I hardly knew ye

 

My dad meant a lot to me. He taught me much about the world and I do aspire to be like him in many ways. But the thing is, maybe it was the times and how he was raised, or maybe it was just the nature of our relationship – he didn’t teach me what it would feel like to get older.

My dad was always old to me. That may be because at the time, I was young but I don’t recall much changing in him – ever since I can remember, he was not especially athletic and he was mostly bald. He was achy and crotchety and seemed like a quintessential adult. I never got the sense that he was feeling the imposter syndrome of “I’m just a kid in a big old body and have no idea what I’m doing as a grown up.” It always seemed like he had a handle on things. He had political opinions, and civic responsibility. He knew how to make complex decisions and do all the adult stuff, it seemed. He didn't change -- he was a rock, and the same rock the whole time.

I’m a mess. Here it is, 1:34 in the morning and I have forgotten how to fall asleep. I have a sore in my mouth since I keep biting my lip in the same spot because I have, apparently, also forgotten how to not eat myself. I get mystery pains that come and go (transient aches in my toes? Phantom headaches? Clicking in my jaw? Sure, why not. Throw in the knees that sometimes buckle and why not add in constant burping, just to keep things interesting.) Day to day, things change. What I could eat with impunity on a Tuesday upsets me on Wednesday but is fine on Thursday. Yes, I know this means I eat the same thing 3 days in a row. It is a metaphor or something. Just roll with it.

And because I am a digital over-sharer, you all now know this. My dad DID share his thoughts but they were focused on deep philosophical musings on religion or politics, or lists of puns. He rarely shared (at least on his blog) anecdotes about his daily experiences, and somehow I find it significant to write about my lunch at Dunkin Donuts.

My kids, if they are paying attention, will know what to expect when they become old men. Yes, I’m making it all up as I go along and I don’t know if I’m the only one who is, but I feel lost most every day. I can’t figure out my own body let alone my own taxes.

Would things have been easier for me if I knew that at my age, my dad found a mystery bruise on his leg? Would it have been an easier adjustment into this side of 50 if I had been looking out for the change in tolerance for spicy food? Do we owe it to the next generation to catalog every little thing so that they can understand what we went through and what they have on the horizon?

I recall the first time I had a kidney stone. I called my dad and he said “well, it’s genetic – I got one in college also.” I would think that that is the kind of thing one shares before it happens, no? So instead of my freaking out and being convinced that I was in labor, I could have called my dad and had him talk me through it (Lamaze, hypnobirthing, whatever). In the same way that my parents told me to get tested for Tay Sachs (carrier! Take THAT 1950’s society https://comb.io/oQrafR) they could have filled me in on all sorts of stuff. It took my parents’ getting cancer for them to tell me that they had cancer! OK, maybe that last one was too much, but in truth, I only found out about my mom’s having cancer AFTER she had it taken care of. Again, maybe that was their nature, or just the way they were brought up but my kids know my preference in antacids and analgesics; my aches and pains are no secret. I have (somewhere on my computer) a list of what ails me and I write these posts so that they know the inner torment that is being me. No surprises and no secrets.

So is this a better way to connect with my spawn? To let them know my quirks, foibles, fallibility and fears? Will they have a more rounded understanding of me in my dotage because they can trace my path from young guy with hair to older guy with decidedly less hair? Or will this make them more likely to write me off because they have been watching the slow, steady decline for years?

Maybe it is just something about how I view my interaction with the world – I tell my students stories that my teachers never told me about themselves. I talk about my academic difficulties and my personal crises (Sparky the angry, blind dog is legend in my classroom). When I was a boy, we still held on to that notion that teachers disappear when they leave the building (except for the couple that my mom played bridge with – they appeared in the most awkward of times and I was sent to bed, and the one who rode the bus to school and ended up, well, let’s just say he isn’t in the formal educational game anymore). My students see me out and about and we chat about stuff completely non-school related. Did I ever know my English teachers’ favorite sports teams, musical preferences or lunch preferences?

Are we too open or was the generation before us too closed? Is the light of truth too harsh, or is humanizing a good thing?

I don’t know. Remember…I’m making this all up as I go along.

I need a little TLC

Let's talk for a bit about bad decisions and disappointment. No, really, let's.

