If your close friends are getting old, does that mean you're getting old?
Mark Bertin turned 40 today (9/30), and he marked this transition to manhood by hosting a gathering of his closest friends at his parents' weekend home in Medusa, NY, up in the Catskills. It was a terrific time.
I started the weekend on Thursday night. First, Cathleen and I attended "curriculum night" at The Brooklyn New School, where we sat on tiny little (ridiculously uncomfortable) chairs and listened to Max's pre-K teacher discuss what the class structure, philosophy, goals were. The experience confirmed for me many of the reasons why we stayed in New York / moved to Brooklyn -- his class is stinking with diversity and he will be learning in a progressive environment. That, and Cathleen discovered on Friday, one of his classmates (his favorite classmate, it would seem), is the daughter of an accomplished novelist, Myla Goldberg. Cathleen read her novel "The Bee Season," and I really like to listen to "Song for Myla Goldberg" by The Decemberists. After the one-hour meeting at school, we headed home, put the kids to bed, I quickly packed a bag and than hustled to Grand Central where I caught the 8:52 train to Katonah, armed with a pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of Boylan's Birch Beer.
Mark picked me up at the train station at 10 pm, and we then stayed up until 12:30, sipping a few glasses of the Clynelish single malt I had brought him for his birthday ("notes of buttescotch," the guy at Smith & Vine had told me), and we just shot the shit about everything and nothing (the scotch facilitating the discussion of both). We used to have time to do a lot more of that, especially when we would just hang out at ultimate tournaments (or practices, or summer league games), or on runs together or dinner parties or whatever when we lived three blocks apart, but now life changes have changed all that. It was nice to just be hanging out again. And a little drunk.
Zach got us up the next morning at around 6:30, and by 9:00 or so we were on the road to Medusa. We arrived at the house about two hours later, with Zach asleep in his carseat. Elizabeth agreed to stay alone with him while Mark and I went for a run. By the time we had changed our clothes, inserted contact lenses and stretched, Zach woke up from a disappointingly short nap, but Mark and I took off anyway. It was, after all, his birthday weekend...
Medusa sits just north of the Catksill mountain range, about 45 minutes southwest of Albany. It is, by most yardsticks, the middle of nowhere. Mark's parents bought 180 acres of that nowhere about four or five years ago, and constructed a modest but comfortable house on the hillside top of a meadow in the middle of the property. They have spent the past few years carving hiking trails around the property (the northern side of which abuts a state park), and Mark and I set off on one of those hiking trails, then crossed over into the state park before reconnecting with paved roads. It is the Catskills, and the run was uphill and downhill the entire way. The final half mile of the run (which in toto was probably in the neighborhood of about four miles) featured a killer uphill climb that led to an amazing view of meadows, mountains and valleys. Breathtaking by all possible understandings of the term.
After the run we lounged around in the house and then the four of us (Mark, Elizabeth, Zach and I) set out for a short hike in the woods. We spotted many red efts (yes, spotted is a pun!), and Zach and I had a nice time bonding over the water spigot from his Camelbak. Upon our return to the house, we ventured into the garden and ate sugar snap peas right off the vine, picked a small bucket's worth of sweet cherry tomatoes, and pulled a dozen squat carrots out of the ground. Country livin'.
Elizabeth and I then invented a new game called "Squid," where we sat on a couch on a screened-in porch, facing a stone fireplace; you had to pick a stone on the fireplace and then, while seated with your back against the back of the couch, throw a whiffle ball off that stone and catch it. If you made a successful throw and catch off of the pre-called stone, your opponent would have to replicate the effort, failure to doing which would earn him or her a letter spelling out the game's name. First to SQUID loses. It is with pride that I report that I took home the championship trophy. Making "squ" you jokes midway through the game was a highlight.
By mid-to-late afternoon, Mark's college friends Don and Stefan arrived from, respectively, Richmond, VA and somewhere in the East Bay (CA). Mark's parents also arrived from a week in the Adirondacks -- as babysitters for the weekend, they left for home with Zach in tow at his bedtime. That is when the drinking began in relative earnest. Opening beers were followed by the four or five bottles of wine that Mark had been stowing away for a decade or so for the right occasion; they were steadily consumed through the late afternoon, dinner of fish burritos, and late-night lounging until another college friend, Dave, arrived from Fort Collins, CO at a little after midnight. I finally went to bed at a little after 1 a.m.
