Martha Stewart Burps

It's so hard to be honest in personal writing. It may just be impossible.

After I write posts like my last one -- any time I write about fatherhood or about my daily life -- I look back and I ask myself: "Is that you? Really?"

Don't get me wrong: The stories I tell are true. But, when presenting them, I am required to create characters. They are characters who actually exist, but I have limited time and space in which to flesh them out. If I mention one of my sons, I am sketching a person about whom my knowledge and impressions run deep; as deep as they go. Same thing goes if I mention my wife. How do I give you a picture of the person to whom my soul has been bound for a few decades within the confines of  a 500 word post?

Hypocritical Me

We had our annual Christmas party last night. It's for a small group of close friends and their kids. Each year, we put our dog into the upstairs bedroom. She's okay with humans; it is just that some of the attendees are not "dog people," so Krimpet is banished to the master bedroom. She whines a little, but, in the end, she gets to lie on our bed all night. She's cool with it.

During the party, I went to check on the kids -- just to make sure no one was in need of CPR or anything -- and I noticed my older son was missing. The stairs were directly to my left and I heard sobbing from upstairs. I went up to find him sitting in his bed, crying. When I asked what the problem was, he said he was sad for Krimpet. "She's lonely," he said. "She should be allowed out with the people."

I explained why she had to stay in the room and I suggested he go down and play with the other kids instead of wasting his night worrying about the dog. He insisted we were being mean to the dog and I got a little snippy: "She's perfectly happy. She's probably asleep," I told him. He would hear none of it. "She's lonely," he insisted. "How can she be lonely if she is sleeping?" I asked him. "You can decide if you want to ruin the rest of your night by staying up here, but I'm going back down for the party." I went downstairs in a huff.

He was being ridiculous, right?

One-Click Learning?

Wow.

I had a pretty complex post started for today, then, something happened.

In my creative writing class, I wrote up some notes, on the white board, of a "character sketch" I want my kids to do for next meeting. I went through the particulars, explaining each piece of info I wanted them to come up with in their sketches and giving examples of a character I'd created.

The last thing I said was: "Make sure you have this in your notes -- there is no handout and I won't be posting it on my website."

As I was packing up and as the kids were shuffling out, a student casually walked up to the board and held up her cell phone to click a picture of my notes. "See you Mr Mat!" she said, smiling, stuffing the phone into her bag.

Teaching, today, really is a fascinating profession.

My Worthless Dog

I announced, a few nights ago, to my wife -- quite emphatically and (possibly) dramatically -- that our dog is, in every practical sense, a completely useless member of our household. She fits not one of the typically advantageous dog-profiles.

She leaves crumbs -- sometimes even whole potato chips -- on the kitchen floor. I have never known a dog to do this. I grew up with a with a lovely mutt (may Foffy rest in peace) who never would have allowed such a thing. Popcorn snacks, while watching TV, were no inconvenience to my mother and father, even with a shag rug in our family room. No dropped piece of white, corny goodness lay upon or among the yarnish flagella of the rug for long. Foffy was on the job. The nose knew, and it conquered. Not my present dog -- not Krimpet. She seems to have no interest in dropped cheese doodles. Either that, or she is so monumentally stupid, that she can't make distinctions between a fallen Lego and a forgotten chunk of pretzel and, thus, gave up on taxing her tennis ball sized brain with such grueling decision-making processes.

Krimpet: Portrait of Worthlessness

How is she as a watch dog, you ask? A tremendous failure. She barks like a rabid devil-wolf when the neighbor (who pets and plays with her on a regular basis) puts out his trash. But if a large man in a ninja suit, carrying a blood-dripping ax in one hand and someone's severed arm in the other, were to stand at the window, breathing through his teeth, she'd likely glance over her shoulder, walk around in a few lazy circles, and cuddle up for a nap with one of my old shoes.

In a thunder storm, does she climb in bed with my boys for her own solace and for theirs? No -- even when encouraged, she will not do this. Instead, she puts her front half up on my bed and shivers powerfully, causing me to dream of seedy motels with blinking red signs. Either that, or she goes off into my studio room and hides behind the workstation, tunneling into an old comforter I use for a "bass trap" -- transforming it instantly into a "cretin trap."

Thinking in Harmony -- a Different Kind of ADD?

I once mentioned, in a discussion with my wife and some friends, that the environment in my head is pretty crowded -- like a bunch of conversations going on all at once. This is true, except when I am listening to or composing music -- or even when I am playing. Otherwise, the old attic is full of people and they are chattering away.

When I said this about the "conversations," my wife said that this is a prime symptom of ADD. I disagreed with her diagnosis and began questioning how I could have achieved what modest academic, professional and artistic successes I have if I am an un-diagnosed sufferer of that learning disability (which, as you know, prevents focus in thinking -- or, at least, clouds focus).

Yesterday, I was taking a class on learning disabilities and we were discussing the various types of cognitive malfunctions and, as always, I found myself "hearing" several conversations at once: 1) one about my own childrens' learning styles by comparison; 2) one about students in my own school and how our program for "special education" works; 3) one about the content I was supposed to retain by the end of the class about documentation for learning disabilities; 4) one about the line between not discriminating against those with disabilities and overburdening schools 5) one about this blog post -- the workings of my own possibly learning-disabled mind; 6) one about my strategies for accomplishing my tasks for the rest of the day; 7) one about an idea for a composition that I have; 8) one about...well, you get the point.