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Nov. 22nd, 2011 07:56 pmSo I don't blog about girls or work and I'm too broke to have existential angst - so I guess my Livejournal is just going to be about fatherhood now.
what I do anymore is this - I go to meet her after school every day - it's a thing I should have been wiser to earlier, but I'm glad I do it, and when I have a real job and can't I'll be glad that I took the time when I could. Usually it's not a big deal, it's just a thing, so we can see each other every day.
Yesterday was a conference with her teacher, who I'd made friends with on any number of occasions earlier - nice lady, and fun, we could be pals, in life, I can tell. As it is - professional relationships. So she lays it all out and it's all too familiar. They give the 3rd grade their state skills test at the beginning of the year to track their progress and the teacher, she's surprised - a first, she tells us - the first time she's had students pass it at the beginning of the year. Agatha. Yessir, kiddo aces the skills test before the skills are even taught. Then it's time to discuss her classwork. And I'm calling out the teacher on this.
"So you start with the good, and now this, and you're going to end with something good again aren't you! The Oreo!" having had the same training... We laugh, because it's true, it's a nice moment. But it's true too, the middle. So there are a few classwork assessments, C's and a couple of things where you can see kiddo just blew the whole thing off, didn't even bother- and me and her mom and the teacher are all - "You just wanted to get back to your reading, you didn't try."
"Yeah." And it is all true.
So I see this road - because it's familiar to me - 99th percentile all through life and then the sad realization that nobody cares what you know, just what you do, and only if what you do follows the paradigm set out. So I worry, just a bit. On the one hand - I worry about kiddo. It's a row to hoe all right. But then I worry about me - as in - am I teaching the disaffection? Am I that? Am I so disengaged from the world that I teach that by example? I mean - sure, probably! Now for me - sure, yes.
Reading the news while waiting for class to be dismissed I see the president is beginning to campaign, talking about the american dream and its growing scarcity. I think - beyond just being a rhetorical device - one the president tragically favors - what the heck does it even mean? have a house, a family and a job? A car? It's a pretty prosaic dream, I'd suggest it's pretty common to the human experience and hardly 'american'. More Mom than Baseball - if you understand. As in - everyone's got one - and it's nothing to do with what language you speak. Baseball of course being the special province of Americans. Anyway - how do you get it and what does it mean? And who even wants that? A job-house-family? OK? If you really want that?
Now see - I scoff at these desires and say that they're dumb - because I think they are and I'm really disengaged from the world - I'm not buying what is being sold, I'm not participating in the paradigm, I'm in with the out crowd - I'm a goddammed creep. That's the story. So I go to the school and they're telling me that My Cub has mastered what they're laying down - but isn't quite at that place where she will try very hard to do meaningless repetitive tasks because hey? Who can see the value in those? And after all isn't it more satisfying to write stories and read and disengage and fall into yourself? Of course it is. Rich Inner Life - that's the thing that is incompatible with material comfort.
So do I try? Break the cycle, cut the chain? Do I just keep on? Let the past be prologue? Her mom is anxious - she's after that kid not to turn out like her- which I find... Disingenuous - are you really so regretful? Regrets? We've all got a few.
Erinn came by and we were talking about how in the early nineties we all wished we'd had more money - the conversations we'd had - "this web thing is going to be big - maybe we can try and register these domains?" And of course... no - none of us had any money and the people we knew who did never believed us anyway - probably because we didn't seem engaged in the world and didn't seem like we understood what the world even was. So a few regrets - it happens. Things go a certain way and you might have wished they hadn't. But to say: "I don't want you to end up like me!" That seems... Incorrect.
I'd be pretty proud if my kid ended up like me - I'm super happy. Like, all the time. But I'm kind of alone and crazy too, and I spend a pretty drastic amount of time writing unreadable books.
Who's to say - maybe that's what the future will want? Like Pepsi.com - people going forward will be desperate to get their hands on multivolume fantasy opuses? Who's to say?
50,000. Tomorrow. By the way, if you're keeping score. hit it, finished it. NaNoWriMo'd all the way down.