I awakened at around 8:30, determined that sounds of life existed somewhere else in the house, and was out on the back deck with a cup of coffee by 8:50. Mark, Elizabeth, Dave and I (eventually joined by Don and Stefan) sat on Adirondack-style rocking chairs for about four straight hours. The view, looking south, is magnificient: a meadow surrounded by trees beginning to succumb to the beckoning autumn, and giving way in the distance to the Catskill mountains (approximately 15-20 miles away); looking southeast you could see clearly for probably 100 miles. Over this entire expanse, signs of industrialized living were few and far between. Hawks intermittently flew by. The sun was shining bright, the air was crisp but warm. There was no reason to move anywhere else.
A bit past noon, Dan Katzive arrived from Manhattan, and then Cathleen and the dogs arrived from Brooklyn (Max and Eliza under the care of Sophie and Joseph for the day/eve). We booted up and took a one-hour hike around the property, wending our way on trails through the forests, across old stone walls and small, dried-up river beds, and through the meadow which was blazing with the colors of small wildflowers.
Back at the house, we had a small horseshoes tournament (Cathleen and I were smoked by Elizabeth and Dave), tossed the disc for a bit, and relaxed some more. Mark's friend Elio arrived (from California), rounding out the well-traveled group of revelers. Eventually we motivated towards dinner (veggie lasagna that our hosts had prepared beforehand) with particular joy in the air at the news that the Mets had re-tied the Phillies for first place that day. While waiting for the endlessly-poaching pears to poach for dessert, I delivered a rap "toast" I had written on the train-ride up, the highlights of which included my concluding a verse about Mark's move to Katonah with a line about that town's having "houses so pretty they give me a bonah," and then using 31 different words to rhyme with Zach in another verse. Cathleen and I packed into our car by 10 pm and hit the road for home, arriving in Brooklyn at about 12:45.
It was a pretty darn good weekend as weekends go and I am certain that it transpired exactly as Mark had desired. If you can truly judge a man by the company he keeps, Mark Bertin at 40 is doing alright for himself.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Just for the goof
Got up at just before six this morning and went out for a run. I ran my standard Prospect Park Four-mile run in 35:15. It's a crazy run for someone like me who takes so long to get warm and loose -- first mile is uphill, but at least you can sprint the last downhill mile home. I ran it with Max in the jogging stroller a few weekends ago and almost died. I'm not in great shape, and there I was pushing all 43+ pounds of him, plus the stroller, up that damn hill. He really likes coming in the jogging stroller -- always has -- particularly since we've made a ritual of ending the runs together at Blue Sky Bakery. In any event, no Max this morning, no delicious muffin awaiting me at the end; just the ridiculously beautiful weather and The Killers blaring through my iPod.
This is the first fall that I've been running just for the goof, or to just keep in shape for shape's sake, I suppose. Last year, of course, I was training for the marathon, and for the several autumns before that I was running to keep in shape for ultimate. For me, at least, it is hard to push myself with no tangible goal driving me. When confronted in the past with the opportunity of shortening a difficult run or taking a more leisurely pace, I could always say to myself, "you're cheating nobody but yourself," or I could kick it in for the final stretch of a run by visualizing myself chasing down a disc. Now? All I got now is the fear of becoming the fat guy. And let's be realistic, I'd have to work pretty hard to become the fat guy. Mark and I have talked about running a half-marathon or two next year, and I've been thinking about trying to find a good team-relay long distance event to run with folks. I think I need to focus on a future event or it is going to be hard to get out there when the weather turns cold.
Also, a good cardio regimen is likely keeping me alive through this final week of the baseball season. Mets' lead is down to one frickin game. I can't stand it.
This is the first fall that I've been running just for the goof, or to just keep in shape for shape's sake, I suppose. Last year, of course, I was training for the marathon, and for the several autumns before that I was running to keep in shape for ultimate. For me, at least, it is hard to push myself with no tangible goal driving me. When confronted in the past with the opportunity of shortening a difficult run or taking a more leisurely pace, I could always say to myself, "you're cheating nobody but yourself," or I could kick it in for the final stretch of a run by visualizing myself chasing down a disc. Now? All I got now is the fear of becoming the fat guy. And let's be realistic, I'd have to work pretty hard to become the fat guy. Mark and I have talked about running a half-marathon or two next year, and I've been thinking about trying to find a good team-relay long distance event to run with folks. I think I need to focus on a future event or it is going to be hard to get out there when the weather turns cold.
