Argument

Tonight I got into an argument with my two-year-old son. My wife and I are encouraging Joshua to say his personal prayers before he goes to bed, so we get him to kneel down and repeat our prompts. We try to give him as much liberty as possible—he ends up thanking the Almighty for doors, windows, walls (I’m not sure where the interior structural theme came from), giraffes, hippos, and lions. His nightly supplications often conclude with my saying, “Joshua, we don’t end out prayers with ‘in the name of Jesus Christ, *summersault* amen.’” Tonight’s prayer was painstakingly slow. It went something like this:

Me: Dear, Heavenly Father…
Joshua: Dear, Heavenly Father…
Me: (quietly) Josh, what are you thankful for?
Joshua: …Jesus Christ, amen.
Me: No, Josh. What are you thankful for?
Joshua: (assertively) Jesus Christ, amen!

Eventually I got him to squish something substantial—windows and walls, I think—between his introduction and conclusion. You see, Josh knows and understands the conventions of prayer. He realizes that when we say “amen,” it’s over; we’re done, and he gets his juice. So sometimes he rushes to the end.

After I helped Josh with his prayer, filled his sippy with juice, and tucked him in as-snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug (he insists I use this phraseology), we had our argument:

Me: I love you, Josh.
Joshua: I love you, Daddy.
Me: I love you more!
Joshua: I love you more!
Me: NO! I love you more!
Joshua: (laughing) I love you more!
Me: NO! I LOVE YOU MORE!
Joshua: (laughing uncontrollably) I love you more!
Me: I LOVE YOU MORE!
Joshua: (laughing, between deep gasps of breath) I love you more!

Ultimately, he was only repeating what I was saying; I’m not sure he was aware we were even arguing. But I think he knows I love him.

Stream of Consciousness: Pie

I don’t have much to say about pie. Sometimes I like it; sometimes I don’t. I pour cream—yes, pure cream—on my pie. It’s really good. Pumpkin, apple, blueberry, whatever. Pie always tastes better covered in cream. However, my wife gets mad at me whenever I pour cream on my food. I think it’s because I can eat 500 calories of animal fat in one sitting and not worry about gaining a pound. But I ride my bike to and from school every day, so I get my exercise. Now, however, the weather has turned cold, so I don’t ride anymore. Maybe I should lay off the cream. But Thanksgiving and Christmas are around the corner. And what are the holidays without cream? In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, someone gets killed, hacked, and baked into a pie and fed to another—I guess the person-turned-pie didn’t understand the nuances of di-transitive verbs. Never ask, “Can you make me a pie?” Because it just might happen. I watched a movie the other week—what was it called? oh, yeah, The Help—where a lady baked her poop into a pie and fed it to her boss. “Eat my shit,” she said. I wish I would have done that to my old manager at Lowe’s—he deserved to eat my crap dressed in crust and covered in cream. Brian, my buddy who unloaded the truck with me, and I used to fantasize about it. We had it all planned out: I’d produce the filling, Brian’s wife would bake the pie, and we’d give it to him on our last day. As a parting gift. “Thanks for being a great manager, Rick! Here’s something to show our appreciation.” It’s what kept us moving; unloading fifty-seven 300lb snow blowers, along with 9,243 other products, takes motivation.

Clever Title

After a few people have inquired about the title of my blog, I decided I would explain. During my sophomore year of college, I was enrolled in Penny Bird’s writing course. I read Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and I wrote a research paper about how the conflict between old money and new money drove the characters’ actions. During a lesson about titles, Penny informed the class that the title of a paper should be telling yet catchy—it should be clever. She also mentioned that sometimes it’s easier to name a paper when it’s finished, or nearly finished, when the author understands the paper more holistically. While I didn’t know what to call my paper, I went home and took her advice, however misconstrued: I named my paper “Clever Title.” I had a thesis and I knew where my paper was headed, but I still didn’t know where my paper would end up. When it was finally finished, however, I came up with a proper name. Since then, I always titled all my papers “Clever Title” (until I came up with a better name, at least). My teachers quietly laughed whenever I handed them a draft and they read my proxy title, noting my unfinished work and half-baked thoughts.

Two years ago when I started this blog, I called it “Clever Title.” Looking over my posts, I find a common theme that unites my writings—my negotiating of the demands of both family and school life. You might even say my blog has a thesis: navigating these separate-but-interconnected worlds is difficult. I feel like my blog has a direction and I know where it’s headed, but I don’t really know where it will end up. Whenever I decide what my blog is about, and I probably never will, I’ll give it a real title. Until then, “Clever Title” will have to do.