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  • You go, girl.

    It’s time to reconsider The Little Engine That Could. For the extent of my lifetime, this book has been seen not only as a classic of children’s literature, but as a progenitor of the entire cursed self-help genre. All of which is fine and good… kids love it (e.g. TheHurricane, who now insists on reading it 8-10 times per day) and it certainly offers a helpful “think positive, and good things happen” attitude that many may find useful. But TheWife and I were discussing it over the weekend (on our way home from this year’s apple picking fiasco), and started considering it in an entirely new light:

    The Little Engine That Could as proto-feminist diatribe.Littleengine

    Witness: the book begins with a chipper, “she”-identified red engine happily chugging along, bringing untold riches of toys and dolls and good food to the children who live on the other side of the mountain. Then, abruptly, she breaks down. The dolls and toys weep, in fear that they will not be delivered to the promised land.

    Witness: a first train comes along – a shiny, golden “he”-identified engine – and the dolls and toys tearfully plead for help. But the shiny new engine refuses. He has just pulled a new passenger train over the mountain, and is far too bright, shiny, new and important to be bothered with the needs of women and children (and stuffed elephants and toy clowns). He tells them as much, and then steams off (he is wholly ego-powered, apparently) back to the roundhouse.

    The shiny new engine is a young, self-important businessman, who believes his own glory and beauty are all that matter in the world, and who has no time or energy for compassion and feeling.

    Witness: a second train arrives – a huge, powerful, black “big strong engine” – and the dolls and toys tearfully plead for help. “Please, please, strong engine. Pull us over the mountain so the good little boys and girls will have toys to play with and good food to eat.” He refuses. He has just pulled carloads of enormous machines over the mountain, machines that print books and newspapers for grown-ups to read. “I am a very important engine indeed” he huffs, “and I will not pull the likes of you.” And off he puffs indignantly (and yes, the author actually uses the word indignantly, which is a great choice for a children’s book) to the roundhouse.

    The big strong engine is the working-class man — too lost in the importance of his own labors to be bothered with the needs of women (e.g. the initial red engine) and children.

    Witness: a third train arrives – an old, rusty gray engine – and the dolls and toys tearfully plead their case. And again, it falls on deaf ears. (Perhaps literally.) “I am so old and tired,” he whines. “I can not. I can not. I can not.” And the tired old engine slowly makes his way back to the roundhouse.

    The tired, old engine is the older man — broken after long years of labor, unable or unwilling to extend any effort to those he might be able to help.

    Witness: a fourth train arrives – a small but beautiful blue train – and when the dolls and toys make their case, SHE agrees to try. “I’ve never been over the mountain,” she says, explaining that the military industrial complex has limited her to servile duties at the roundhouse. But she empathizes with the dolls and toys, and with the valiant, broken red engine, and with the children waiting on the other side of the mountain. So she hooks herself up to the cars and gives her all. “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.”

    And she succeeds. Her beauty – both as a train and as a compassionate, loving being – give her the strength to triumph over adversity and deliver her cargo to the promised land. And there is much rejoicing.

    To summarize: males = egotistical, self-obsessed, unwilling to help those in need. Females = kind, giving, sensitive, and ultimately destined to triumph.

    I couldn’t make this stuff up.

  • Smells like… victory.

    6:06am: I’m sitting on my couch with the twins on my lap, trying to keep them balanced as they guzzle their morning milk. I’m watching the “Eyeopener” news, and when they break for a commercial I’m suddenly confronted with this:

    Let’s just say it was an eye-opening experience for all parties on the couch.

  • Red Sox 5, Devil Rays 1

    Last night marked a rare evening out for your old friend TwoBusy. Joined by my friend Swoosh (not his actual name, but a clever pseudonym), I ditched work early and headed in to Fenway for the first completely meaningless Red Sox game I’ve seen in probably 10 years.

    * Parking cheaply and strategically in Brookline at the Allston line (meters end at 6pm, meaning we parked on Beacon Street for the entire event for 35 cents), we made the 10-minute walk up to the Boston Beer Works. Good God, I do love the Beer Works. It was the site of my first brewpub encounter back in the early 90s, and it was a defining experience for me. From that first visit, I knew these things as a certainty: 1) I love good beer; 2) I love good beer food; and 3) all I wanted from life was a cute girl who would enjoy these things with me. (Hence… TheWife.)

    Even 2 hours before game time – in the last week of the season, where a disappointing 3rd-place Sox team would be facing one of the worst teams in the game – Beer Works was packed. I put in our name for a table, was told to expect a 30+ minute wait, and Swoosh and I made our way down to the lower bar to order a couple of brews. Within 5 minutes, two people abandoned their seats at the bar and Swoosh… uh… swooshed right in. I can’t even begin to express how miraculous this was. I mean, in a heartbeat people were standing 3-deep behind us, trying to order beers and waiting for seats of their own… and yet there we were, happy as clams, beers in hand, burgers and sweet potato fries on the way, 3 flatscreens above the bar in front of us feeding us all the sports minutia we could hope for…

    And there was much rejoicing.