Also, a good cardio regimen is likely keeping me alive through this final week of the baseball season. Mets' lead is down to one frickin game. I can't stand it.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Observations and Observances
Been up to my neck in Judaism of late. That happens to a lot of Jews at this time of year but sort of caught me by surprise.
First, on the 13th, we hosted my mom and Irv for Rosh Hashanah dinner. I took the day off work, which I haven't been doing on the High Holidays for several years, and hung out with the kids. Cathleen had cooked up a beef brisket the night before and had asked me to put it in the fridge before going to bed. I, of course, was distracted by a rare Mets victory that eve and neglected to put said brisket in said fridge. This led to a classic Rick-and-Cathleen tete-a-tete the next morning, not so much as about my gaffe, but about Cathleen's insistence that we still eat the beef that had now been sitting out at room temperature for more than 10 hours. My smarmy line about "basic 20th century food care" and a threatened boycott of dinner by all people blood-related to me won out, and I spent the morning cooking up our second brisket (which, Cathleen noted, undoubtedly did not taste as good as the first would have). It was still pretty good. I also grilled up some goat cheese-stuffed figs (from a recipe I read in the Times the day before) and it was good, but unsatisfying, mostly because I don't know how to pick out ripe figs. The Entin Bells joined us for apples and honey, wine and challah, and the figs. Max discovered an inner distaste for the motzi, and then was a bit hyper through dinner, all explained away by his sleeping in past 8 am the next morning.
A few days later I finished reading Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union." In this book, Chabon brilliantly reconceives the world without Israel having become the Jewish homeland after WWII. Instead, the Jews have settled Sitka, Alaska, under a 60-year grant from the U.S., and the book follows a complex and troubled Sitka police detective named Meyer Landsman as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, just months shy of Sitka's reversion back to the state of Alaska. Brilliant stuff. One of my favorite lines: “...but the craving of a Jew for pork, in particular when it has been deep-fried, is a force greater than night or distance or a cold blast off the Gulf of Alaska.” Cathleen has long lauded Chabon's writing, and it seems that I probably now should read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," for which Chabon won the Pulitzer. But that would require me to read three pieces of fiction in one year (my having already read Potter #7), and that would be somewhat unprecedented.
In any event, this past weekend was Yom Kippur. Cathleen and I had both been struggling through a tough week and so we decided that we just needed to go to the movies on Friday night while all observant Jews were attending Kol Nidre services. We went to the Cobble Hill Cinema and saw 3:10 to Yuma. We don't get to the theater much (first time all year by ourselves?), and we totally struck gold.
The next morning I slept in until a little past 8 (thanks again, Cath), and when I arose, Max let me know that he did not approve of my fasting ("You must eat, daddy! I don't want you to not eat!"). Fasting is never the type of thing that you should have to answer to an angry four-year-old about. I generally do not have a hard time fasting (and I am pretty sure I have fasted every year since I was 12, even during college when I was sorting out my atheism and trying to figure out what traditions and rituals were relevant and meaningful to me), but I really, really wanted/needed a cup of coffee at that point. I managed to move on, though I couldn't bring myself to serve the kids lunch later, and had to call Cathleen up from the basement where she was working so that she could do it.
After Eliza's nap we packed into the car and headed to Yorktown. We had intended to first visit the Rose Hills Cemetery to visit my dad's (and grandparents') grave, but a late start and traffic precluded us from doing so. We drove straight to the Sixth Grade School in Yorktown (an arts center in a converted school, that Temple Beth Am uses for high holiday services each year), arriving at a little past 3:30. Mom had advised me that Yiskor was to begin at around 4:30, so we hung out on the neighboring track, walked the dogs, and then I left Cathleen and the kids in a playground at 4:00 and went inside to get me some religion.