Each year, when the week of winter break rolls around, I check my diet at the door and promise myself that all bets are off and that I'm going to eat whatever the heck I want, really live it up. I live my life in a self-imposed prison of the low carb variety. I do this because I lack the kind of will power that makes the word "moderation" a useful piece of advice. I like food and if I let myself have some, I'm going to want to eat it all. That's who I am; that's a thing I do. And, at the same time, I'm too cheap to buy new clothes and I have a really horrible body image. Sadly, it is an accurate body image and I just look horrible. What are my options (other than darker sunglasses so I can't see myself)? Diet and exercise.

If you could find a way to have "Hell no, we won't exercise" rhyme, it would be my constant chant.

So I diet to keep myself on the very precipice of presentability and the diet system which I have been using for the last 22 or so years has been a variant (there's that word...Loki or COVID -- your frame of reference will tell me a lot about you) of the Atkins system. The difference is that they say that you start with 3 days of really low carbs and then introduce a little more in the form of healthy foods until you get to a stasis point and then you stay-sis. The only thing approaching "exercise" on my spectrum of "he who shall not be named" is "healthy food." The whole "don't live to eat, eat to live" mantra is a sham, supported by the vegetable makers of America. Conspiracy! I have taste buds and they want them some coddling -- who am I to say "no"? I would need the tongue's help to do that and it is pushing for "yes." Somehow, a cup o' kale isn't going to make my tongue happy. Crazy, right?

My system, my personal adaptation is basically:

3 days of really low carb eating (approaching 0 carbs)

Then 22 years of the same thing punctuated by occasional binges (lost weekends which start with a handful of chips and end up with my making sandwiches of chocolate bars and mashed potatoes on an entire, institutional-sized challah). I also give myself breaks from the diet on religious holidays that last more than 2 days, and mid-year vacation (10 or so days towards the end of January).

Follow up any of these lapses with increased self-loathing and guilt (but not so much remorse) and Finnegan Beginagain.

By the time first semester begins winding down, I am usually planning my attack on all things carb. I start dreaming of actual sugar in my food instead of my constant barrage of fake sweeteners which have files on them in federal agencies (or, as I call them, side-effoods). French fries, bread, cake, pizza, chips and other foods I call "pudding" -- as in, "who cares, I'm pudding it in my mouth."

When I go traveling, I let myself order in restaurants and eat street food. Any food you drop on the street, I get to eat. Gravelicious. But for the most part, I don't travel so I draw up an assault map of the local eateries and count the minutes until I can make some seriously bad decisions.

Historically, the bell, when it tolls, tolls first and foremost for Dunkin Donuts. It is relatively cheap, and I can order it and pay for it on my phone. But everyone who knows me mocks me, saying that, given the opportunity to get anything I somehow always end up getting a couple of tuna sammiches, a couple of Boston Creme donuts and a large cuppa decaf. And last week, ignoring the jeers from the madding crowd, I did just that. Plus an order of hash browns. Take that Bitterman. I won't say I regretted it, but the hash browns were not that exciting and there were so few of them. Anyhoo, I moved on to bigger and worser things.

Fast forward a week. I have had chicken nuggets, pizza, lasagna, fried chicken and bread so far, plus chips and cake and even kishke. I do like me some kishke. Look it up. And for some reason, I haven't been feeling so hot. Coincidence? I think so.

I didn't feel like being human today and/or going out (and therefore got a parking ticket for not moving my car...thanks Rob) so when dinner rolled around, I had to make a decision. I looked at a menu of Chinese food. So expensive. I considered going to the store and getting a deli or other sandwich, or a salad, or some other prepared food that I could just put in the microwave but where would that leave me? I'd have to decide which store to go to, go out, make a choice in a strange place, interact with "people" and then come home and still have to use my own microwave like a sucker. And I'd end up with microwave reheated food, and who wants a reheated salad? That I had to PAY MONEY for. What the hey?

So what wins, by default? Yup. Dunkin Donuts. I try not to repeat my steps (a practice not recommended for minefield-based restaurants) and I didn't want to subject myself to the criticisms of critics (why can't I have the praisicism of praisers?) so I decided to eat outside the whatever it is that tuna sammiches et al are in.

