Firecracker: Is that a black bagel? Me: Yeah, it’s pumpernickel. Her: Oh, I’ve never had it before. Me: You’ve never had it before?! Her: You know, you do that all the time: I tell you that I’ve not had or done X and you immediately say, “You’ve never had X?!” No, Logan, I haven’t. THAT’S WHY I SAID IT! Me: Noted. (under breath) You didn’t have to yell…
My buddy Annabel swung by my pad the other day and dropped off some gifts for the kid.
I’m always touched when someone goes out of their way to help us out or do something nice for us.
The main problem with having such easy access to a good camera these days – after all, even the cheapest cell phone still takes pretty good shots – is that you end up with hundreds if not thousands of pictures that you really should go and clean up.
I keep having to upgrade my harddrives because I have so many pictures.
So, the other day, I started deleting pictures that either aren’t good or that I just don’t care for.
Been coming across some cool ones though.
Like the woman above obviously shooting a model shot.
Or this one below of people jumping onto the tracks to save someone.
Think he just fell in, and those two fellas jumped in to rescue him.
Again, thank goodness for the good souls, right?
Finally, the below conversation between the Firecracker and her sister made me laugh…
Location: late evening, picking up my son late from school. There’s a lot to do at the end of the year.
Mood: sleepy
Music: Christ, I’m out of my mind (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Him: But it fits! Me: Kinda. You’re definitely Brittney Spearsing it here.
Clothes that I just bought for the kid last year are already not fitting him.
I remember that, as a kid, I loved this yellow shirt with a red V on it. Wore it until my bellybutton was constantly out, all Britney Spears like.
Think my parents were just happy that I didn’t ask for new clothes, but I always think that Alison woulda wanted him to be put together so I try my best.
My best being a sliding scale.
(c) Getty Images
Him: Why don’t you ever show my face? Me: Because I don’t have that right. At least, I shouldn’t have that right.
Been enjoying my new gym – it’s interesting rolling with people from a completely new gym because no one knows my game and I know no one else’s game, so each roll feels very different than at my old gym.
Recently rolled with a very talented but smaller female. While I could have easily beat her, that wasn’t why I was there; I was there to get better.
Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.
In a way, that’s why I don’t put up pictures of my kid where you can clearly see his face.
See, I grew up in a time where you could grow up in relative anonymity.
Never realized what a gift that was until YouTube because – MAN – did I do some jaw-droppingly bone-headed things when I was younger.
Legit, thank god everyone didn’t walk around with a video camera because I would most likely be hated by the world writ large.
In that sense, I feel that it’s not fair or right that I – as someone much bigger and much older than my kid – have the right to take away my son’s chance to be anonymous.
Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.
He’s a little kid right now but little kids grow up to be adults.
When he is one, he might resent not being able to tell his own story his own way.
If you think about it, the thing that probably pisses you off the most is when someone else tells your story.
Janet? She’s such a slut. Did you hear last Friday, she…
Tom? He’s a loser. When we were kids…
That guy? Lemme tell you about him…
But I have to balance that with the fact that I’m proud of him – so proud of him – and what he can do so I wanna show him off.
And that’s really what it is with parents, isn’t it?
They want to show their kids off, not for their kids sake, but for their own. And that’s not right, I don’t think.
Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should.
So, my concession is that I blur or hide his face and name so that when/if he does want to have a public face/name, that’s his choice to make when he’s old enough to make that choice.
For now, I realize that, just because I could put up anything I want about him, I shouldn’t.
Me: One day, you’ll be old enough to decide who you are and how you want the world to see you. You and your friends are gonna be some of the first kids on the planet that’s lost that right to be a nobody. Him: (thinking) What if I wanna be someone? Me: That’s your choice to make. I’ve lived my life. I don’t have the right to live your life as well. You get to decide who and what you want to be. (pause) For what it’s worth, you’re always someone to me. You’re my most important someone.
Location: a pier with four lovely ladies – including the Firecracker – the boy, and a bottle of white
Mood: so. full.