I dread going to services. I have pretty much loathed religious services since I was a young child. For a brief period around my bar mitzvah and for maybe a couple of years after that, they were meaningful to me, but I pretty much can't stand them (the lack of drama? the endless tautology? the cloud of hypocrisy?). Or so I thought as I was walking into the school/synagogue. I found mom and Irv and sat down. Mom pointed out that the Gussaks (boyhood friends from down the road) were seated two rows in front of us, and I soon enough caught Howard's eye. I spent a lot of time watching the cantor, Jamie Tortorello-Allen. Jamie was a year behind me in college (tho she a BMC grad, actually), was good friends with some of my best friends in the Class of '92, and married Max Allen, one of those close friends, and here she is, the cantor of my old synagogue. This was my second time seeing Jamie cant (cantorize? cantoricate?), and it was no less surreal. Maybe I'm still not in touch with the fact that when in your late 30s, it is not surprising if you've actually accomplished something, but I look at a college friend doing something responsible and I kinda giggle. So, looking around, there were these familiar elements to the service, and then there were these other weird things going on that made it seem oddly unfamiliar (was mom really davening during the avot?). But not only was I still able to read Hebrew, I could sing along with the vast majority of the prayers without having to even look at the prayerbook. And that experience was a little comforting to me, kind of like reconnecting with an old friend.
Mind you, I have no need to see that friend regularly.
The break fast was at mom's best friend Sylvia Epstein's (Jewish? Perhaps). Huge crowd, mostly of mom's generation. Cathleen and I spent much time getting to know Rachel and Sean, the former of whom is somehow related to Sylvia; they are in their 20s and living in Cobble Hill (right across from the movie theater!) and seemed exceptionally cool. I can envision us hanging out with them in non-multi-smoked fish settings in the future, maybe. Eliza was the star of the party, charming every single person with her smile and zest.
We drove to Warwick today to Masker Orchards where we picked a bushel of Empires, Macintosh and Jonagolds. Max loves apple picking not for the food gatherer aspect, but because he loves grazing for two straight hours. I can totally respect that.
First, on the 13th, we hosted my mom and Irv for Rosh Hashanah dinner. I took the day off work, which I haven't been doing on the High Holidays for several years, and hung out with the kids. Cathleen had cooked up a beef brisket the night before and had asked me to put it in the fridge before going to bed. I, of course, was distracted by a rare Mets victory that eve and neglected to put said brisket in said fridge. This led to a classic Rick-and-Cathleen tete-a-tete the next morning, not so much as about my gaffe, but about Cathleen's insistence that we still eat the beef that had now been sitting out at room temperature for more than 10 hours. My smarmy line about "basic 20th century food care" and a threatened boycott of dinner by all people blood-related to me won out, and I spent the morning cooking up our second brisket (which, Cathleen noted, undoubtedly did not taste as good as the first would have). It was still pretty good. I also grilled up some goat cheese-stuffed figs (from a recipe I read in the Times the day before) and it was good, but unsatisfying, mostly because I don't know how to pick out ripe figs. The Entin Bells joined us for apples and honey, wine and challah, and the figs. Max discovered an inner distaste for the motzi, and then was a bit hyper through dinner, all explained away by his sleeping in past 8 am the next morning.
A few days later I finished reading Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union." In this book, Chabon brilliantly reconceives the world without Israel having become the Jewish homeland after WWII. Instead, the Jews have settled Sitka, Alaska, under a 60-year grant from the U.S., and the book follows a complex and troubled Sitka police detective named Meyer Landsman as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, just months shy of Sitka's reversion back to the state of Alaska. Brilliant stuff. One of my favorite lines: “...but the craving of a Jew for pork, in particular when it has been deep-fried, is a force greater than night or distance or a cold blast off the Gulf of Alaska.” Cathleen has long lauded Chabon's writing, and it seems that I probably now should read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," for which Chabon won the Pulitzer. But that would require me to read three pieces of fiction in one year (my having already read Potter #7), and that would be somewhat unprecedented.
In any event, this past weekend was Yom Kippur. Cathleen and I had both been struggling through a tough week and so we decided that we just needed to go to the movies on Friday night while all observant Jews were attending Kol Nidre services. We went to the Cobble Hill Cinema and saw 3:10 to Yuma. We don't get to the theater much (first time all year by ourselves?), and we totally struck gold.
