boston area and some new storytellers who were spectacular. One particular woman told the story of raising a baby pig that sent my spirits soaring and broke my damn heart. 

It was perfection. A story that I will remember forever.

The host of the evening was the brilliant Bethany Van Delft, who I am always thrilled and honor to share the stage, and the producers of the show were also some of my favorites.

I even adore the sound guy. 

I had many friends in the audience. Folks from Connecticut and locals from my days of living in Massachusetts. Storytellers from the area who I am so proud to now call my friends. Elysha Dicks was sitting beside me. It was a grand night.

I told a story about my love for the New England Patriots, and my choice of the Patriots over a woman. It's a story I love to tell. It always brings me such joy to tell stories from that period of my life just after high school, when I was living with my best friend, struggling to survive. Those were such great days. 

At the end of the night, I was declared the winner of the GrandSLAM. It was my fifth GrandSLAM victory. As several audience members pointed out, I've got as many wins now as Tom Brady. It was sweet. 

A perfect birthday.  

Here was my very first thought when I awoke this morning:

"Linda was so good."

Linda Storms, a woman who first heard me on The Moth Radio Hour years ago then started coming to my storytelling workshops and performing for Speak Up, was also competing in the GrandSLAM last night. She told the last story of the night, and she did so brilliantly. She was vulnerable and eloquent and funny. Her story was perfectly crafted and so honestly told. She could not have been better. She was fantastic. 

That is what I thought first when I awoke today. I thought of Linda, my friend and student, shining on that beautiful stage like the star that she is.

This is the beauty of teaching. You have the opportunity to experience so much joy in the success of those who you have taught, and oftentimes that joy in a student's success can be more important and meaningful than your own. You sit in quiet rooms and teach the skills and strategies to help someone realize their dream, and when you're really lucky, you get to sit back and watch that dream realized right before your eyes. 

Watching Linda on that stage last night was the perfect end to a perfect birthday for me.