Independance Day Dependence.

The original Independence Day movie was a huge part of my childhood. Epic. Created a movie star from a favorite sitcom star. Forced me to think about religions other than my own. As the world as a common point.

I still think the only thing that really unite humans is a common enemy. And quiet frankly we are overdue for the figure it out our problems are petty invasion.

Independence Day was triumphant. Heroic. But it was also something else for adolescent Adam. It informed, changed my view, perception or event understanding of something as simple as a hug.

I was 14 going on 15 and blind to so much of the world. Then I spent a week or two (memory is fussy on the details) on a service project at a camp. We probably built fences or something. Or cleaned. Quite frankly as a 14 year old boy, I wasn't that interested. In the work. But my lord, the girls, was I interested in the girls.

I was 14. To me romance was still Back to the Future and maybe a couple episodes of Friends or the ill fated WB sitcom Platypus Man staring Richard Jeni. I knew nothing.

But for this magical period of time, I had a cabin I shared with my friends, work to do, meals all together in the mess hall and members of the opposite sex who I find intoxicating. I was my own real life version of  Hey Dude.

It was in this week, I met someone, spend hours talking with them, lay on the merry go round and watched the stars. It was a crash course not in romance but in intimacy or at least opening up to it.

The mission project ended and we all went our separate ways.  We promised to write and actually managed to do so for a while. One of the first letters I wrote was after I had returned home and gone to Independence Day with my friends. In my innocence, I wrote something that was oddly profound to me even today. To be fair I only have the letter I received in response. There is no electronic backup for long distance letters of the mid 90s. But my memory and the details of her response uphold the narrative I am about to share.

I was no Romeo or Byron. I wrote little that would inspire Bards to weep and wail. I'm sure I wrote paragraphs about my trip home, things I had done etc. But what I remember and what her response supports is that I went to see Independence Day with my friends. And the triumphant end, with it's reunions of couples and uplifting we are one humanity theme hit me. But what hit me most was how much seeing people hug each other made me miss her. Because we had hugged. We had that connection. And I missed that.

As is my theme eventually we grew apart. School started and I didn't respond to a letter or two. Through my inaction and being 15 we stopped communicating. Years later, probably a decade we connected on Facebook awkwardly, as is the fashion. Barely communicate, as is the fashion. But she was from Chicago, a suburb called Elgin, and is probably likely the reason I am pulling for the Cubs this year.

It's easy to say that innocence made me think I missed the hug. That it was some pre-adult desire. But I will be honest. I miss hugs even today. I miss the way Independence Day made me feel. Missing connection. Wanting that vein of total humanity.

So of course, on Halloween, my least favorite of holidays and with the Vikings creating a new nightmare, I decided to watch a movie. I was already beaten down by the fooseball, so I picked something that I thought would uplift.

Independence Day 2.

Ha. I loved the first movie because I still believed and rooted for good v evil stories. I thought the world was black and white. History was read left to right and set in stone. The original was us against the others.

Maybe I have read too many novels. Maybe I am gullible. But I totally believe in extraterrestrial life. But I'll admit that this past few years have made me doubt it exists.

Not because of aliens or experience. No. Because if there was a superior force waiting to invade, they really couldn't have a better time than now.

We have nuclear weapons all over the globe. We fight against each other in every country in either politics or culture. We beat each other down.

 I watched Independence Day 2 and marveled that if there is intelligent live out there...they are totally missing their window.

We are divided. We are fractured. Boy, do we dislike each other.

We don't hug as much as we should.

I expected to watch Independence Day 2 and lament about loss innocence and youth. What I truly lament is that as I watched the movie tonight, people working together felt to much further away. And as a single 35 year old, a hug felt like an enigma. But that connect, that hug, that common bond was still what intrigued and held me.

I pray there is an alien force dumb enough to invade. Because that is the one thing we as a humanity can probably fight together. Not amongst ourselves about creed, or religion or word choice or shape or god or no god. But against a common enemy. My biggest fear is that the superior force, the aliens, learned that we are more a danger to ourselves than they could ever be. So they are just waiting for us to wear the opposition down.

Elections suck. Bad people suck. But the aliens might just be waiting for us to kill each other off. Because they know they can't beat us united. Which will always be our greatest and more powerful skill.   

Thoughts. Too Many Thoughts. Growing is Awful and Wonderful all at once.

So tonight, fatherhood feels a lot like this:

I mean, clearly I don't have a bow and arrow. I've just got the past 11.9 years of parenting. She's going to be fine. She's amazing. But it's middle school. It's sixth grade. It's new, it's scary, it's wonderful. 

