BrockLi Soup

My dad had knee surgery on Thursday. I talked to him last night to see how we was doing and catch up a bit.

Dad: Oh yeah, I think you’re rubbing off on me a bit.

Me: Oh really?

Dad: Yeah, the other day, Mom lost a file she made on the computer, and I managed to find it for her.

Me: Oh, I was hoping you would say that you’d been feeling more liberal since the surgery or something like that.

Dad: Nope, they didn’t do anything to my brain.

Me: Walked right into that one, didn’t I.

Once in a while, someone will ask Erin or me if we’re planning to have kids. When we say no, I already know what response we’re going to get. Our peers, and the few friends who don’t already know where we stand, will usually ask why not, and we’ll have a nice chat about it. But among parents, older relatives, and older co-workers, the response is almost always the same: “Well, we’ll see.”

First off, if you think you know the answer already, then why did you bother asking? And second, why do people seem to think they already know what we want to do with our lives? It’s true that most people grow up, get hitched, and make babies - that’s the norm. Pretty much anyone asking us about kids followed that route themselves, and I don’t fault them for expecting that we would too: as the ones bucking the trend, it’s on us to explain why, I suppose. I have no problem explaining why we don’t want to have kids, but it’s really frustrating to do so to someone who doesn’t consider me adult enough to be capable of making decisions about how I want to live my life, and who I want to live it with.

When I was born, my dad was 26 - about a year and a half older than I am now. Mom was only 23, a year younger than I am. They had already been married for over 2 years. The way I see it, they were no more qualified to make such decisions at that point than I am now.

It’s not hard to see why people expect us to have kids. Like I said before, most people get married with plans to start procreating soon after. A lot of people grow up expecting that they’ll do the same, and looking forward to it (or so I assume). I, too, always assumed I’d be a dad someday. I looked forward to having a son to play catch with, teaching him how to fix stuff like my dad did, and seeing him graduate from college.¹

But that’s all I saw. I saw myself as a parent almost as if you might in a movie about someone’s life - just the highlights, really. My vision of parenting was about 90 minutes in a comfy seat with air conditioning and a tub of popcorn. I never thought about the 18 years, minimum, of effort that would go into it. I didn’t consider the late nights up with a screaming baby, the incredible financial burden of a child, or the fact that I am decidedly unqualified to be responsible for a tiny helpless person. I never wanted any of that. I just wanted to be able to look back, late in my life, and watch the highlight reel.

I was 23 when I met Erin, and getting married and having kids started to look like an actual possibility. I had never seriously dated anyone before, so I never really had to think about it, and I just carried on with my unexamined assumptions. Once we started talking about it, and once I took the time to really think about it, I realized that it was the first time I had stopped to think about it, and really, I didn’t want to have anything to do with that whole mess.

I could change my mind. I could decide, after five or ten years, that I actually do want to be a father. I could also decide that Hitler was right all along. I’m a realist, so I don’t deny that I could change my mind, but it’s a pretty slim chance. So I suppose they’re right: we will see. I wouldn’t start buying baby clothes for us, though.

¹ Aside: I could never have daughters. Having been a teenaged boy once myself, there’s no way I could have a daughter without becoming the violently overprotective father that threatens to emasculate every punk kid that looks at her. (return)

I moved out of my parents house when I started college, two months before turning 18. At the time, my youngest brother Shaun was 11, and I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of that house.

My youngest brother was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to leave. Not him personally, although being six years apart, we didn’t really have anything to talk about and weren’t “buddies” per se. From my perspective, I thought my parents were parenting to the lowest common denominator: I always felt like I was being treated like a much younger child, pretty much the same way they treated the 11 year-old.

In retrospect, it wasn’t really that. My parents have always called me their “trial child” - since I’m the oldest, they try things out on me, and then decide whether it worked well enough to be used on the younger two. By the time they got to Shaun, they had six years of experience under their belts, so they were a lot laid back. He gets away with a lot more than even Eric did, which was even more than I did. Every time I go home, I’m surprised by how much they’ve relaxed since I lived there.