    * I enjoyed two pints, for those of you who may care: a Pumpkinhead Ale (great aroma, but less spiced and wonderful than I remembered… the pumpkin flavor was almost too subtle to pick up on, which is not necessarily what I’m looking for when I drink a pumpkin ale) and an Oktoberfest Lager (very nice — robust, flavorful and extremely full-bodied for a lager. Yum.).

    * We then meandered over to Yawkey Way to explore the memorabilia shops. Insofar as that, between Swoosh and I, we’ve got 5 kids to clothe (holy fuck… five kids? Who are we?) we figured that a nice “thank you” to those who allowed us to get away would be a few kid-sized Sox t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats… whatever.

    HA.

    A little 4T/5T blue sweatshirt with the words BOSTON RED SOX ironed across the front? Forty. Fucking. Dollars. For something our 3-year olds would outgrow in about 4 months. And never mind one of those serious, old-school Sox jerseys I’ve been dreaming of picking up for years. Above and beyond the fact they don’t offer a Gabe Kapler model (not just a great role player, but one of the smartest athletes I’ve ever heard and a guy really worthy of respect), I don’t think the sum total of every piece of clothing I was wearing last night matched the $150 they were asking for a jersey.

    * And then, the game itself. (I should mention here that I got the tickets for free from a buddy of mine in DC, and all it cost me was my soul.)

    The seats were pretty mediocre — right field grandstand, about 2/3 of the way up. But it was our full expectation that the park would be only half-full, especially given that it was the last week of September and we’d be watching a 3rd-place team playing one of the worst teams in baseball. We figured we’d be able to move up easily.

    Think again. We found ourselves joined by 32,000 other people out to enjoy a beautiful, early fall evening in New England. The temperature was a comfortable 60ish degrees, no wind, crystal clear sky fading into a rich dark evening… and as the game unfolded, we shared the most mellow, fun game experience I’ve probably ever had.

    Why? I mentioned something to Swoosh about how this was the most easy-going Sox crowd I’d ever seen, and he nailed it: he said it was because there was absolutely no tension in the game. There was nothing hanging on the result — all 32,000 of us had the freedom to do nothing more than sit back and enjoy the game for the game itself. And you know… it was pretty awesome. We even saw a Yankee fan – with full sleeves of tattoos, a Jeter jersey and blue NY hat – making his way around the stadium in the 6th inning, and there was really no venom at all to the catcalls the guy received. It was all pretty good-natured ribbing (which, if you know Fenway, you know is not the normal reaction), and the guy in question just smiled and waved it off.

    What a great experience.

    * Before the game, they held a ceremony for David Ortiz to celebrate his earning the Sox single-season home run record (previous record: Jimmie Foxx, 50 HRs in 1938). He was joined by Jimmie Foxx’ daughter, Babe Ruth’s granddaughter, and his own wife and 2 adorable kids. The Sox unfurled a long red banner down the Wall listing the top single-season HR totals in team history, with Ortiz’ name and the number 53 at the top. And the crowd gave him a 5-minute standing ovation — just pure, pure love. You can’t enjoy baseball and not love David Ortiz.

    I’ll let you imagine the reaction when he hit #54 in the third inning.

    * Curt Schilling notched his 15th win of the season. Given how up close and personal Curt and I have become over the past month or so, it gave me great pleasure to see him strike out 9 and basically dominate the Tampa lineup. Especially the way he struck out Delmon Young three times — and didn’t even get hit by a bat in retaliation.

    Great parking spot. Great food & beer. Great game. Great night.

  • Wicked

    To our horror, TheHurricane abruptly developed a Boston accent this past weekend. At first we thought he was just goofing around – as he tends to do with words – but as time went by we realized that he was making a legitimate effort to incorporate this new method of enunciation into his speech.

    An example from this morning:

    TheWife: “It’s time for for school! Go get your shoes on.”

    TheHurricane: “I wanna go to Target stoah.”

    TheWife: (burying head in hands) “Oh my god…”

    Me: “Storrrre, buddy. With an ‘R.’ Storrrre.”

    TheHurricane: “Stoah.” (hysterical laughter) “Stoah! I wanna go to Target stoah! Go in the cah!”

    TheWife: (on the verge of tears) “Aaaaaaaaaaagh!”

  • Why I love my job

    “When I got stabbed, at least I had time for a couple of beers before I went to the hospital.”