When I was in sixth grade. It was a different world. Here are some of the things I remember; 

• The Berlin Wall hadn't fallen yet. It would. 
• I was the IT guy for the 7th and 8th grade classes since I knew how to reboot a IBM 286. 
• An offhand comment by my teacher propelled me to a second place finish in the full school Geography Bee. 
• The Twins had just won the World Series and I believed in baseball and miracles. 
• Image Comics was more important to me than DC or Marvel combined. 
• I experienced most movies through recess recounts by my best friend.
• I had no idea what I was doing. 

I think that if I am honest, I had it pretty easy. No social media. No expectation of civil activism. No global warming on my mind. No big questions of immigration and terrorism. No thought of gender roles. No concern if the Twins might ever win a division again. Kids today have Netflix instead of their best friend's recess account. 

But none of us have any idea what we are doing. 

That's probably the one truth. We are all just stumbling about, trying our best. 

Which is pretty damn good. Trying is harder than we admit. 

I know that my daughter is going to be ok. She's going to thrive. She is excited. Her school will provide her with so many good opportunities. 

I worked the fair this weekend. Partly for extra $ and partly because when I work the fair, part of me is back at my first job. 15. Selling fried ice cream in a trailer. Dealing with my first breakup. Fighting through being both a kid and man. Searching. 

Every time I am at the fair. Part of me is that 15 year old kid. It was a great and horrible summer. Early on, it was the first time I openly cried in front of a friend. Who passed a soccer ball to me repeatedly and let me kick the crap of it in tears and never judged, never questioned. It was the summer of my first job. Of working for someone, of trying to do it well. Of answering a thousand questions like...."Fried Ice Cream? Don't it melt?!" 

It was a weird summer. It was a great summer. 

So many are. 

This summer ends in 4 hours. She's in middle school. He's in 4th grade. The memories of my challenges seem small. I only want them to have the chance to face their own and someday write a silly self serving blog about it when their kids are in school...

Summer will end. They will grow. I'm still growing. 

It's terrifying. It's an adventure. Middle school. Fried Ice Cream. Life. 

I have to trust. Something. Trust fate. Trust life. Trust a higher power. 

Because they've already been very clear I can't enroll as a sixth grader tomorrow. 

Fatherhood. You kind of have to Taste it.

I work at a brewery. In a beer hall. At least 5 times every shift, I will be trying to explain the flavor profile of a beer to a visitor. After about 90 seconds of an attempt if I still see the bewilderment and confusion on their face, I usually just pour them a sample.

Inevitably, as soon as they taste it, the cartoon light bulb above their head lights up. They get it. Because they tasted it too.

For me, Fatherhood is the same way.

I spent most of my childhood, I looked at my father with that same bewilderment and confusion. Why was he always telling me what to do? Why the constant logic? Why does he make this so difficult?

Why?

It was something I didn't learn until I learned what fatherhood meant.

Fatherhood isn't about making a child. Children do that all the time. In many ways I was still a child when I had a child. It took time to learn how to be a father. It took work.

Every rough draft of a paper I have ever written has been mostly torn to shreds. Rightfully so. Even in grade school and high school I could hastily slap a research paper together that was good enough to pass. But it wasn't good.

I remember the dread of walking down the stairs with my 3.5 inch floppy disk (old alert!) to print my paper off in my father's office. Sometimes I would try and rush so I could just print it off without him knowing. Because if I could, I wouldn't have to revise.

But there was always a lack of paper or some cosmic event that brought him into the room. He'd see the words on the screen or pick up a page from the printer. Immediately my dreams of half ass-ing my way through it were dashed.

I hated it. I knew that the paper was good enough. He knew it wasn't good. So the battle would begin.

My teenage angst against his unwavering expectation to actually do my best.

We'd argue. I'd pout or use what I perceived was a rapier like wit. (It wasn't). And after an hour or two, we'd print out a vastly superior paper. It wasn't always an A. Mostly because I would in my stubbornness resist enough that I shot myself in the grade book. But it was better. 

I used to hate those workshop sessions. But I never once considered that my father might too.

They weren't fun. But they were necessary. Because I could do better.

I never once thought he might hate the battle as much as I. 

When my son and daughter were born, I was a Dad. But not yet a Father. It took me a long time to learn that a big part of being a Father is doing things that you don't necessarily want to do. Things that aren't always fun. Like discipline. Like consequences. Like you know, actual parenting.

I'm a better Father today than I was when my children were born. I will be a better Father years from now. It is the hardest job I have ever had because it is the most important.

Thank you Dad for doing the things you might not have wanted to do. Thank you for pushing me to do more than just enough. Thank you for helping me see that being a Father is like jumping out of an airplane trying to catch a falling man and put a parachute on them while they try and stop you.

We only get so much time to make a difference. To get the parachute on. It's a fight. Often the person falling refuses to acknowledge the help. But it's our job.