I mention all this because I realized today that Shaun is just a couple months younger than I was when I left for college. It’s weird to think about, since I’ve only seen him a few times a year since he was 11. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing the same thing my parents did to me - treating him like he’s still a little kid, because I haven’t really been around to see him grow up into a near-adult.

Long story short: I’m really looking forward to seeing my family for Christmas. My parents have loosened up, my brothers have grown up a lot since I was last able to spend much time with either of them, and I haven’t been home since June. It’s too bad I couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving too, but whatchyagonnado.

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve written much of anything, but let’s make this quick, shall we?

About a week and a half ago, my parents and youngest brother came to visit for a long weekend. We hit some museums, looked at some monuments, and spent a lot of time just hanging out. I was the de facto tour guide, but since I don’t know the city terribly well, we almost got lost a couple times. I took some pictures - see?

This past weekend, BP, Otto, and Freshman came down to visit. We spent most of the weekend drinking and BBQ-ing, and I’m still recovering from it all, but it was wonderful. During the BBQ (and after a number of drinks), BP and I agreed that we would get tattoos together on Monday. Turns out, I had to work and he had to drive back to New York, so that didn’t happen, but it will sooner or later.

On Sunday night, BP and I drove up to Baltimore to see Flogging Molly (the fourth time I’ve seen them, the third time with BP) at Rams Head Live. The venue was pretty good for it - medium-sized and conveniently located on the closer side of Baltimore. Zox (not bad) and Bedouin Soundclash (”horribly average,” as a guy at the bar described them) opened the show, and thankfully, neither of them did a full set like the last time. During Bedouin Soundclash’s set, Nathan Maxwell (the bassist) came out from backstage and hung out with the crowd between the bar and the pit. I wandered over to shake his hand, mostly so I can say I touched a Molly.

BP and I made our way into the pit about 15 minutes before Molly took the stage, and, being a few beers deep, spent the entire time getting the crowd around us riled up with sing-alongs, stretching exercises, and bare-knuckle fisticuffs. It was definitely the best show of the four times I’ve seen them - the crowd was fantastic, I had just the right amount to drink beforehand, and I even managed to hang onto a bottle of water in the pit (you get thirsty in there). Dave King came back out alone for the encore and did the first half of Black Friday Rule acoustic, before the rest of the band jumped in. It was OK, but definitely didn’t touch the thirteen-minute version. The openers could have been better, and we could have convinced more friends to come with us, but really, the show was so good in so many respects that I can’t complain.

It was a rowdy rowdy weekend, and totally worth the hurt Monday morning. Right now, I think I need a weekend without extra people around, but I’m already looking forward to the next big party here at Brockstone Manor.

Tonight Laundry! (suck) Packing! (not-so-suck)

Friday Working my ass off till noon! (crap) Pick up rental car! (sweet!) Pay for rental car! (lame!) Drive! (fun!) It takes 9 hours! (ehhhh) Ride Dad’s motorcycle! (bliss!) Fix parents’ computer! (agony!)

Saturday Cousin’s wedding! (eh, if you’ve seen one Catholic wedding…) Reception! (whoo!) With my brother and cousins! (yeah!) And a bar! (”hey ya’all, watch this!”)

Sunday More motorcycle riding! (double bliss!) Drive home! (ohgodwhyisitsofar) Sleep through the rest of August and parts of March! (wait, what?)

Eric: research papers suck ass

Me: yup

Me: thankfully, I haven’t had to do one since high school

Me: “This is good practice!” they said.

Eric: really

Me: “You’ll have to do a lot of these in college!” they warned.

Eric: why havent you

Me: “Bullshit!” said I!

Me: And I was right and there was sunshine and puppies

Eric: oooh

Eric: puppies

I was talking to my Dad on the phone yesterday when he wrapped up on the conversation with, “Well, I think I’m going to go online and check my e-mail. I haven’t looked at it in a few weeks.”