I scrolled through the app, yes I did, and I decided to have some breakfast wraps -- how deviliciously satirical! Breakfast for dinner. So subversive! And instead of donuts, I ordered a mix of donut holes, limiting the mix to

1. Old fashioned

2. Glazed

3. Chocolate glazed

yesiree boy, I was grabbing the ol' brass ring on this one. Tweren't no one gonna tell me I only order one thing, by gum. My goal was to drive over, walk in, grab my complete order which was ready for me and walk out. I could be back home chowing down in 4 minutes if I ignored all the lights.

I drove over. Step one, complete. I walked in. My order wasn't there. My coffee was all tall and happy (yes, decaf coffee because I forgot to ask for iced coffee and anyway I like decaf and shut up...that's why) but alone. I waited, speaking to no one. After about 5 minutes, a woman noticed that my order was on the screen and on 2 separate pieces of printed paper. There was one other customer, already eating, so it isn't like she was overwhelmed or that my order got lost in the rush. She ambled over and started slowly assembling my breakfast wraps. Pre made egg, slice of cheese, sausage/bacon (kosher, vegetarian equivalents...come on, people) on a mini wrap. Stick it in the hottening machine, push a button and viola, it's a symphony of flavors, or so I have been told. She put the food down in front of me and said "there you go."

I paused. She smiled. At least I think she did -- she was wearing a mask. But damn if she wasn't smiling then that's not even nice. So let's hope she smiled. Finally I worked up the social skills to mumble "I also ordered Munchkins" (I didn't say "TM" but I didn't think I had to). She looked at the order which was printed up right in front of her and quickly scooted away. She came back with a box full of, no doubt, delicious cakey treats in my chosen variety of flavors. I grabbed and go'ed.

In the car, I began to unwrap my ill-gotten grains. I broke the hermetic seal on said donut pieces and instantly noticed that there was one that was jelly filled. I hate (with a capital A) jelly filled donuts. I chose another one, and was greeted with an old fashioned, as ordered, but very, very stale. I grabbed another, driving with reckful abandon, a jelly filled! It ended up that I got 3 jelly filled, no plain glazed an old fashioned and a couple of chocolate glazed ones. Very VERY upsetting.

Then I worked on my wraps. Bland but warm (fake sausage was way better than fake bacon) and I ate it, but you know what? I went chasing waterfalls. I followed that impossible dream. I went on a quest and found that when I got to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket I realized that there is no place like home. I should, coulda and woulda been happier with the standard tuna and Boston creme combo that has served me so well.

So my advice, dear reader (assuming you even exist), is not to stray. The devil you know is probably delicious and worth all the gibes and gambols. Clichés became clichés because they are accurate. Trying new stuff is vastly overrated. We only live once (so far) so why should we waste time trying new things when we like what we like? The stomach wants what the stomach wants.

I shall spend the balance of my evening feeling a sense of disappointment over an opportunity missed, telling this with a sigh, some ages hence. I feel disappointment because I tried something new and it let me down. I am disappointed in myself, but more importantly, in everyone else, so let's all keep that in mind, shall we?

Guess again

 Time for a shocking admission and a timely one -- rarely do I focus on current trends or fashion, knowing that the post will turn stale when the world's attention shifts after 15 minutes, but in this case I shall make an exception:

I do not play "wordle" and I do not want to play wordle.

Wordle is (so I gather) an online word game in which the player must guess a 5 letter word after being given hints as to the accuracy of previous guesses (letters correct, location correct...). People ask me if I play and expect that I, as an English teacher, must play religiously and encourage all others to do the same. I do neither.

I never enjoyed Word Master Mind as a child. In that game, one has to guess the word chosen by a competitor by deducing it based on the scoring of previous guesses (letters correct, location correct...). I liked regular MasterMind more though I wasn't a huge fan of that either.

So people want to know why I don't want to play and I'll answer with a quote from Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice, II, i)

If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
Which is the better man, the greater throw
May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
So is Alcides beaten by his page;
And so may I, blind fortune leading me,
Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
And die with grieving.

The whole game is based on a lucky first guess and then limited by the particular vocabulary and tendency of the player and game creator. Brilliant people can fail to get the right word because they know too many viable options while others can fail to get it because they know too few. A genius who guesses an inapt first word falls behind a fool who stumbles across a better one, and one cannot look at stats from a series of days to see if an average develops because the pool of words and the potential biases make such a statistic invalid (even more than most statistics are invalid, and that's saying something).

So if I want to feel good or bad about myself, I'll stick to tried and true methods, like what I eat and whether my socks match (or to quote the Bard again, "there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.  If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come").