Thank you Alan Winegarden for showing how to do it.

 I could never truly understand until I tasted it myself.

PS - thanks again for not red carding me when I told you that my obviously late slide tackle and subsequent yellow card was BS. Even if you can't remember being a ref. ;)

The Unintended Good is the Best

I have struggled with sleep most of my life. Many people find sleep a comfort. A relaxing period of rest. A respite from the reality of real life.

To me, sleep is the worst.

Dreams. Nightmares. Night terrors. Just weird shit. It happens. It's always happened. Some days better than others. When it's just a nude speech in high school it's unsettling. When it's fighting zombies or demons off my children, it's time to have breakfast at 3 am.

As a child I would read with a flashlight under the covers. The first night terror I remember was awaking to a ghost floating out side my closet when I was in first grade. I ran and told my folks and the did the normal thing. Clearly there was no sign of a ghost. But I didn't believe. I took my kangaroo and two lego guys into bed with me to make sure (my alter ego and his andriod bodyguard)  I needed the support. I needed the placebo.

As I've grown older, I've learned that for me, perception is reality. If I perceive a benefit, there will be one. Mountain Dew was my spinach. I could always reach for it in time of need. Pot roast. Broaster Chicken. Tot dish. Green Bean Casserole. All became some mythical food. If I could just have that I would be ok. Clam Chowder. Surge.  Unrequited Love. The right pair of socks. Family. Fear. The ideal of the one. All have at one time or another kept me going. Propped up my ego my id and my soul.

I am not able to shake these needs. I am not above placebo. If anything, I have learned that for me there is little more important than what I think I feel.

Which brings me to tonight. And steak and eggs and a woman who shamefully, who's name I don't even know.

Yeah. Yeah the whole shame and women thing is not the issue here. Another time perhaps.

What is the point, what is the focus is that Steak and Eggs from my favorite greasy spoon is the best placebo I have ever had.

Well it's not the steak and eggs at all. Or the hashbrowns. Or any of the actual nutrients.

It's a completely different nutrient. It's the nutrient, the drug of being remembered.

There is nothing so intoxicating as being.

It's why I love many of my favorite places. Life is painfully full of anonymity. 99% of the world will never know my name. Never learn anything about me.

And for someone who trend toward ego-centric. That sucks.

Yet.  Being remembered is the best. It's like crack. Like a shot of adrenaline. Like love.

And in a way it's the basest form of Love.

Some nights. When I know that sleep will be especially rough. When I can't find the right recipe for solace. I will seek my solace in steak and eggs from a greasy spoon diner.

But even then, I will wait until I see who is working.

Not which cook.

Not which grillmaster.

Just which server.

If I don't see her. I leave.

And no. It's not a crush. Yes, I am prone to crushing on those in the service industry who excel.

No.

I need to know that my comfort, my placebo is safe.

She sees me enter. Either comes to the counter or gives me a nod. (A simple acknowledgement can change the world).

Eventually she comes to take my order. Yet that doesn't really count. Which is the point.

She knows my order.

Medium Rare Steak
Scrabbled Eggs.
Hashbrowns.
To Go.
No Bag or napkins.

(She always tries to talk me into the napkins)

....she's right.

It's hard to describe the joy and power that comes from being known. From having your wants and needs met before you can even express them. From service on a level that is. Unusual. Yet right.

I keep my tip in the appreciative but not creepy range*

Tip Range
*0-10% Probably a Jerk or HS kid
*10-20% Normal Ignorance of the Industry
*20-30% Service Industry/Great Service
*30%+ Probably a creepy stalker.

So it's not about that. It's the service and the fact she remembers me before I can remind her.

Nothing feels so good as being remembered.

So much of life is admitting that through the normal passage of time, we are all forgotten.

Thank you server at my greasy spoon midnight bad decision place.

You'll never know how much it means to be remembered.

And I'll never truly be able to tell you.

But I'll probably creepy tip as an attempt.

Is Speech to Text the Modern Kerouac?

It seems more and more I enjoy the silence tired of the talk radio music blaring my just drive it's quiet I used to do it to think I think now I do it so I don't think nothing in my head nothing to spark the imagination cold dark night driving down the road nothing to wonder about nothing to hope for nothing to drink nothing to fear nothing to lose nothing to think of loss nothing I wonder if maybe this is what Zen is where you reach equilibrium with universe and you could be at peace part of me wonders if maybe this is what giving up is for you stop fighting the current and you just float and you go wherever the stream may take you even maybe over a waterfall because you realize that the overall power of the current is more than you could ever you can't compare that fight and rage and set your job as you're my dude doesn't matter maybe this is growing up figuring out some battles hell most battles can't be won instead for today I'll call it Zen.