Practical Musings...

I probably shouldn't be writing this right now.  I'm at the point in the semester when I have so many things to do and I'm well aware of the fact that time is running out.  I did very little school work over the weekend.  I carry around the guilt of this like a good Catholic -- though I'm not one.  It's funny, I sometimes miss the days of working in an office.  My job now is one where there is never NOTHING to do.  There's always something I should be grading or commenting on or a class to be preparing for.  So, during those times when I take the time to address other parts of my life, I have guilt.  I really am married to my job....so it's a good thing that I like it.  J. assuaged (or at least tried) my guilt by telling me that I will get it done, just like I always do.  I suspect he's right.

It doesn't help that I've been fighting a cold, had company over the weekend, two birthdays to arrange for, and we're still working on helping our new dog adjust.  All in all, my life is pretty busy and crazy.  And I don't even have kids.  I don't think I would have time for them.  But that's another post...and one that's been discussed elsewhere.

I sat down to this blog with no real idea of what I was going to write.  sometimes, that's all I've got.  Just give me a blank screen and a keyboard and see what happens.  I have to reach that 4-post mark somehow.  I think I'll make a list of things that I'm excited about and use that as a place to find energy in the next weeks.

I'm going camping with my parents and various other important people not once, but TWICE next summer.   Thanksgiving is only a few days away and I love this holiday of taking time to be thankful for family and friends and health.  More on that later this week, I expect.  I managed to make a small difference in the MMO I play -- something that will be fixed in March.  Nice to know that my attention to detail (which has much less pleasant names depending on who you're talking to).  The Cone of Power is alive and well -- and needs a blog about it soon.  I have great friends who still seem to be there, no matter how busy and prickly I might get.  I got to play Arkham Horror yesterday and we actually won.  My family is wonderful, as always.  My household is full of crazy happiness -- two dogs and two cats and a gerbil (not going to dwell on the one who left us this week).  My car should be fixed soon.  I have some great ideas for gifts for Christmas presents -- and some of my hardest shopping is done.  My Q-rosters are done.  I have an interesting schedule next semester with some fun classes in it.  The conference I helped organize went really well and the conversation was amazing.  My presentation seemed pretty good, too.

All in all, life is pretty good, despite bad days and weeks full of things that threaten to shake my tenuous hold on happiness, inner calm, and organized productivity.  Now, I just need to keep holding on and celebrating the good.  The bad can stuff it.  I have things to do.

The Rule of Three…

In the web of ley lines that make up the human experience, there are several that crossing in my life right now that leave me feeling wistful, nostalgic, a little sad, and a little closer to the things of this earth that we can never quite explain or understand. Those lines lay before me, around me, through me…criss-crossing in an elaborate pattern that I will try to explain here.

The first line is that of my birthday – thirty eight years and three days ago, on the ninth day of the sixth month, I was born. These days come, of course, every year – and they tend to leave us happy or thoughtful, more aware of our mortality and our meaning, perhaps more determined to live each day to its fullest as we become aware that another year has passed. Three days ago, June is the sixth month (three times two) and I was born on the ninth day (three times three).

Near that line, as it has always been, is that today is my grandfather's birthday. He would have been 90 this year if he hadn't been taken from us two years ago next month. We didn't always celebrate them together, but I remember a few camping trips where there was one cake and two piles of presents. I loved it when we shared our birthdays – it always made mine feel that much more special. I'm always mentally and heartfully aware of the birthdays of those who have gone before, but grandpa's always strikes me even more because of its proximity to mine. Three days after mine, June is the sixth month (three times two), the 12^th day (three times three), and he would have been ninety (three times three times ten).

Somewhat separated from those two lines are two more. One is that I'm going camping in five days. We'll be going to three places – Cousin Jerene's backyard, Sacandaga Campground in Wells, NY and then Lewey Lake in the Adirondacks. We will spend six nights in places where my father went as a boy – places where my grandfather took him and my uncle and taught them just what kind of man he was and what kinds of men they would become. Three places to sleep under the stars, six nights (three times two), the three of us (mom and dad and me).

The line that runs near that one is that two years ago this month, I was on another camping trip to Lewey Lake with my parents. My grandfather came up to spend the day with my folks and I – we gave him father's day presents and birthday presents and sat by the fire, fed the ducks, and talked. Mom made him his favorite cake. At the end of our visit, I was hugged in the great big hug that was so characteristic of him and we waved as he drove away. Then we waited and listened for the honk as he headed off on the road towards home. It was the last time I ever saw him.