“I know, I haven’t gotten a barrage of forwards in a while.”

My Dad doesn’t use the computer much, so I always known when he’s been online because I’ve got a bunch of forwards. In any five e-mails, it’s usually one that’s funny, two political, and two religious (usually something like “we’re always so willing to forward jokes, but hesitate when it’s about Jesus” sort of things). The funny ones are usually nothing new, but entertaining to read in a “I haven’t heard that joke in six years” sort of way. Sometimes I’ll scan the religious ones quick before archiving them - religion just isn’t something that I’m going to respond to either way (one of these days, I’ll write a piece about my take on religion).

My favorites are always the political ones. I’m not politically involved - I don’t watch the news, I don’t read newspapers, I don’t take part in any kinds of rallies or groups of any sort. For the most part, my notions of current politics come from what I read in dozens of blogs every day, including sites like Fark and Sploid, which mostly just link to important news stories. I don’t follow things closely, but I hear about the big stuff and try to get some details about it. As such, I don’t really consider myself to be highly political, but I know that I’m still more in touch than most of the American population.

This is part of the reason I love reading the stuff my Dad sends me. Some of it is so over the top, so incredibly wrong and ignorant, that it’s just fun to read. I’ve seen essays purporting to be the writing of Robin Williams and a half dozen other celebrities, along with all sorts of diatribes about how we shouldn’t buy gas from Sunoco or BP for one reason or another.

Almost every time I get these, I get all fired up about it and find a bunch of articles that refute whatever thin arguments it might make, or find the Snopes page discrediting whatever by-line that might be attached. I’m always THIS close to responding and just tearing the whole thing apart, but I never do because I love my Dad and I don’t want to be a dick.

Which is sort of odd, because we argue this shit all the time when I’m home. More than once, my Mom has had to yell at us when we get to hollering at each other out in public. I quite enjoy it because I’ve always been fond of arguing, but she doesn’t like us making a scene.

Anyway, I finally responded to one of my Dad’s e-mails - one about the immigration issue. Assuming he’s actually behind all the arguments made in the article he sent me, we agree on a lot of points. I’m not sure where I stand on thing, really, but at least it was a non-partisan “shit needs fixing” take on it. Of course, given the arguments I made against the parts I’m sure he agreed with, he may never send me anything ever again, but I’m hoping he does. I figure, fighting on the Internet is less offensive to Mom, and I love arguing, even if it’s more typing than shouting and table-pounding.

Preface: Earlier today I talked to my mom, and I told her I was spending the afternoon geeking out. She called back this evening to ask me about something else (it’s also worth noting that I’m the only one of her kids with curly hair).

Mom: You still geeking out? Me: Yeah, I’ve been sitting in front of the TV working on my laptop for a couple hours. Mom: I hope it’s not on your lap! Me: Don’t worry Mom, it’s not on my crotch. Mom: Good, because I want curly haired grandkids someday.

A couple months ago, she called to warn me not to set my laptop on my lap because she saw an article about it killing sperm.

My apartment is full of crap. I’d show you pictures, but the cable for my camera is buried in there somewhere, so you’ll just have to trust me. I got back to Arlington today with a U-Haul truck full of furniture and the rest of my stuff. As it turns out, the best way to furnish a new apartment is to rent a truck much bigger than what you need, and then casually mention this to family and friends. Everyone has some furniture that’s yours for the taking if you just get it out of their basement. Now I’ve got a kitchen table, a second dresser, and a bed. It was once a water bed, so it’s even got some shelves in the headboard and drawers underneath.