    – TheCEO

  • to make your tired heart sing

    Eleven songs that makes me ache:

    1. Idaho: Alive Again
    There’s a gorgeous desolation to most of Jeff Martin’s music, and the sounds he wrings out of his open-tuned four-string are unlike anything else I’ve heard. But there’s a different kind of resonance to this piano-based piece. Here the lonesome strain in his voice isn’t hidden behind layers of guitar and echo — and the result is naked, and haunted, and lovely.

    2. The Blue Nile: Family Life
    The quiet anguish of Paul Buchanan’s voice. His unparalleled skill at capturing the tiny details that transform the everyday into something haunted and timeless. A family splintering, irrevocably broken. A child facing the holidays, and wishing – desperately – that things would just be okay again. The piano. The strings. The way I can’t listen to this without getting a lump in my throat.

    3. Snow Patrol: An Olive Grove Facing The Sea
    I know I’m not alone in feeling the emotional weight of this song.

    4. American Music Club: Blue and Grey Shirt
    TheWife says this song makes her think of me.

    5. Low: In Metal
    Like most Low music, there’s an undercurrent of warmth and beauty here that rises shimming and lovely to the surface every time Mimi and Alan harmonize. (This is also – by far – my favorite song about having kids.)

    6. Talk Talk: I Believe In You
    Music doesn’t get much more pure and beautiful than this.

    7. Jets to Brazil: Sea Anemone
    A man sits alone in motel, on the first day of his “second life.” He has no home. No wife. Not much of anything at all. He looks at the shower rod, and wonders, “Can it take my weight?” This song is a Raymond Carver story.

    8. Posies: Precious Moments
    Maybe I’m a sucker for finding this so moving. Fuck it: I am, and it is.

    9. Mark Eitzel: If I Had A Gun
    I remember the first time I heard this song. It was in the mid-90s – not too long after he released 60 Watt Silver Lining – and he was playing a solo show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. He played a mix of songs from 60 Watt and American Music Club, as well as a few songs that would later show up on West. Terrific show, and he was in prime form — mixing heartbreaking music with self-depricating and very, very funny comments between songs. His band was strong, and I remember being happy that Bruce Kaphan (his steel guitarist from AMC) was there playing with him. And then, he started something new… and it was like all the oxygen left the room. His face twisted with anguish, and his voice reached and collapsed, and reached and collapsed, and Kaphan echoed and wailed behind him on the pedal steel, and we all sat there unable to draw in a breath. The intensity was almost unbearable. And then the song ended, and there was a moment of stunned, dead silence, and then applause — the kind of applause you would imagine from several hundred people who’ve just been touched and disturbed and changed in an entirely unexpected way.

    10. David Bridie: The Last Great Magician
    This was custom-made for a rainy night. In a previous life, Bridie was a part of Not Drowning, Waving — a remarkable Aussie band that made rich, atmospheric music that few people on this side of the world ever got to hear.

    11. Soul Whirling Somewhere: S-Qoia
    An instrumental from perhaps the most downtrodden band in the world. Michael Plaster is a very, very sad man — and while he’s done a fascinating job of documenting his heartbreak across a number of extremely depressing and quite beautiful albums, I find that this little song probably moves me more than any other in his catalog.

    There are more. There are always more. But this eleven is a start.

  • Give me the high hard one

    I am too stupid to survive. This is because I fail to learn, which is a vital skill for any animal in a world of natural selection.

    Almost every day for the past month, I’ve left my office, walked down the hall, entered the restroom, stepped over to the nice roomy stall, closed the door, and almost had a fucking heart attack. Because every day, I forget that somebody put a life-sized cutout of Curt Schilling behind the stall door. Which means that every time I close the door, I suddenly find myself confronted with a menacing 6-3 figure glaring at me over the top of a baseball mitt.

    If I were an antelope, I would have been eaten by lions years ago.

  • It’s kind of like a hangover, except without the fun part at the beginning

    I’m beat. Just thoroughly, comprehensively exhausted. Vaguely nauseous for the past couple of days, but not enough to facilitate an actual sick day. Not that I could take one. Or a day off, for that matter. Granted, I took a day off back in May, but that was for TwinA’s ear tube surgery. I did take an actual “day off for fun” back in March, though, plus Thanksgiving is only two months away. So I guess I should feel pretty rested.

    The pile of projects on my desk is dauntingly high. For every one that I complete and shuffle off to another desk, two more spring up to take its place. My workflow is a hydra. Or a glacier: for every foot I move forward, I simultaneously move three feet back.

    (My CEO stopped into my office this morning and mentioned something about me looking tired. I mentioned something about not having taken a vacation in two years, and feeling a bit “toasted around the edges.” He suggested that it was more like I’d burned straight through the middle, scraped the black bits off the sides, and thrown myself back into the toaster. Then he laughed at me.)

    (Later I went down to the garage and cut his brake lines. So we’re cool now.)

