Chess with a four year old

I played chess with my four year old son last night. Not checkers. Chess. Playing chess with my four year old son was not my idea, it was my four year old son’s idea. I was pretty dead set against it, and had in fact told him no on numerous occasions. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to play chess because he’s curious about chess, it’s just that the chess set happens to be stacked right underneath Candy Land and The Ladybug Game. Finally last night, it occurred to me: why the hell not play chess with my four year old son? Besides the obvious fact that it sounds like a ride on an expressway to Aggravation Central? I considered the excuses I’d been using: he’s too young. It’s too complicated. I’ll have to repeat myself 10 to 23rd power times. And suddenly my excuses sounded like a poorly aimed stream of piss landing on the tile next to the toilet, and I hated them. Of all the voices that he’ll hear over the course of his life telling him he can’t do something, why should I add my own to the throng?

So out came the chess set.

I’m not much a chess player. I’ve had two freaky brilliant friends in my life who were excellent chess players, one of whom was a national champion who could play with his back to the board and have somebody call out his opponent’s moves to him, and then he’d call out his desired move. And he didn’t just play that way, he won. Consistently. Like I said, freaky. Brilliant.

Getting the name of the game right was the first challenge. Chess, not chest. Chess. Chesssssss. There’s no “t” at the end, just hiss it out. Sssssssssss.

Then there was the process of getting the pieces on the board. Their names, their placement, their movements. All of which had to be repeated over and over and over. In some other dimension, I’m telling him for the 700,023rd time that it’s called a knight, not a horsey. Who decided how knights should move? The knight’s movement on the board has always seemed so arbitrary to me, like anytime they were in a position to take another piece had to be an accident. Oh, and try explaining check and checkmate. Or the gender politics of a game where winning involves trapping the male leader whose limited movements make him all but useless, even though the female leader is the most powerful piece on the board.

And right there in the middle of a chess game with my four year old son, it occurs to me: this is a metaphor for something. This, what we’re doing right now, it’s something else. It just has to be. But what? Think, Holmes, think! Playing chess with a four year old is ________. Or more precisely, ________ is playing chess with a four year old. I’m not talking about things that are like playing chess with a four year old. Fuck similes. I’m looking for the thing that is. But that something eluded me, so much so that I started to wonder if I really know what a metaphor is. Like when people started making fun of Alanis Morrissette for her misuse of the term “ironic” and she looked at herself real hard in the bathroom mirror and asked, “do I really know what irony is?” At least I imagine she did.

What is playing chess with a four year old?

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s its own thing. Somehow, none of the other answers that I came up with seemed to do it for me, probably because the feelings that arose while playing chess with my four year old were as varied and complicated as the game of chess itself.

It’s going to make our next bout of Candy Land look pretty weak.

Two (weeks late)

I’ve never been a big fan of those letters that people write to their children in their blogs. Sure, I’ve read some that were written very well and weren’t just chock full of schmaltz and Hallmark sentimentality, but most of the time I don’t find them all that interesting. They just seem like a boring ass literary device. A B.A.L.D. if you will. Having said that, I’ve an occasion to attempt to employ this very B.A.L.D. and write just such a letter today.

Dear Simon,

This thing you’re reading is called a blog, which is short for weblog. People used to keep blogs to write about any number of subjects. There were movie blogs, TV blogs, technology blogs, political blogs, music blogs, science fiction blogs, sports blogs, dog blogs, cat blogs, reptile blogs, ferret blogs, celebrity blogs, blogs about blogging...you name it, somebody was blogging about it.

As you can see, the blog before you is not nearly so topic oriented. You see, a lot of people like your good old dad kept blogs to write about pretty much whatever the hell. Their lives. Their families. Random thoughts. Stuuuuuuuff.

I doubt that many people are writing them in the future when you’ll be reading this, hence all the explanation. If they are, well, never mind.