The next morning I slept in until a little past 8 (thanks again, Cath), and when I arose, Max let me know that he did not approve of my fasting ("You must eat, daddy! I don't want you to not eat!"). Fasting is never the type of thing that you should have to answer to an angry four-year-old about. I generally do not have a hard time fasting (and I am pretty sure I have fasted every year since I was 12, even during college when I was sorting out my atheism and trying to figure out what traditions and rituals were relevant and meaningful to me), but I really, really wanted/needed a cup of coffee at that point. I managed to move on, though I couldn't bring myself to serve the kids lunch later, and had to call Cathleen up from the basement where she was working so that she could do it.
After Eliza's nap we packed into the car and headed to Yorktown. We had intended to first visit the Rose Hills Cemetery to visit my dad's (and grandparents') grave, but a late start and traffic precluded us from doing so. We drove straight to the Sixth Grade School in Yorktown (an arts center in a converted school, that Temple Beth Am uses for high holiday services each year), arriving at a little past 3:30. Mom had advised me that Yiskor was to begin at around 4:30, so we hung out on the neighboring track, walked the dogs, and then I left Cathleen and the kids in a playground at 4:00 and went inside to get me some religion.
I dread going to services. I have pretty much loathed religious services since I was a young child. For a brief period around my bar mitzvah and for maybe a couple of years after that, they were meaningful to me, but I pretty much can't stand them (the lack of drama? the endless tautology? the cloud of hypocrisy?). Or so I thought as I was walking into the school/synagogue. I found mom and Irv and sat down. Mom pointed out that the Gussaks (boyhood friends from down the road) were seated two rows in front of us, and I soon enough caught Howard's eye. I spent a lot of time watching the cantor, Jamie Tortorello-Allen. Jamie was a year behind me in college (tho she a BMC grad, actually), was good friends with some of my best friends in the Class of '92, and married Max Allen, one of those close friends, and here she is, the cantor of my old synagogue. This was my second time seeing Jamie cant (cantorize? cantoricate?), and it was no less surreal. Maybe I'm still not in touch with the fact that when in your late 30s, it is not surprising if you've actually accomplished something, but I look at a college friend doing something responsible and I kinda giggle. So, looking around, there were these familiar elements to the service, and then there were these other weird things going on that made it seem oddly unfamiliar (was mom really davening during the avot?). But not only was I still able to read Hebrew, I could sing along with the vast majority of the prayers without having to even look at the prayerbook. And that experience was a little comforting to me, kind of like reconnecting with an old friend.
Mind you, I have no need to see that friend regularly.
The break fast was at mom's best friend Sylvia Epstein's (Jewish? Perhaps). Huge crowd, mostly of mom's generation. Cathleen and I spent much time getting to know Rachel and Sean, the former of whom is somehow related to Sylvia; they are in their 20s and living in Cobble Hill (right across from the movie theater!) and seemed exceptionally cool. I can envision us hanging out with them in non-multi-smoked fish settings in the future, maybe. Eliza was the star of the party, charming every single person with her smile and zest.
We drove to Warwick today to Masker Orchards where we picked a bushel of Empires, Macintosh and Jonagolds. Max loves apple picking not for the food gatherer aspect, but because he loves grazing for two straight hours. I can totally respect that.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Office Talk
Wow. I look back on the first post I had for this blog and I am stunned by how young and naive I was back then. I sounded like a young kid who had the whole world before him. Oh yeah, it's been one hell of a week since then.
I work in an office. I am the Legal Director of the Bronx AIDS Services Legal Advocacy Program. I run a program consisting of four staff attorneys, four paralegals and a secretary. We provide free legal services to low-income Bronx residents who are living with HIV/AIDS. I operate the program on a shoestring budget which compromises my ability to pay my staff competitive salaries. And when I say "competitive salaries," I'm not talking about vis-a-vis other lawyers (as director, I make less than half what a know-nothing first-year associate makes at a large private firm), but the salaries I can offer barely compete with what other public interest law offices (e.g., The Legal Aid Society) can pay. Last year I had to fill two attorney vacancies and, hoping to hire folks with at least a modicum of experience in housing court litigation or public benefits advocacy, I wound up hiring two attorneys with virtually no practical experience. That meant that I had to spend a lot of time training them to become housing court litigators and public benefits advocates. They were bright and motivated. It was a fun and interesting challenge for me. I like supervising, I like teaching, I like the way I approach the role of zealous public interest advocate and so I like molding others after me. But it was also hard trying to keep the program running at full speed when two of the attorneys needed six or more months to get ramped up to the point where I could begin to trust them with a full caseload or complex cases. They worked hard and blossomed into two very good attorneys -- still much to learn, skills to develop, etc. -- but I was psyched that I now had this staff of talented attorneys to work with.