Music: I just wanna be someone. Well, doesn’t everyone? (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Her: It’s gonna overflow! Me: It’ll be fine. Her: It’s gonna overflow! We should get something. Me: It’ll be fine. Her: (momentarily) It didn’t overflow! You were right. Me: I was just hoping.
This qualifies as middle-aged excitement.
And I always tell myself that things will be ok, even when I have no idea if they will be.
It’s just naked hope.
All these decades later, it’s still just naked hope and I still don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
For reasons that we don’t need to get into, had to leave my gym recently and join another one.
All-in-all, it’s fine because there are so many great schools in the city, I was able to join another one less than 48 hours later but it’s a bummer that I had to say goodbye to alla my friends from my old spot.
I also have a lotta really seasoned BJJ people to coach me while I make the transition, like Bryson, Giph, and the Frenchman, who’s a black belt himself.
Speaking of the Frenchman, he headed up my way and we – the kid, the Firecracker, him, and me – all grabbed some food around the way.
Because it’s May, and I hate May, been eating a lotta Greek, Japanese, and Chinese food because that’s comfort food for me.
Although I do try to slip in a salad or two here and there since beach weather is coming up.
Have to lose about 5-8 pounds from alla my traveling and eating, but I’m already down about three pounds with the new gym.
Another Mother’s Day and Alison’s birthday down.
Just need to make it to June and then past August and I can breathe a little easier until next May.
This entry is out of order; back to the regular nuthin in the next entry.
The Firecracker’s dad came into town this weekend and we met up with him on Saturday for a kid’s birthday party.
It was fine for the most part but then a parent snapped at my kid when he tried to break a piñata with his foot when it fell down – like an 8 year old kid understands why whacking a piece of cardboard with a stick is ok but kicking it isn’t – and destroyed him in front of all the other kids.
It pretty much set the mood for the rest of the weekend for us.
He’d never cried at a birthday party before and, of course, it had to happen during the weekend of Mother’s Day and his mom’s birthday.
Obviously, there’s no way for the other parent to have known that.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t have known and that she was a mom, I woulda been arrested.
Still, he was fine after a spell because I raised him to be resilient, but – man – I was steamed.
Him: She said I did it on purpose, but I didn’t. I was trying to help. (sadly) I’m the worst kid. Me: Don’t ever say that. She doesn’t know you at all. You’re the best kid mom or I could ever ask for. Him: Really? Me: Honest and for true.
We then went to have dinner with the Firecracker’s family at a local taco joint that I’d been to before and then called it a night.
The next morning, despite it being Mother’s Day, the Firecracker got up bright and early to make her family and us a killer brekkie with a baked blueberry and apple oatmeal dish and a baked fritatta with feta and bacon.
The oatmeal bar
My kid liked it so much, he asked for seconds of everything and also asked for more the next day.
God, I love that kid – he’s just like me where we eat our feelings.
We all chatted at my place for hours until we had to meet up with the ABFF for dinner and to remember Alison.
This was probably the worst birthday/Mother’s Day yet for the kid because he feels the loss now.
Being humiliated and yelled at a birthday party probably didn’t help matters.
It was the hardest one for me for a while because it hit the kid so hard.
Him: (looking up at the ballon) How do we know she’ll get it? Me: We hope. Him: (nodding) I hope she knows I miss her. Me: She knows. I’m sure she knows
Her: I like room temperature soda. Me: I only realized now that I’m dating a psychopath.
Not been sleeping well for a while now. It’s a long story.
Been thinking about Alison and my dad a lot lately for a whole buncha reasons we don’t need to get into, but one small reason is Princess Kate.
The fact that she and King Charles both have cancer should be a wake up call to everyone for a simple reason:
If two people that have the best of everything – healthcare, food, trainers, etc. – can get cancer, anyone can.
You definitely can.
In the 1970s, a fella you never heard of named Kotaku Wamura was the mayor of a Japanese town you never heard of, Fudai.
When Warmura was a kid in 1933, he saw a tsunami kill 439 people in Fudai and made a kid’s promise to himself – he would prevent this from ever happening to Fudai ever again.
