Beginners Blog 101

I see that the Lone Ranger no longer rides alone.  Just in the last 36 hours, there have been almost 250 hits on my little playing field here -- and not even half of them were from me.  Hopefully this will be my home base for a while, so please keep sliding head-first into it.  A blog doesn't mean much if no one is reading it and commenting on it. 

Speaking of blogs, it seems that there are more than a few of you out there who don't know what they are.  This surprised me a bit, but maybe it shouldn't have.  I'm pretty certain that if you went on any college campus and surveyed the students, at least 90 percent of them would be able to tell you what a blog is and probably half of those already have their own blog.  Of course, my reading audience isn't made up of college students.  We are, instead, the generation that just missed out on the computer revolution.  Learning how to read and send email was a big step forward for us. 

So, in an effort to educate, here is the definition of blog, as provided by Merriam-Webster:

Blog: noun [short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

You may be interested to know that blog, according to Merriam-Webster, was the No. 1 Word of 2004, based on on-line lookups.  If you're curious, here is Merriam-Webster's complete Top 10 List for 2004. 

Hi-ho, Silver, away! The writing process revealed...

My blog readership, outside of immediate family, currently stands at one.  This reader, who will hereinafter be known as the Lone Ranger, suggested that a topic for this journal be the writing process that resulted in a 340-page manuscript titled Lost in the Ivy (i.e., the story behind the story).  As the Lone Ranger knows, the story behind the story is a long story.  Lost in the Ivy was four years in the making.  There were many times that I thought I would never write the words The End in my novel.  Yet eventually, after many stops and starts, I did.  I don't think I would have reached that point if I didn't have faith in my original idea. 

As I noted in an earlier posting, Lost in the Ivy is set in Wrigleyville, the neighborhood that has sprouted around Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.  This neighborhood has changed considerably since I lived there.  When I moved into Wrigleyville almost 10 years ago, in the waning days of the summer of 1995, it was not the Midwest version of Mardi Gras that it has become today when the Cubs are playing ball.  I recall walking up to the ticket booth at Wrigley Field for the last homestand, buying a ticket and walking right into the stadium.  Today that would never happen without the assistance of those folks who kindly sell tickets at three or four times the face-value on the streets to suckers like me.  As the popularity of the Cubs and Wrigley Field has grown, so has the neighborhood.  Half-million dollar condos have replaced the $500-a-month studio apartments where I once lived.  Hip restaurant and bar chains now litter the landscape.  Much of the charm of the Wrigleyville I knew -- and wrote about in my novel -- has sadly vanished.

When I moved to Wrigleyville, I was more than a little naive.  That's how I ended up renting a studio apartment which bordered Boys Town, Chicago's gay district.  Of course I didn't know it at the time but that apartment building on Bradley Place would eventually serve as the primary setting for my first novel.  I will leave it there for today's journal entry, but, rest assured, there is a lot more to follow in this story behind the story.

Going Swimmingly

I would like to think that I am a good and decent father to my 1-year-old son. But there have been many a time when I have to question whether I would pass a basic fatherhood entry exam. Fortunately, my son's vocabulary is currently limited to a few one-syllable words, so he has not been able to verbally chastise me when I do something just plain stupid.  However, he does occasionally give me a look which quite clearly tells me that he knows I have no clue what I'm doing. Somehow, he has so far turned out to be an incredible kid, which I can only tribute to his inner strength and fortitude, and, of course, to his Mommy.

Occasionally I plan to veer off course a bit in this blog and take a moment to look at what it means to be a parent today.  There are many a humorous anecdotes and humbling experiences on the road of child-rearing.  The first stop I will make is an essay I wrote after my son's first two swimming classes.  Here it is: 

There are many lessons to be learned in swim class but the first one is never to be tardy for swim-class registration.  To our surprise, toddler swim class, even in the dead of Midwest winter, is as popular as the ice cream truck in July or Santa Claus at the mall in December.  The penalty for being late was being resigned to an 8-week class that began promptly at 8 in the morning, on Saturday.

 

Our instructor was Katie, a college student who at times seemed like she wanted to be there almost as much as we, the parents, did.  (I give Katie credit.  Looking back on my college years, there's no way I would have been able to lead such a class at such an ungodly hour, on a Saturday of all days.  If forced to do so, I suppose I could have done it but there's a good chance that I would have ended up puking in the pool.)

 

To say that the first class did not go well would be an understatement.  The Toddler started peeing even before he entered the pool. Mommy figured this out when she felt something warm dripping down her leg.  If there was a bright side, I guess it would be that he didn't contaminate the pool.

 

From that point on it was all down hill. As soon as The Toddler's feet touched the lukewarm water, he cried.  The wailing continued for a good ten minutes before he settled into a constant moan that lasted the duration of the half-hour class.

 

At the end of class, Katie whispered in my ear that we might want to arrive early for the second class and have the little one enter the water before the full blast of toddler madness ensued. This, in theory, made sense.  He wouldn't be under the same pressure to perform that can occur when under the watchful eyes of his peers.  In practice, it didn't make much of a difference at all. 

 

Upon entering the empty pool with Daddy he began to cry, just like he'd done in week one.  To Daddy it became readily apparent that The Toddler wanted his Mommy, who was on the sidelines, but suited and ready if called to action. Mommy sensed this, too, and it wasn't long before she was removing the towel from her waist.  The tip off, I think, was the look of utter despair on Daddy's face. The former lifeguard needed rescuing.