On Monday, those two attorneys came to me, independently of each other and unbeknownst to the other, to tell me that they were leaving; one to take a job for higher pay, the other to follow her partner to D.C. for her partner's job. I went from panicked to angry to resentful to depressed to I don't know what I'm feeling right now. As a manager, I think that I put so much into these guys and now they're both walking away before I can fully reap the rewards of my efforts. As their friend, I'm hoping that they're both making the right decisions for themselves (they aren't).
Max, my four-year-old son, has been very interested of late in what I do in my office. This evening, after he pretty much refused to give me a straight answer to my questioning him on what he did in school today ("we threw the teacher out the window," I trust, was not an accurate description of the day's activity), he asked me what I did in my office today. I tried to give him a straightforward but digestible answer, which may have been too digestible, given that he asked me if it was boring. I tried to explain how it wasn't boring, that I spent a lot of time talking with my co-workers, that I was actually the boss. He said, "the boss of all those other people?" (whom he has met on his numerous visits to my office), and I said "yes." He then wanted to know if I took care of them because I was bigger than they were.
Beyond his lack of spacial relations (I'm 5' 7 1/2" and am bigger than pretty much no one), Max understands what is important in life, and what kind of boss I aspire to be. I will find two new attorneys, and they will likely require training and mentoring, and I will try to provide that, and life will go on.
Unless, of course, the Mets do indeed blow their fragile lead in their division and miss the playoffs. And then I might throw myself out the window.
I work in an office. I am the Legal Director of the Bronx AIDS Services Legal Advocacy Program. I run a program consisting of four staff attorneys, four paralegals and a secretary. We provide free legal services to low-income Bronx residents who are living with HIV/AIDS. I operate the program on a shoestring budget which compromises my ability to pay my staff competitive salaries. And when I say "competitive salaries," I'm not talking about vis-a-vis other lawyers (as director, I make less than half what a know-nothing first-year associate makes at a large private firm), but the salaries I can offer barely compete with what other public interest law offices (e.g., The Legal Aid Society) can pay. Last year I had to fill two attorney vacancies and, hoping to hire folks with at least a modicum of experience in housing court litigation or public benefits advocacy, I wound up hiring two attorneys with virtually no practical experience. That meant that I had to spend a lot of time training them to become housing court litigators and public benefits advocates. They were bright and motivated. It was a fun and interesting challenge for me. I like supervising, I like teaching, I like the way I approach the role of zealous public interest advocate and so I like molding others after me. But it was also hard trying to keep the program running at full speed when two of the attorneys needed six or more months to get ramped up to the point where I could begin to trust them with a full caseload or complex cases. They worked hard and blossomed into two very good attorneys -- still much to learn, skills to develop, etc. -- but I was psyched that I now had this staff of talented attorneys to work with.
On Monday, those two attorneys came to me, independently of each other and unbeknownst to the other, to tell me that they were leaving; one to take a job for higher pay, the other to follow her partner to D.C. for her partner's job. I went from panicked to angry to resentful to depressed to I don't know what I'm feeling right now. As a manager, I think that I put so much into these guys and now they're both walking away before I can fully reap the rewards of my efforts. As their friend, I'm hoping that they're both making the right decisions for themselves (they aren't).
Max, my four-year-old son, has been very interested of late in what I do in my office. This evening, after he pretty much refused to give me a straight answer to my questioning him on what he did in school today ("we threw the teacher out the window," I trust, was not an accurate description of the day's activity), he asked me what I did in my office today. I tried to give him a straightforward but digestible answer, which may have been too digestible, given that he asked me if it was boring. I tried to explain how it wasn't boring, that I spent a lot of time talking with my co-workers, that I was actually the boss. He said, "the boss of all those other people?" (whom he has met on his numerous visits to my office), and I said "yes." He then wanted to know if I took care of them because I was bigger than they were.