I’m writing this on January 10th, 2010. I can hear you and your brother in the other room playing with your trains, and for the moment, you’re not trying to beat the snot out of one another. Give it another minute and you probably will be. You are our New Year’s Eve baby, so your second birthday was just a week and half ago. I gotta tell ya, that was some nice work on your part coming in under the wire and scoring that 2007 tax credit for your mom and I. Very smooth. Sadly though, your birthday ends up being just a wee bit overshadowed by all the end of year festivities that fall under the banner of “The Holidays.” For example, here it is the second week of January, and I’m just now getting around to jotting something down in this here blog (see definition above) to commemorate the fact that you’re now two years old, that it’s becoming more obvious every day that you’re not really a baby anymore, that it’s been two years since we brought that 9 pound 11 ounce bundle home from the midwife’s to that tiny little house that we were renting. You may have noticed already, depending on what order you’re reading this, but if you go back into the archives of the previous October, you’ll see that I managed to throw up a quick something for your brother’s fourth birthday.

Which is why I’m writing you this letter. I have no idea if you and/or your brother will ever feel the need to sift through your old man’s writings that he tossed up on the internet. Maybe I’m dead and you’re missing me, and reading this is a way to feel close to me again. Maybe you’re curious what kind of guy your dad was outside of just being Dad. Whatever the reason, should you ever find your way into these pages, don’t interpret anything you find or don’t find here to mean that we cherish one of you more than the other. This little weblog is kept up sporadically at best. I’m gonna miss stuff, that’s just how it goes. And even if you don’t remember it now, trust me when I say we had a party for your birthday and it was awesome. There was a cake with Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater on it. And pizza. And chips. And salsa. Oh, and that spinach dip from HEB that must have crack in it because you can’t stop eating it. Like I said, awesome.

Beyond that son, the fact is that your Mom and I haven’t yet decided on which of you is our favorite kid. You’re both pretty great in some ways, and big pains in the ass in other ways. But that’s okay. Should we ever make a decision, we’ll let you guys know.

Happy late birthday blog post, Simie.

Love,

Dad

Crazy Shit

The day after Christmas, the Ash and I were fortunate enough to have a healthy dose of gifted cash burning a hole out of our collective pocket. Rather than let it escape into the hands of unworthy creditors, we decided to channel it into the coffers of a certain retail furniture establishment known for its flat-packed efficiency and myriad solutions for modern living. Having in mind that we would likely be buying something large in size, we borrowed the minivan owned and operated by Ash’s folks. Though a modern enough vehicle, it has no auxiliary input, which meant that the music on our iPhones was inaccessible, music that we carry around with us so that we won’t have to haul CD’s everywhere, which is why we had no CD’s with us, which is how we came to be listening to the radio. All the stations in town must have held a meeting wherein they conspired to play pure crap during this particular hour of the day, so we somehow ended up listening to a public access station that was broadcasting an interview with a British-sounding gentleman about his plans to clone Jesus Christ. Yeah, that one. Dude wasn’t kidding either. He had the whole thing worked out. It was too bizarre to turn off. Don’t ask me for specifics of his plan, I’m not the crazy British guy with the messiah clone plan, I’m just a guy who was riding in a van on his way to the local efficient living solutions outpost. He did mention hover-donkeys, I remember that much. The interviewer asked if he thought Jesus would be freaked out by the modern world and cars and stuff, and the guy said yes, cars would probably freak Jesus out, but we could explain to him that they’re basically like hover-donkeys. I think he was making an attempt at a joke, but when you’re talking seriously about cloning Jesus Christ, how can the rest of us be expected to know when you’re just kidding around?

For once, I didn’t feel ridiculous about constantly questioning what the hell I’m doing with my life.

People do this, you know. Spend their lives pursuing crazy shit. Sometimes that crazy shit works out and we get stuff like rocket ships and light bulbs. Other times, the crazy shit is completely wrong and ridiculous and you end up with people thinking vaccines cause autism or creationist museums. Or even worse, you get evil crazy shit. I’m looking at you, Hitler.

I know, I’m making the assumption that Jesus clone guy is going to fail. It could be that I’m just one of many millions of naysayers whose naysays will be waylaid when this dude brings about the second coming in his lab. I can live with that.