When he became mayor in 1970, through sheer force of will, he convinced the town to erect a 51-foot-high gate as a public works project.
He, and his supporters were mocked mercilessly as fools.
Fast forward some 40+ years to the Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011, which I wrote about before, and killed over 19,000 people and destroyed at least 45 towns and cities.
But the village and almost all its people were almost completely unscathed.
Not a day goes by without someone saying something chiding about what I eat, how I live, or what I do.
“You eat that much peanut butter?”
“Sardines? Fish, out of a can?! Disgusting!”
“Do you really need to roll around with sweaty men every day?”
“That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
Essentially, the argument I hear is always something that starts with, “Everyone…”
Something is fucked in our lives and we’re all dying of cancer. I dunno what it is but I’m trying to go where science is telling me to go.
And I still might get it because the odds are shit.
But I’m gonna do everything I can to try to avoid it if possible.
You should too.
Wamura died in 1997 at age 88 and never saw that he was right. But he was right.
And I think I’m right here; just like Wamura didn’t know when the next tsunami would be, he knew it would come eventually just like I know cancer will touch alla us at some point if it hasn’t already.
Cancer doesn’t give a shit if you’re a king, a princess, a new mother, or a nobody.
It’s here to end – or at least massively fuck up – your life, if you don’t do something about it.
I’m not the one that’s living an extreme life, IMHO.
To me, the people living an extreme life are the ones that know that there’s a close to 50/50 chance at getting the emperor of all maladies and doing nuthin meaningful about it.
Years ago, he wrote me something while I was struggling. Dunno if I ever shared it with you.
I’d forgotten all about it because he sent it to me when I was still pretty muddle-headed but it came up between us, recently and I wanted to share.
He took words from my blog and put them to some electronica music he composed and called it: Logan’s Stressful Day.
In any case, here is below.
I definitely don’t have much musical talent – certainly nuthin like my mom and brother.
But it’s nice that my kid has it as well.
He’s actually going to be in the school talent show and he just started playing Hotel California recently – here’s his audition for it.
Just keep in mind that’s he’s only eight…
I joke with friends that I’m still hoping that he’ll be a surgeon or doctor versus a performer.
But in the end, I suppose I just want him happy and productive.
Although I do have some personal preferences.
Teacher: Your son (programmed) a game that my other students want to play. He has talent there. Me: Great! I’ll take programmer, surgeon, or lawyer. Her: (laughing) I’m sure one of those will happen. Me: That’s the hope!
Her: He’s telling me to not fight and he’ll promise to give me the apartment. Me: He broke the trust covenant where he stood in front of alla your friends and said he’d love you until one of you were dead. You’re both alive, which makes him a liar. Her: So, what do I do? Me: When someone breaks the trust covenant, you can never trust anything he or she says. What should you do? Stop trusting him first. Everything else comes second.
That’s pretty much alla her story that I feel comfortable telling you since it’s her story to tell.
So, I’ll end that part here.
When all is said and done, the price of love is heartache.
While grief and loss with horror and death is generally worse, loss is still loss and grief is still grief.
Ergo, I do understand that she struggles, even though her loss is very different from mine.
In Sherlock, Mycroft Holmes says something to his younger brother Sherlock who, compared to Mycroft, is the more emotional of the two.
Mycroft said, All lives end; all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage.
Often think that Mycroft’s not wrong. There’s no advantage in caring about people, in fact, it’s a disadvantage to care.
And yet, we’re all programmed to do so.
Sometimes I think it’s a glitch in our programming and other times, I don’t.
Just wish that, sometimes, I didn’t feel all the things I do as deeply as I do.
But this is the price to be human so I pay it, hoping that I can afford it for as long as I can.
Her: (wiping her eyes) I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cry. Me: Don’t apologize for your genuine emotion. I’m always just a bad memory from crying myself.
Location: a playground with the Steeles and the Firecracker, eating 20 cheeseburgers and having a diet coke
Mood: pensive
Music: Is this something I should be letting go? (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
I raise my son like my parents raised me – after all, it’s all I know.