I’d say that more Christmas weekend details will be forthcoming, but that’s a bold-faced lie and we both know it, so here’s a quick summary:

Fridays are best when they end at noon with BBQ pork and Samuel Adams (I love my job). Baltimore airport may be cheaper, but getting there is a pain in the ass. Seeing the extended family was a lot of fun, as it always is. Christmas was great, and I got a kickin DVD player, so I won’t be leaving my living room except to sleep in my new bed. Driving a huge U-Haul took some getting used to, and I spent way too much time in Pennsylvania today. Matt P is a hero, and solved the many issues related to the U-Haul, including unloading it, returning it, and getting my car back - thanks again, Matt.

Driving all day takes a lot out of you. If I can find my toothbrush, I’m going right to bed.

I spent the day at my parent’s house near Buffalo. Our family cell plan contract was up this month, and we decided to extend it since it’s cheaper than maintaining three separate plans. As such, we all got new phones - Eric and I both got a Samsung SCH-a630, and my parents are sharing an SCH-a850.

I like the phone because it’s pretty small, and I like the clamshell. However, I was so used to my old phone and knew EXACTLY how to do everything I wanted to, that adapting to this one was been rocky at best. It seems that Voice Dialing is in no way attached to the phone book - on the Motorola, you could add a voice dial to contacts in the phone book, and everything was peachy. On the Samsung, you record a voice dial, and then enter the number that goes with it, whether it’s already in the phone book or not. The ringers just plain suck, so I picked the least annoying of them. When you adjust the ringer volume, it doesn’t actually make any noise, so I have no idea how loud “Level 3″ is until someone calls me. As far as I can tell, there’s no voice note feature, which sucks because I’d often leave reminders for myself. The color screen is sort of nice, but my long-standing suspicion was correct - a simple, monochrome list is a much more usable menu than a colorful one with icons.

The text predictor isn’t as flexible as the Motorola’s - if the word isn’t in the dictionary, you have to enter it manually. On the Motorola, you could sort of fudge it - for example, I have a friend we call Cupcake. Cupcake is not in the dictionary on the Samsung (and I don’t think it’s in the Motorola). With either, you hit 2-8-7 and get “Cup.” When I hit 2 for the second ‘c,’ it suggests “Curb.” I can hit 0 to cycle through other suggestions, but none of them are right - once I’ve typed the whole word, my options are “Curable” and “Btracke.” On the Motorola, it shows a running tally of options, so it would read “Cupa,” but I could use the right arrow to get “Cupb,” “Cupc,” or “Cup2,” and go from there. It was a nice compromise between text prediction and manual entry.

In the twelve hours or so that I’ve had the thing, I haven’t been too impressed. I imagine it will grow on me, especially once I’m familiar with all the menus and such, but I wish I could have a simple, usable, sturdy phone like I did.

On the bright side, Mom took me shopping and got me some clothes for my birthday. I got to hang out with the family, and I got One Last Ride in before it’s too cold for motorcycling. Along the way, I stopped by a friend’s place and got to take my buddy’s new Harley for a spin, too, so the day wasn’t a loss by any means.

I was just talking to my youngest brother Shaun on AIM and found out that my family is getting a puppy from the SPCA. As far as I know, there were no plans to get another dog, especially since my parents are leaving for a week-long vacation on the 20th - it makes it hard to train a dog if you’re away for that long in the first month. I guess she’s going with them though, so it should work out.

It’s a German Shepherd/Siberian Husky mix, so it’s gonna get BIG. I was wondering what it would look like, so I found some pictures online (the first one looks kind of retarded). The SPCA named her Diamond, but Shaun’s trying to convince Mom to change it. His ideas? Slaughter House, Strong Bad, or Refried Beans (he’s always wanted a dog named Refried Beans, apparently).

I’ve always wanted a big dog - I still want a German Shepherd named Hans Jurgen - but I’m not sure about this. My family adopted a black lab (Lucie) a year or two ago. A guy my Dad works with had to move and couldn’t take her with them, so we got her. I never really grew attached to her, but I haven’t been home a whole lot in the past year, either. And it doesn’t help that she barks at me every time I come home.