Which I guess is a thing I think about - what I have to show for my efforts? For my life? A Daughter who's like me in all the ways that I approve of, a couple of books, a few good friends, a lot of nice times? I'm happy. Like I said. I don't dream of more american things, I don't engage with the world that way. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, it's sometimes not easy, but I wouldn't ever tell someone how not to end up like me.
what I do anymore is this - I go to meet her after school every day - it's a thing I should have been wiser to earlier, but I'm glad I do it, and when I have a real job and can't I'll be glad that I took the time when I could. Usually it's not a big deal, it's just a thing, so we can see each other every day.
Yesterday was a conference with her teacher, who I'd made friends with on any number of occasions earlier - nice lady, and fun, we could be pals, in life, I can tell. As it is - professional relationships. So she lays it all out and it's all too familiar. They give the 3rd grade their state skills test at the beginning of the year to track their progress and the teacher, she's surprised - a first, she tells us - the first time she's had students pass it at the beginning of the year. Agatha. Yessir, kiddo aces the skills test before the skills are even taught. Then it's time to discuss her classwork. And I'm calling out the teacher on this.
"So you start with the good, and now this, and you're going to end with something good again aren't you! The Oreo!" having had the same training... We laugh, because it's true, it's a nice moment. But it's true too, the middle. So there are a few classwork assessments, C's and a couple of things where you can see kiddo just blew the whole thing off, didn't even bother- and me and her mom and the teacher are all - "You just wanted to get back to your reading, you didn't try."
"Yeah." And it is all true.
So I see this road - because it's familiar to me - 99th percentile all through life and then the sad realization that nobody cares what you know, just what you do, and only if what you do follows the paradigm set out. So I worry, just a bit. On the one hand - I worry about kiddo. It's a row to hoe all right. But then I worry about me - as in - am I teaching the disaffection? Am I that? Am I so disengaged from the world that I teach that by example? I mean - sure, probably! Now for me - sure, yes.
Reading the news while waiting for class to be dismissed I see the president is beginning to campaign, talking about the american dream and its growing scarcity. I think - beyond just being a rhetorical device - one the president tragically favors - what the heck does it even mean? have a house, a family and a job? A car? It's a pretty prosaic dream, I'd suggest it's pretty common to the human experience and hardly 'american'. More Mom than Baseball - if you understand. As in - everyone's got one - and it's nothing to do with what language you speak. Baseball of course being the special province of Americans. Anyway - how do you get it and what does it mean? And who even wants that? A job-house-family? OK? If you really want that?
Now see - I scoff at these desires and say that they're dumb - because I think they are and I'm really disengaged from the world - I'm not buying what is being sold, I'm not participating in the paradigm, I'm in with the out crowd - I'm a goddammed creep. That's the story. So I go to the school and they're telling me that My Cub has mastered what they're laying down - but isn't quite at that place where she will try very hard to do meaningless repetitive tasks because hey? Who can see the value in those? And after all isn't it more satisfying to write stories and read and disengage and fall into yourself? Of course it is. Rich Inner Life - that's the thing that is incompatible with material comfort.
So do I try? Break the cycle, cut the chain? Do I just keep on? Let the past be prologue? Her mom is anxious - she's after that kid not to turn out like her- which I find... Disingenuous - are you really so regretful? Regrets? We've all got a few.
Erinn came by and we were talking about how in the early nineties we all wished we'd had more money - the conversations we'd had - "this web thing is going to be big - maybe we can try and register these domains?" And of course... no - none of us had any money and the people we knew who did never believed us anyway - probably because we didn't seem engaged in the world and didn't seem like we understood what the world even was. So a few regrets - it happens. Things go a certain way and you might have wished they hadn't. But to say: "I don't want you to end up like me!" That seems... Incorrect.
I'd be pretty proud if my kid ended up like me - I'm super happy. Like, all the time. But I'm kind of alone and crazy too, and I spend a pretty drastic amount of time writing unreadable books.
Who's to say - maybe that's what the future will want? Like Pepsi.com - people going forward will be desperate to get their hands on multivolume fantasy opuses? Who's to say?
50,000. Tomorrow. By the way, if you're keeping score. hit it, finished it. NaNoWriMo'd all the way down.
Which I guess is a thing I think about - what I have to show for my efforts? For my life? A Daughter who's like me in all the ways that I approve of, a couple of books, a few good friends, a lot of nice times? I'm happy. Like I said. I don't dream of more american things, I don't engage with the world that way. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, it's sometimes not easy, but I wouldn't ever tell someone how not to end up like me.