But the one thing that I do differently is to give the boy a sense that physical education is as important as a mental one.
Now, my dad swam every single day for at least 90 minutes a day, for years.
Yet, he never emphasized physical fitness to me, something that I picked up myself after getting beaten up one-too-many times.
On that note, the boy’s really been excelling at his swimming lately.
And he also got his first stripe on his new belt.
Him: Are you proud of me? Me: Super proud! But more importantly, are you proud of yourself? Him: Yes! Me: Good – because that’s really the most important thing.
As for me, I need to work out a lot more because I keep finding myself out and about.
The Frenchman and Bryson swung by my hood the other night, so we hit up my local dive bar and caught each other up on what been going down.
Him: How is deep fried cauliflower any better than French fries? Me: Because it’s deep-fried cauliflower! Both of them: (shake their heads)
I also filled in the Frenchman on why I pick my particular types of physical activities.
Frenchman: Wait, is that why you do BJJ? Me: Yup! Bryson said I was too much a germaphobe to ever do anything like BJJ. Bryson: So, Logan’s been doing BJJ all these years purely to prove me wrong. Me: My level of petty spite is pretty spectacular. Frenchman: And you’re really a germaphobe? Bryson and me: (nodding) Oh, yeah.
The classic angular face for both men and women is innately attractive to us because it’s a sign of vitality and strength so when we meet people with soft faces and jaws, it seems “wrong” to us, but we can’t exactly explain how.
That’s why it’s a compliment is to call a man “square-jawed,” and not “round-jawed.”
(c) Someone else
Unfortunately, as the years go on, more and more people will start having these softer features because we:
avoid violence as a whole, and
eat more-and-more ultra-processed foods and a hallmark of ultra-processed foods are that they’re not gritty – as they take out all the fiber – and not tough.
Think applesauce versus a tough piece of steak or nuts.
Was telling the Firecracker that the danger here is that the baseline level of what is “soft,” should be, say, the level of well-cooked chicken but, because of things like whitebread and applesauce, the floor is much lower.
This, in turn, means that what was once considered “soft” is now considered tough because the curve changed.
I’m always fighting the boy to eat more real food; to wit, minimally processed foods like whole raw nuts and fresh fruit.
No less than four of his friends cannot eat normal – non-ultra processed – foods at all.
I know at least one adult who can’t eat something unless a machine made it.
So far, the boy’s been good about listening to me when it comes to food but I’m worried that his peers will convince him that “normal” means “ultra-processed” while actual real food is strange.
What a world we live in these days.
Parenting means that there’s a never-ending litany of things to be concerned about.
Him: Can I have more cucumbers? Me: You can have all the cucumbers you want, kid. Him: But we don’t have that much. Me: I’ll get more. You can always eat as many vegetables as you want and if we run out, I’ll get more, don’t you worry.
Location: A dive bar with Bryson and the Frenchman, enjoying $5 mixed drinks of questionable quality.
Mood: fatty-fat-fat
Music: I find that old habits don’t die (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
An old friend of mine reached out to me the other day.
Her: I thought of you. I thought, “If Logan could survive everything he survived, I can survive this.” Me: (nodding) You totally can. Even when we don’t wanna survive things, we do. We’re meant to struggle and scuffle until we’re breathless and weak. Her: (sadly) I trusted him. I can’t believe that he did this. I keep wondering if I… Me: You didn’t do anything wrong. This is a him problem, not a you problem. Her: But…he’s my life. Me: You lived a solid 32 years without knowing he existed. How could someone you’ve known seven outta 38 years be your entire life? Her: (sighing) You’re right. I know you’re right. (laughing) When did you get so smart? Me: Sometime in the mid-90s I think. Her: It still amazes us that you’re still here. Me: It amazes me too. Somehow, I’ve learned to eat shadows and shit rainbows. Her: (laughs, takes a deep breath, then sighs)
Location: looking for a Level 4 ballistic plate in a playground
Mood: irritated
Music: Running from your bad decisions (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
So, the other day, I started deleting pictures that either aren’t good or that I just don’t care for.