We’ve really only had two other dogs. We got Mabel (a black lab mutt) when I was about four. Sophie was a collie/yellow lab, and I was probably 15 or 16 when we got her. Mabel passed away at the beginning of my freshman year, and Sophie died of pancreatitis in November. I was very attached to both of them, but I’d seen them grow up from puppies.

So I’m hesitantly optimistic about this new dog. I like dogs, and I especially like puppies (who doesn’t?), but I’m not home enough to get close to a family dog.

Plus, if my brother has anything to say about it, she’ll have a goofy name anyway.

Last weekend when I was home, my mom mentioned that my youngest brother Shaun (age 15) wanted to go to the Warped Tour show at Darien Lake earlier this week. I haven’t talked to him since, so I’m still not sure if he went, but that’s not the point.

Ben is good friends with Allison, and since I’ve been seeing a lot of Ben lately, I’ve spent some time with Allison. She mentioned the show a couple days ago, so I jokingly asked if she saw my brother there.

“The one with the ‘I’m not wearing underwear’ shirt?”

Apparently she met my other brother Eric at the Dropkick show back in January. He was wearing that shirt, and figured he had to live up to its promise. At some point, he met Allison and her then-girlfriend. One of them asked, “You’re not wearing any underwear, huh?”

“Nope! Wanna see?!”

They saw anyway.

I ask an innocent question about Shaun and hear a story about Eric flashing two lesbians.

I take back almost every bad thing I’ve ever said about golf. I still think it’s a sport for old white guys - for “people who are waiting to die,” I think I put it (to which my brother Eric replied, “You dead yet? Me neither, let’s golf.”)

Let me set the scene for you. In lieu of gifts, my dad wanted to go golfing with my brothers and I for Father’s Day. Since it was a crappy weekend, we agreed to do it sometime later in the summer. This past weekend was perfect, so I went home Friday night. Now, I haven’t golfed in about five years. My dad hasn’t in almost as long, Eric (20) in probably 3 years, and Shaun (15) had only played once, a year or two ago. Thankfully, Eric spent three summers working at a country club and had collected a couple hundred golf balls along the way. I knew we were likely to lose a lot of them, so I loaded about 20 into my bag before we left. We only lost six, as far as I know - Eric over-shot one hole, into the woods, and Shaun put five in the pond. We had every imaginable type of ball, including a handful of those yellow and orange ones you only find on the driving range.

Shaun: “I think I’ll start with a Callaway.” Eric: “Those are like forty bucks for a dozen.” Shaun: “Perfect.”

We played on a small par 3 course not far from home. We’re only talking 100-160 yards each, so it certainly wasn’t anything major. Shaun tried his 1 wood on the third or fourth hole, and since it was his best drive yet, he decided to just use it for the rest of the game. Eric had great form and was really consistent, but never quite on - he kept landing drives to the left of the green and didn’t do too well putting. I was all over the place. Dad didn’t seem to stand out one way or another, but he beat us all soundly. Around the 14th hole, I mentioned that I couldn’t keep my left elbow straight.

Dad: “You’re supposed to keep your elbow straight?” Me: “Um…yeah.” Dad: “Oh. I wonder if that will help.”

As it turns out, it WILL help, and he did a lot better in the last few holes.

Shaun declared toward the beginning of the game, “First one to 100 wins!” By his rules, he won with a 102. I got a 97, Eric had 90, and Dad 80. We certainly didn’t do well, but it was better than expected, and I had a blast. I almost never get a chance to see all three of them at the same time, and we had a lot of fun. The game was actually fun to play - I remember it being incredibly frustrating, but I guess it’s more fun if you go in expecting to suck.

Alright, so the weekend didn’t end as planned. I was planning on being back in Rochester by 6 to see a movie or two at The Little. I didn’t get back till 8 or 9, though.

Around 12:30, Eric and I took off for a ride on the bikes. I didn’t think we were going to be gone more than half an hour, so I just pulled on the clothes from the night before and took off. We had been out for about 15 minutes when we stopped to call my cousin Mike and see if that crew was out riding. They were planning to take off in about 20 minutes’ time, so we turned around and headed out their way.