2009 has been the year I started learning to quit worrying about God. I dropped out of seminary in June, a move that felt as right as the decision to enter in the first place. I can’t quite call myself an atheist now, but I can say that I’m through chasing after a connection to this invisible whatever that I thought I had at one time. Maybe I did have such a tie at some point, or maybe I just had a certain set of chemicals processing through my nervous system that I interpreted as feeling spiritual. Or maybe both. Since then, I’ve felt as unburdened as I have disoriented. Either way, I’m done with trying to find a way to believe in something that all my senses tell me just isn’t there. And while it might seem to be a position of indecision, it feels pretty good from here.

Now hover-donkeys, on the other hand, I can believe in.

Happy New Year, All. 

Wanderer

Shaolin shadowboxing,

“Hmm?”

and the Wu-Tang sword style.

“Whazz?”

If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous.

“The hell?”

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?

That’s the kind of question that pulls you out of your sleep, especially when you haven’t the faintest idea who’s asking it. It was then that I rolled over to find the almost-two year old, my almost-two year old, sitting on the floor next to the bed holding my swiss army phone. He had pulled up the iPod and found his way to the Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers album, and hit play on track 1, “Bring Da Ruckus,” which opens with the dialogue sample above. He smiled up at me, overjoyed either by his own cleverness or by the fact that I was awake.

This was how I started that day.

We only just switched the little guy from his elevated cage of a crib to a toddler bed that he can easily climb in and out of. Actually, it had gotten to the point where climbing in and out of his crib was only a slightly greater challenge for him. We had this silly notion that when he woke up in the morning, he would enjoy being able to climb out of bed and play with his toys while we slept soundly. This vision has not yet manifested itself in our reality. Instead, he’s developed this pattern where he toddles downstairs to our room, walks his little self all the way around the bed to my side, and climbs in with me. He brings Cookie Monster too. He wiggles and talks and makes with all manner of the cuteness, which is nifty and all, but it brings the sleeping part of bed occupancy to an end. Apparently, he likes his parents better than his toys. Which is just goddamn inconvenient.

Protective helicopter parent that I am, I snatched the phone out of his little hands before The RZA began shouting for somebody to bring the mothafuckin ruckus. Not sure who he’s talking to, but he really wants them to get on with this ruckus bringing business.

The second night he was in the new bed, The Ash awoke to the sound of a repetitive clicking noise somewhere in the house. Just imagine that. Dark house, middle of the night. All is quiet save the hum of the baby monitor, and somewhere across the house, click.......click.........click. She followed it out of our bedroom, past eldest’s room, through the living and the dining where she found the little guy standing at the door that leads out to the garage, locking and unlocking the knob-lock. Had the deadbolt not been set, he’d have wandered into the garage where we would still be searching for him in all the accumulated debris.

I wonder what he thought about as he wandered through the house in the dark, unmonitored. I’m free! Free! I have vague memories of being little and wandering around the house at night. I remember doing that at my grandparent’s enormous house and feeling like I was really up to something dangerous, even though I never set foot outside. Freedom is relative, I guess. And the little guy just acquired a wee bit more.

Oh Right

I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this blog is or what it’s for. I don’t know why I keep it. It’s like the legal pad on my desk that I don’t throw away because it still has a few blank sheets of paper on it, and I might need to....write something down. Writing things down is dumb. They’re just gonna mean something different the next time you read them.

Like I’ve got this list of writing ideas that I keep, and this one thing I have in there is “God is a woman who masturbates.” I read that the other day and had not the slightest idea what I was thinking when I wrote that down. I remembered it eventually, and liked it all over again, so I guess that’s good.

I don’t want to write anymore. By which I mean, all I want to do is write. You wouldn’t know it by the unupdated state of this blogosaur, would you? All my writing energy lately has gone into thoughts of werewolves. And how people cope when shit all goes to shit. And hip-hop. And how the world can be all but unrecognizable after just a dozen or so years of being its ever-changing self. The 90’s. The 60’s. Tehran. Protests. Guilt. Knowlege of self. What feeds into all of our choices, stupid and otherwise. Forgiveness. Your memory will trick you. Don’t trust it.