His birthday, my birthday, camping trips past and future – all of these things have come together to remind me of just how special he was and is. They have come together to remind me how vital my family and my memories are to who I am. And as I travel towards unknown experiences in campsites that are now old friends, he will be alive with every beat of my heart, every crack of the fire, every call of the loon, every lap of a quiet wave touching the shore of the lake.

Happy birthday, grandpa. And to my family…I love you.

Happy Birthday, Bimmie

Today is my brother’s birthday.  This is for him.

A month ago, I wrote about the relationship I had with my sister and how special it was to me.  What I have with my brother is no less important to me and has had no less influence on who I am today.  But that influence is very, very different.

I made mention in that blog of how I spent more of my time with him and as I think back to those years, it amazes me to think about how much of who I am I owe to him.  I’m not sure I can entirely blame the tomboy part of myself on him, but he certainly had a big hand in it.  I don’t know if he ever really thinks about it, but I am who I am because of him. I read fantasy novels and mysteries, I’m a gamer, I love computers and technology.  All of these are such an integral part of who I am and they all came from him in some way or another.

I may have been socially awkward, but when I borrowed books from my brother, I could get lost in Pern or Xanth or Middle Earth.  I don’t have a conscious memory of wanting to read those books because he did – I don’t recall looking up to him that actively.  It may have simply been a case of there not being any other books around that looked interesting to me.   But, it didn’t matter.  What mattered is that I started reading them and was hooked.  Fast forward a couple of decades and I wrote doctoral field exams on contemporary fantasy fiction and wrote a dissertation on Harry Potter.    Those moments in my career had their seeds in him.

I may have had no idea how to keep white clothes even remotely clean, but I could explore the world of computer games pretty well.  I remember sitting in a brown comfy chair that my brother had in his room and playing Nethack on a monochrome monitor in the times I had when he was at school and I was not.  I remember playing Gauntlet on a split screen as we sat side by side in his room.  I would drag my desk chair into his room and we played for hours.  I may have gotten yelled at for not being very good at them, but in those hours together a gamer was born and from those roots as a gamer, a love of technology was born.  Fast forward a couple of decades and find me firmly established as the Humanities professor whose niche is technology:  I sit on technology committees, I use technology in my classrooms, I go to conferences centered on its use.  I married a gamer whom I met in a game, some of my friends are gamers, I still play games.  These moments in my life and career had their seeds in him.

In short, when I say I am proud to be a geek -- it's because my brother helped make me one.

There are so many little things we shared growing up – from the nickname he gave me to Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes.  My brother was no less socially awkward than I was, but we had such fun times regardless of that.  We hung out and watched movies, listened to music, played games.  We worked together, even, when we got older.  We used to go to the mall all the time, and it was a very different trip than with my sister.  In fact, I can’t even remember anything we did there – I just remember walking around relatively quickly and having a great time.  We went to concerts, too.  We used to go see REO Speedwagon every year, including the year I was in the hospital until just a few days before the concert.  I always felt safe with him, despite the noise and the crowds.

Even when I went away to college, he would come up and spend the weekend in my dorm room and we’d do all the same kinds of things.  He joined a group of us who went up to Toronto to see The Phantom of the Opera.  I think he drove entirely around Lake Ontario that weekend.  When I went on to my Masters and my Doctorate, he’d do the same thing.  We may not have talked much on the phone or wrote letters, but we got together often enough that it didn’t matter.   A perfect example of this kind of unspoken relationship we have happened in the early days of electronic communication.  It was birthday season in my family and, being a college student, I was running low on cash.  I wrote to my brother and asked him if he could help out -- just a little something to help me get by.  My parents were coming up that weekend and they brought with them some new CDs that I had ordered through his CD club (back when Columbia House was cool).  It wasn’t until after mom and dad left and I was opening the CDs that I noticed one of them was slit along the side.  When I opened it the rest of the way, there was a $20 bill inside.   This is the kind of thing he does – he may not be demonstrative of his affection for his little sisters, but it’s always there.

I owe a good portion of who I am to the influence my brother had on me growing up -- he is goofy and fun and weird and a little crazy.  I can’t even really express how ecstatic I am that he has found someone who loves him for who he is and makes him happy.  He deserves it; though, I will admit that sometimes I miss the dedicated time we used to have to hang out at the mall, eat fast food and stay up too late playing games before I crashed on his couch.  I love my brother and I admire the personal strength he has had to get through the tough times and I’m so proud of where he is now.  He will always be my big brother and I will always treasure the memories we have made and the ones I’m sure we will keep making.

So, big brother, want to go to the mall?