60 posts in 60 days, day 7: sensitive new age man




Sometimes I worry that Cal is just too sensitive for his own good. Not to hide behind the excuse of him being "too sensitive" to gloss over all flaws--I've certainly seen some parents describe their little Damien as "so sensitive" while meanwhile, Damien is beating the pulp out of some other kid and will undoubtedly grow up to be the kind of thug who pushes smaller bespectacled classmates into lockers--but really, Cal is sensitive. And I mean that he is too sensitive in the same way that I was probably too sensitive as a kid, and ended up crying every day at school for the first six months of first grade for reasons obvious only to me.

Like...OK, so I let Cal watch "WALL-E" a couple of nights ago. I'm not big on watching movies on school nights, but the fact of it was that we had finished bath early and Joe was working late again and I had to put Mack to bed, so hell, if "WALL-E" will keep Cal safely tethered to the living room for a while instead of exploring the gas range on the stove, I'm all for that. I had only watched "WALL-E" one other time myself a few months ago, but it seemed fine--cute and largely non-violent at the surface, with a level of melancholia and dystopic sentiment that was probably above the heads of most preschoolers anyway.

(On an unrelated note, part of me really, really wants to get the DVD of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" for Cal, because there are parts of it that I think he'd really love--mostly the first 30 minutes of the movie, I guess. But I also think that sequence near the ends with the clown bicycle hospital would terrify him in into the next century, so I guess it will have to wait. "Is this something you can share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry?")

So anyway, I come back downstairs after Mack has fallen asleep, to find the TV off and Cal subdued.


MICHELLE
Did the movie finish, Cal?

CAL
Yeah.

MICHELLE
Did you like "WALL-E?"

CAL
(Quietly)
Yeah.

MICHELLE
...

CAL
(Mumbling)
I don't really like "WALL-E."

MICHELLE
Really? Why don't you like it?

CAL
(Tearing up)
I don't like that "WALL-E" movie, Mom.


So I assume that something scary or sad must have happened in the movie to upset him, and I'm trying to figure out what in the movie may have set him off, made all the more difficult by the fact that I've only watched the movie once before myself. (In my memory, the entire movie consists of one robot shouting "WALL-E!" and another robot shouting, "EVE-A!" Repeat ad nauseum. Then, let the Oscar nominations roll in!) So I'm asking Cal, "Was it too sad when WALL-E got broken? Was that sad? Did that make you sad? Was something scary? Was it too scary? Was it scary when the spaceship was all tilted and the babies were spilling into space? Babies in outer space? Too scary for you?" Cal isn't saying much. Then, like, half an hour later, he finally spills it.


CAL(Almost inaudibly)
I don't like that trash.

MICHELLE
The...what?

CAL
The trash on the Earth. How come there was so much trash on the Earth?

MICHELLE
Oh. Oh! Because people didn't take good care of the Earth, and there was too much garbage, and so then they had to leave the Earth and live on the spaceship.

CAL
(Tearful)
I don't like the Earth full of trash.

MICHELLE
Well, that's just pretend, sweetie. And you know, if we keep taking good care of the Earth [blah blah blah insert moralistic environmentalist pinko babblings here, recycling, energy conservation etcetera] then that will never happen. You and and your friends at school are doing a good job already. Like turning off the lights and not wasting water and stuff.

CAL
(Darkly)
But not everyone takes care of the Earth.

MICHELLE
Really? Like who doesn't?

CAL
Like that time we went to Chuck E. Cheese and there was a man in front of us and he threw a can on the floor.
(More tears)


Damn you, cartoons with a social message, you're depressing my child. From now on, we're only watching movies with no morals at all. Or where the moral is: even if you let some fat rich kid steal your bike, at worst you will be launched into a cross-country journey, meet a number of colorful characters along the way, and end up with a bit role in the Hollywood treatment of your own story. And also, that there is no basement in the Alamo.

(Full bubble blowing picture set here.)

60 posts in 60 days, day 6: unclean




How many times a day do I wash my hands? One million times, plus or minus five thousand. In fact, thinking about handwashing makes me feel like washing my hands again. Kind of like when you see someone yawning and yawn yourself.

60 posts in 60 days, day 5: milk of amnesia




I guess I have Michael Jackson to thank, but suddenly, everyone and their 85 year-old grandmother knows what propofol is. Now if only cisatracurium would get this kind of press.

60 posts in 60 days, day 4: 3 sixty 5




Because of my essentially reclusive and misanthropic ways I am not much of a joiner both online or off, but I recently joined a pool on flickr called 3 sixty 5 that basically challenges its members to post a single photo every single day for a year. The year started today, September 1st, so there's one down, 364 photos to go. This group appealed to me the same way that 100 steps challenge appealed to me, which was to force myself to stop and look at things and not be in such a rush all the time. It's not much of a challenge to take pictures I guess, but it will be challenging for me to find new things to look at, in that I really don't go anywhere particularly photogenic day to day-- my Monday through Friday existence is basically walking from my home to the train to work and then reverse order again. But who knows, we are moving to a new neighborhood, maybe there will be all manner of exotic fauna to look at there.

Speaking of which, on a completely unrelated topic, on my way to work this morning I passed by a gigantic dead possum in the road. I think it was a possum. OK, tell me if this was a possum: it kind of looked like a big raccoon, but it was greyish (I think, it was dark) with kind of a pointy snout, and it had that kind of thin, bald rat tail. It was truly horrifying, and lying in the middle of the road down this semi-side street/dark alleyway that I walk through at 5:45am to get to work because clearly I want to die. Seriously though, I don't much get worried about being mugged walking down the street, but walking by that dead possum (opossum? Not really dead, just playing possum?) I was honestly freaking out that the thing was going to jump up and start chasing me around as I passed. Because that tail is disgusting.

Above, my submission for 3 sixty 5 today. (It is a drain pipe on the curb outside my building.) Below, some other photos that didn't make the cut. It is tempting to save them to post another day, but I think the spirit of the thing is actually to post new pictures every day. They are, in order, 1.) the Georgia Tech shuttle waiting outside the subway station, 2.) the leaf-strewn hood of a pickup truck on my block, and 3.) some vines spilling over the fence lining Dead Possum Alley. (The possum carcass had thankfully been cleared away by the time I walked home.)