I’m in a mood. I’m stressed about Christmas. People complain too much.

I found Ashley at the top of the stairs the other night, down on her knees, holding her head and crying. In the split second before I asked her what was wrong, a million scenarios went through my head to explain the sight before me. It turns out that Simon had headbutted her extraordinarily hard with the back of his skull. He’s had no training, he’s just nuts. She’s okay now, I think.

I come to a library at my lunch time to write. I used to sometimes go to Starbuck’s because it’s close to my office, but I hated having to pay for a drink just to hang out and not have free internet, so I come here, to the library, where I am now. I was writing this rap song the other day and got all self-conscious that some old person was reading over my shoulder, which of course they weren’t because old people can’t see. So I make an effort to occupy a spot where people can’t easily get behind me. I don’t know that I’ve generated anything I would want on a stage yet. So much has changed since 2004. I tend to like the people at the library better than the ones at Starbuck’s. Which is to say, my silent subconscious judgements of them are not as harsh.

I was writing at Genuine Joe’s a while back, sitting outside before it got all crazy cold, and some guy was gunning his stupid motorcycle, and I wanted to beat him with a bat. The kind used for baseball. How many cracks does it take to get to the human head center of a motorcycle helmet?

Maybe I shouldn’t put that on the internet. Fuck it, nobody reads this shit.

My youngest child is nuts. Out of his mind cavedog crazy. I realized recently that I spend so much time just trying to keep him from destroying himself and everything around him that I end up paying less attention to my eldest, who is usually not destroying anything. It’s like the Prodigal Son, right? He goes off on a bender while his brother stays and acts like the good son. But which one is bitter at the end of it? 

Let’s wrap this mess up with a grainy nighttime camera-phone picture:

Wanna See Ridiculous?

One week ago today, I took the razor to my own face and hacked my beard clean off. It had been there nearly two years, since right around the time Simon was born. We had some friends coming over to the house that night, so Ashley begged me, BEGGED I tell you, to keep just the mustache. And so...

So what do you think? Race car driver? Bear hunter? Coach? Personally, I'd go with bumbling British detective.

I say!

In case you haven't seen me in the past week, allow me to assure you that the 'stache has followed the rest of the beard down the drain.

I'm Sorry Mr. Jackson, I'll Never Know If You Were For Real

It was Sunday morning. I was in Genuine Joe's, my all time favorite coffee shop, my favorite place to sit down with a bottomless cup of coffee and my laptop, plunk my headphones in, and try to make some magic happen on the page. There are built-in bookshelves stacked with aged volumes that gives the place a home library sort of feel. Add to that the fact that I was sitting at a somewhat large table, and you'll understand why I didn't give it a second thought when a girl walked up to the other end of my table and quietly set a book down, then walked away. It was an intentional setting-down action, careful, as if it needed to be placed in that exact spot with no discernable sound created by the meeting of book and table. I noticed also that no title was visible, either on the cover or the spine. And I noticed the note card poking out from the book's pages. But still my focus remained on my work.

It was only later when I reached something of a stopping point that I looked over at this book that had been placed within arm's reach of me and noticed some writing on the note card. I opened the book to the place where the note card was sandwiched, and I found this:


Social experiment? Bizarre act of random charity? Would a trap door open beneath my feet when I lifted that wooden Indian? As a former member of the teenaged demographic, I can attest to the fact that a 20 dollar bill has approximately .031% chance of playing a part in any of these schemes once it has fallen into their hormone-riddled hands. Still, I liked the idea that perhaps there was an experiment being conducted, bill or no. But why was the book placed closest to me? My kindly face? Perhaps that book with that notecard has been floating around Genuine Joe's for ages, and I was just the latest to find it.

I closed the book and put in a little more time on my writing. On my way out, I poked my head into the Boardroom. There was indeed a wooden Indian head on the bookshelf, but if Mr. Jackson was hiding under it, I'll never know. That head, I decided, could stay unturned.