    Maybe it’s just the burst of indian summer we’ve had up here. After a long, viciously hot summer, the air was finally starting to cool — we were beginning to enjoy the chilly nights and cooler days that characterize early fall in New England. Hell, I’ve even seen a few leaves beginning to turn in my neighborhood. And then: BLAM — indian summer. Close to a week of humid, high-80s weather, right after we’ve gone to the trouble of moving all the fans and air conditioners back down to the basement. Just when I thought I was done sweating for the year.

    Whatever. It’s supposed to start returning to actual Autumn tomorrow, and maybe with the cooler weather I’ll stop feeling like death lightly toasted. But right now, I’m finding it very difficult not to set iTunes on repeat, crawl under my desk, and wait for Calgon to take me away…

    Download Hammock: Stars in the Rearview Mirror

  • 7 up

    Seven years ago today, in the wake of a year-long engagement, a cross-country move and a hurricane that threatened to blow the entire event (and all attending) into the Atlantic Ocean, TheGirlfriend became TheWife.

    Seven. Years. How does that happen? I mean, it feels like forever since we had the life we had then — and at the same time, it doesn’t feel like all that long ago that we exchanged rings and high fives in front of our friends, and broke out the celebratory blueberry beers.

    Seven. Years. Since we dragged seventy-something friends, family members and whatnot up to the northern edges of civilization, where we discovered that ten months of planning, hard work and nice dreams had failed to account for the possibility of a hurricane roaring up the eastern seaboard. A hurricane? In Maine? Who thinks of things like that?

    I remember, two days before the wedding, driving around the park. The hurricane was heading out to sea, but the wind and rain were still fierce. We saw ancient trees, crippled and downed by the storm. Roads flooded, sometimes impassable. We listened to news reports of greater damage elsewhere, and cancelled flights across the northeast. We wondered what kind of a fiasco we had inadvertently created.

    Seven. Years. And a day, since we headed into our rehearsal day with the storm weakening and heading out to sea, and the members of the wedding party successfully – sometimes surprisingly – making their way to our destination. I remember standing on marshy ground as the hotel’s event planner described the path down the hill our procession would take the next day, weather permitting. (Or where the tent would be set up, if not.) I remember holding my girl’s hand tightly, and commenting on how memorable it would be when she – in all her wedding finery, bouqueted with tulips and sweet airs – inevitably lost her footing and slid down the hill on her ass.Asticou

    I remember that night, when we had our rehearsal dinner. 15 people spread across two comfortable wooden tables. Heat lamps keeping us warm, despite the “tropical” nature of the now-vanishing storm. People laughing. Great beer. Fine food. Family. Friends. Good time.

    Seven. Years. Since we woke up, lifted the window shade with great apprehension… and discovered the most beautiful day we’d ever seen. Crystalline blue skies. A slight chill in the air. The water in the distance calm, the boats on the harbor silent.

    We walked out onto the field, down towards the village. It was early, early on a Saturday morning. Most of the town still sleeping. A fox darted from behind a fence, stopped to look at us for a moment, then disappeared into the hills to the west. We walked slowly, stunned by the weather, not quite believing that things could possibly work out this well for us.

    Seven. Years. Since we dressed up and stood in front of our friends. Since my best man, trying to throw me off, started quoting lines from In & Out as we stood at the altar. Seventy-something guests, watching me crack up as a result. No idea of just how entirely inappropriate a conversation we were having.

    Then she made her way down the hill. Slowly. Elegantly. (Carefully.) And then we stood in front of everyone… and had the shortest ceremony of all time. Two minutes? Maybe. Maybe not even that.

    And suddenly, it was time for beer, and blueberry pancakes, and a string quartet playing gently in the background, and an amazing brunch buffet, and walking around the room and seeing all these people who’d travelled so far and who were surprised to actually be enjoying themselves, and then the cake came out – with its spun sugar autumn leaves – and there was champagne and a toast or two, and the doors to the deck were open and the air was cool and we could all see flowers and the great green field and the light dancing across the water in the distance.

    Seven. Years. Since we changed out of our finery and into our familiar jeans and flannel and fleece, and led a convoy of a dozen friends to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Since we looked down on the waters and forests, mountains and carriage trails, fjords and harbor towns. I remember playing with the new ring on my finger, still the only ring I’ve ever worn. The sky was so clear. The wind atop the mountain was stiff, and as the sun dropped low in the sky the air quickly began to chill. We found someone to take a photo, of all of us. We are huddled together, squinting into the sun, smiling. (I look at that photo every day, sitting on our mantle.)

    It was a long road getting there. And it’s been a long road since.

    Seven. Years. Amazing.

  • To clarify a point

    Henry’s doing anger! Henry’s doing anger! Rollins3