 

Fortunately Mommy came with life preserver in hand. Or, in this case, a rubber frog, which was, apparently, all The Toddler needed to keep him and Daddy afloat. This is why the world has Mommies. They have the maternal instinct to pull a distraction tool out when it's needed. Daddies, in contrast, would keep trying to fix the problem with the same tool even when it clearly isn't working, thinking that eventually the hammer will hit the nail just right and all will be okay.In other words, he flails his arms helplessly, gets frustrated, and, ultimately, drowns -- unless Mommy is there to rescue him.

 

Once calm The Toddler actually showed signs that he might even like the water. This was especially true when Katie had the parents and toddlers join in a circle to sing "The Wheels on the Bus."  As it turns out, you can do just about anything with a toddler when singing the lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus." Why this is I have no idea, but I would suggest that it would make for an interesting sociological study.

 

I have heard stories of swim classes where babies are just thrown into the water and left, basically, to fend for themselves. This, to me, if it is true, seems barbaric and more than a little scary.  But perhaps no more frightening than having parents and toddlers join in a circle and led by the instructor in ritualistic child dunking to the lyrics of "The Wheels on the Bus." This is absolutely true. Each time the chorus came to "The people on the bus go up and down," the parent was supposed to lift the toddler up in the air and then dunk him back in the water. If this same activity were performed without the song lyrics, it would seem cruel and unusual punishment.  But when done to the playful lyrics of a popular children's song, well, I guess, almost anything is fair game.

 

Class ends with "The Goodbye Song."  At the end of class one, we all got back in the circle and Katie led us as we sang "Goodbye, (Enter Toddler's Name). Goodbye, (Enter Toddler's Name). It's time to say goodbye."This goes on and on until each toddler gets his or her own goodbye.

At the end of class two, however, "The Goodbye Song" was abbreviated to a less personal but merciful "Goodbye, everyone." This was fine, because, really, after 30 minutes in a pool with a toddler you, as a parent, just want to get out of the pool. Ironically, The Toddler didn't feel the same way. The same kid who didn't want to have anything to do with the pool at 7:55 a.m. didn't want to get out of it at 8:30 a.m. This is why I will never understand the mind of a toddler.  It seems to work in reverse of the mind of an adult.

 

This all brings me to the real reason for this story. The highlight of class two, it turned out, had nothing to do with swimming. But it occurred at the pool and so belongs in this story. Certainly it will have its own place in the annals of our family history. It happened about midway through class. I am engaging in the ritualistic parental dunking of my toddler, when, suddenly, he starts to cough -- pretty badly. Apparently he had swallowed some water, which, I suppose, should come as no surprise when he is being dunked.  Anyway, I'm holding him at arm's length and am just a little concerned that I might really have to use those lifeguard skills from when I was Katie's age, a long, long time ago. Then he stops coughing and releases a belch that if not heard 'round he world, was certainly heard by everyone in the Olympic-sized YMCA pool venue. I swear for a moment everyone in the pool stopped whatever they were doing and just froze, like they were expecting a tidal wave to follow.  They were all looking at this darling 25-pound toddler and wondering the same thing: How could that sonic boom come out of that little body?

I call tell you, as a father, I have never been more proud of my son.  Except maybe when he projectile vomited like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist."  Now that was cool. If only his head had spun around.

 

One final lesson of toddler swim class: Never.  Never throw your toddler in a pool with a regular diaper unless you want him or her to become a human anchor.  You will find that diapers really can absorb a lot of water -- so much that your toddler will look like he or she has been inflated not unlike a balloon.  A lead balloon.

Morning blog, clearing by midday

Things that seem perfectly clear to me, the writer, may appear a bit foggy to you, the reader.  The title of this blog, for instance, has meaning to me but probably has you scratching your head.   So this is where I turn up the air and try to clear some of the fog for you.

If you read the About Me section of this blog, you will learn that Lost in the Ivy is the title of my first novel.  Just this morning I mailed out a signed contract to have it published by PublishAmerica.  Part of the reason I started this blog was that I was looking for a way to promote my book.   This seemed like a logical launching pad and it was a way to keep anyone out there who might be interested in it posted on when and where they can expect to find it.  I also thought that other new authors or wannabe authors out there might be able to learn something from my own adventures and misadventures with writing a first novel and finding a publisher for it.

You might reasonably still be wondering from where the title Lost in the Ivy derived.  Well, of course, it came from someplace out of my rather small brain.   So this is where I suggest that you hold on tightly, as you are about to go into the inner workings and malfunctionings of my thought processes.  

Okay, here we go.   Lost in the Ivy is set primarily in Wrigleyville, the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field, the baseball home of the Chicago Cubs.  If you know major-league baseball, you probably know that Wrigley's outfield walls are covered with ivy.  About once or twice a year, a baseball gets stuck or lost in the ivy.  In such a case, the outfielder is supposed to throw up his arms as a signal to the umpire that the baseball can't be recovered.  If the umpire accepts the outfielder's position, it becomes an automatic ground-rule double.  This phenomenon was noted by ESPN.com columnist Rob Neyer last year in a column titled "Ballpark quirks at their best."

The main character in Lost in the Ivy, Charley Hubbs, is lost and trying to find himself -- something that becomes all the more complicated when he finds himself charged with murder.  So the title serves as a double-entendre -- relating to both the place and the person.

So, we're as clear as mud now, right?

Dees is not good...

The horror.  The horror.  Yesterday when I picked up the little guy the song "Disco Duck" was playing in his classroom.  Now we receive Incident Reports whenever he gets bites, bumps and bruises -- the wounds of the daycare battlefield.  So I'm now wondering, why no Incident Report when my one and a half year old is exposed to the music of Rick Dees?  I foresee years of therapy ahead.