Beyond his lack of spacial relations (I'm 5' 7 1/2" and am bigger than pretty much no one), Max understands what is important in life, and what kind of boss I aspire to be. I will find two new attorneys, and they will likely require training and mentoring, and I will try to provide that, and life will go on.
Unless, of course, the Mets do indeed blow their fragile lead in their division and miss the playoffs. And then I might throw myself out the window.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Gotta start somewhere
Here I am, dipping my toes into the blogosphere. Eeeeh, that tickles.
Why shouldn't I have a blog? Lord knows, I have a lot to say, about nothing and everything. I've often thought, over the past year or two, that "if I had a blog, I think I would write about X event that just happened or Y thought I just had, and then someone will read it and they will change their diet, sports allegiances, or maybe even their middle name."
Like my iPod telepathy. That should be written about. Every once in a while, but more often than one would expect, I'll get a random song in my head and then that song will come up as I'm listening to my iPod in shuffle mode. I have over 2600 songs on my iPod. That one of them randomly comes up in shuffle mode after I've thought about that song...it makes you wonder what someone like me could do if I became an evildoer. For example, the other night I'm bathing my kids and the song "Slit Skirts" by Pete Townsend pops into my head. This raises a few interesting questions, such as "why would bathing small naked kids make you want to sing about slit skirts?" or "Pete Townsend? Are you fucking kidding me?" All reasonable questions, not to be answered right now. The very next day, however, walking up Fordham Road from the train, got the iPod on in shuffle mode, and the second or third song that comes on is "Slit Skirts."
Spooky.
I also feel like I need a blog because my wife, Cathleen, started her own blog as a repository of observations and anecdotes about our two amazing children but she writes blog entries with the frequency of a lunar eclipse. I need to pick up the slack.
I was going to start this blog two days ago. On September 11th. But then I realized that that was probably the worst day to begin a venture into self-serving self-absorption. So I didn't. But I was walking the dogs at night, and I saw the Towers of Light, and I was briefly in touch with all of my 9-11 thoughts that surface from time. Such as my memories of the day (and the next day and more of the next day). And, of course, I inevitably think of my high school friend, Lisa Beamer (nee Lisa Brosious), and I wonder what she is up to. Oh, she has a wikipedia entry. Eeew.
In any event, this is the beginning. Its mostly purposeless, but it might be fun. Or I might abandon it before I even tell anyone I've started it.
Why shouldn't I have a blog? Lord knows, I have a lot to say, about nothing and everything. I've often thought, over the past year or two, that "if I had a blog, I think I would write about X event that just happened or Y thought I just had, and then someone will read it and they will change their diet, sports allegiances, or maybe even their middle name."
Like my iPod telepathy. That should be written about. Every once in a while, but more often than one would expect, I'll get a random song in my head and then that song will come up as I'm listening to my iPod in shuffle mode. I have over 2600 songs on my iPod. That one of them randomly comes up in shuffle mode after I've thought about that song...it makes you wonder what someone like me could do if I became an evildoer. For example, the other night I'm bathing my kids and the song "Slit Skirts" by Pete Townsend pops into my head. This raises a few interesting questions, such as "why would bathing small naked kids make you want to sing about slit skirts?" or "Pete Townsend? Are you fucking kidding me?" All reasonable questions, not to be answered right now. The very next day, however, walking up Fordham Road from the train, got the iPod on in shuffle mode, and the second or third song that comes on is "Slit Skirts."
Spooky.
I also feel like I need a blog because my wife, Cathleen, started her own blog as a repository of observations and anecdotes about our two amazing children but she writes blog entries with the frequency of a lunar eclipse. I need to pick up the slack.
I was going to start this blog two days ago. On September 11th. But then I realized that that was probably the worst day to begin a venture into self-serving self-absorption. So I didn't. But I was walking the dogs at night, and I saw the Towers of Light, and I was briefly in touch with all of my 9-11 thoughts that surface from time. Such as my memories of the day (and the next day and more of the next day). And, of course, I inevitably think of my high school friend, Lisa Beamer (nee Lisa Brosious), and I wonder what she is up to. Oh, she has a wikipedia entry. Eeew.
In any event, this is the beginning. Its mostly purposeless, but it might be fun. Or I might abandon it before I even tell anyone I've started it.
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