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PROGRAMMING NOTE from the Author and Archivist


So obviously I just stopped blogging on this platform. I'll get back to it eventually. Or not. I'm taking a break from all social media. It seemed necessary for my mental health.

The last few years have been busy and … challenging:

- 2015 Happened.
- 2016 Let's call it The Lost Year. (Obviously words failed me.)
- 2017 about broke me. Literally. Mentally.
- 2018 was ridiculous, proving 2017 was just a warm up. (Good thing I was already broken so it couldn't hurt as much.#2018TrashCanFire I thought things were going okay, but maybe not?)

- 2019 was such a blur. I know there were highlights, but then stuff happened and carried into the next year...

- And then in March#2020 really took a turn. Who can even categorize 2020? Do we dare?


I kinda want a do-over of some of the last few years. But life doesn’t work that way.


So for now, I'm hunkering down. Regrouping. Trying to stay safe and sort some stuff out.


Stay safe everyone. Stay well.

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

40 Diamonds for 40: Kickball Curiosities

When you ask your friends and family to participate in a project like this, you never quite know what you are going to get ... especially when baby brothers are concerned.

To wit: "
I wrote this up a couple weeks ago for your 40/40 blog project. I thought I should sit on it a bit, and I have. To me, it's still quite publishable. :) I hope this finds itself someplace on the spectrum of entries you expected to get. If not, well, too bad. :)"

That being stated -- I actually wouldn't change anything in this entry from my brother J. I would like to think that this proved that I had a hand in preparing him to be more of a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy) and a "snag" for his future wife, not to mentioned a very enlightened daddy to his little girls.




Kickball Curiosities

I had to play kickball, and I found that troubling. Social Studies were cancelled and kickball was the toast of the afternoon for all fifth grade boys. Don't get me wrong—I mostly liked playing kickball. But I knew something was up; every last girl from my classroom—no, in my grade—was being swept into some secret meeting, and I didn't understand why. More to the point, I didn't like it. Even at that age, I wove my social web by being the weird guy surrounded by friendly females. And now I was expected to go spend two hours surrounded by just brutes? Oy.

I should back up a skoosh, since this post is about my dear older sister. She is six years my senior, so our social paths didn't cross all that often. By the time I was old enough to recognize that the entire world didn't revolve around just me (some hope I might actually realize this before I'm 37), she was deeply entrenched in the things of "big kid" life: choir, piano, high school, having a job, etc. I'm fairly confident it's precisely because our orbits were so different that we got along just fine (at least I don't recall any notable drop-down-drag-out fights with her). I don't like conflict, she doesn't like conflict—it works for us.

Thus it was I came home from school after a hardly educational afternoon of kickball to find the house devoid of all family except for my sister. I'm not sure how it came up, exactly—if I had to guess I'd say she was probably kind enough to ask me about my day—but I took the opportunity to express my consternation about my testosterone-filled afternoon.

"Do you really want to know what the girls were meeting about?" she asked, an air of cautious wisdom draped over her question.

"Yes," I answered quickly. I could tell this was going to be exciting stuff.

"You're sure?" she hedged.

"Just tell me!' I implored.

So she did. The strangeness, oddness—am I belaboring the point if I add weirdness?—that is the female menstrual cycle was very plainly and very efficiently explained to me. So well was it explained, in fact, that I could answer followup questions from not just the boys at school, but some of the (very concerned) girls, too. It's information that has served me well through the years, and I'm glad we had the kind of relationship where she could share.

Looking back to that afternoon of kickball all these years later, I totally understand why the lone male fifth grade teacher, a tall, brusque fellow, seemed so very elated to supervise the playground activities that afternoon.

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