I don’t get to see much of my cousins these days, and I’ve never ridden with more than one other person, so riding with that crew was a lot of fun. There were six bikes - me, my brother Eric, my cousins Kevin and Mike (with Laura on board) and their friends Pat and Jim. We rode out to the reservation so everybody could buy cheap cigarettes, then back to the house because Jim’s bike was acting up, then out to Chestnut Ridge, where Michelle (Kevin’s girlfriend) was having a family picnic or something. Throughout the course of the day we put almost 100 miles in.

It’s worth noting at this point that it was sunny, in the high 80’s, and very humid on Sunday. I was wearing a black helmet, gloves, jeans, boots, and a leather jacket - typical biking attire. I was sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat. Everyone else was riding in jeans and T-shirts, and THEY were sweating in places they didn’t know they could sweat. I figured, if I fell off the bike, Jim was riding behind me and would run me over anyway, so I stuffed the jacket in Mike’s saddle bag shortly after we left.

As you may recall, this leaves me in a T-shirt and a pair of gloves (on the top half, anyway). You may also recall the bit about the sun.

I was burnt to a crisp from just above my elbows to my wrists. Most of my face was beat red too, aside from the top inch of my forehead (which was covered by the helmet). It was one goofy looking sunburn, but 60 MPH winds through a T-shirt make an 88 degree day far more bearable than a black leather jacket.

At one point, Mike pulled into the left lane and went flying past everyone. Naturally, we all kicked down a gear and took off after him. It turns out my dad’s bike can do about 95 MPH before you need to slow down for railroad tracks.

I thought I was pretty comfortable on the bike when we started out, but I definitely noticed at the end of the day that it felt more natural. I was making the same mistake I did when I get my learner’s permit: I was so nervous about staying in my own lane that I watched the road 20 feet in front of the car and kept nudging the wheel to keep myself in the middle, which only made me bounce back and forth more. My dad told me, “Just look out further down the road, and you’ll stay where you need to be.”

Without constantly focusing on exactly where I was in the lane, it was easier to stay pretty close to the middle. I was doing the same thing on the bike: I knew that I didn’t want to hit pot holes or road kill, so I always watched 20 or 30 feet out to avoid obstacles.

Since I usually ride a couple bike-lengths behind Eric in the right half of the lane, I could bob and weave side to side a little bit without causing any problems. On Sunday, I spent most of my time next to someone and in the left half of the lane, so I couldn’t go too far either way. Maybe it was just easier to watch the bike ahead of me and swerve when he did (lots of road kill on those country roads), but I found on the way home that it was easier to pay attention to the road ahead and stay put in the lane.

It’s a little unnerving to think that I was so confident on the bike before only to find that I could be better, but I know I’m still a beginner. I’m really hoping I can spend just as much time on it in two weeks when I go home, because that road test is coming up quick.

I’m in Buffalo for the weekend to visit the family and get some time on the bike so I’m ready for the road test. This weekend, I’ve noticed the difference between RIT and the area I live in just by watching traffic. You notice a marked decrease in BMW’s and a lot more pickup trucks. The weather’s been nice, so there have been a lot of bikers out - of the 40 or 50 bikes I’ve seen in the past two days, only four of them were crotch rockets.

During one of these trips home, I want to scan more family photos. I posted a bunch of them a little while ago, but there are a lot more. I grabbed six or seven rolls worth when I was home a few months ago. They’re the ones I took in middle and high school, but I keep forgetting to look through them and stop into the library to scan the good ones. Maybe I’ll do that this week. I scanned about 20 more from two rolls my Mom took recently, so I’ll post those when I’m back at RIT.

I haven’t been to The Little since December, so I’m hoping to go tomorrow and catch a movie or two. My membership ends this month, so I’ve only got a few more Sundays to go for free.