Essential historical metaphor no. 43

Genuine dinner-table conversation:
My son: Are there any European countries that haven't kicked the Jews out?
Me: Probably not, at some point in history
My son: So Europe is basically musical chairs for the Jews?
Me: Erm... Yes.

Things Dads Do number 1847

Sticking suede pads on the ends of their daughter's pointe shoes.

I get by with a little help...

I have been having a bit of an emotionally up and down time recently, and there are some habits and personal issues in particular that I think that it would be helpful for me to write about. I don't want to keep a journal, but I have thought several times about starting a blog. "But," I hear you cry, "you already have a blog - you're writing it now!" Yes indeed, but here's the thing: I know that only a few people read this blog, and most of them are accidental visitors via search engines, but I think that a couple of people who know me read this occasionally, and I wouldn't want to tell them any of the stuff that's on my mind. In other words, if I genuinely feel that I have some emotional stuff to talk about, friends and family would be the last people I would want to share it with. I'm sure this isn't uncommon: there would be fewer therapists if everyone talked to their friends and family. Nevertheless, it struck me that the people that I think of as closer than strangers friends would be the people to whom I would be most wary of telling the truth about myself.

Reuben's Confirmation

I'm really looking forward to Reuben being confirmed tonight, partly because it's a good thing in itself, partly because it's a (biological and church) family celebration - I don't have enough parties - and partly because it's a parenting thing.

A while ago when I was looking at the atheist bus stuff I browsed to the justgiving page for Alpha Course bus ads. Someone there had written "£2 to encourage you to target your indoctrination at consenting adults instead of undiscriminating children. It's good to talk." Having grown up with a faith that worked really well until I started asking questions in my late teens, then given up on faith entirely and gone away from God, and having had to think hard about what I believe and why, and needing a faith of which I can ask searching questions, I sincerely hope that we've been able to bring up our children to know about God, but also to have a faith that is flexible enough to grow with them. I think that the fact that Daniel has rejected Christianity altogether is at least encouraging that we've not just "indoctrinated" our children. Unless, of course, we're really not very good at indoctrination.

I probably feel just as frustrated with non-Christians who reject Christianity because it's "organized religion" or "just a myth" as I do with Christians who have a "simple faith", by which they mean they never ask questions. I know that I'm guilty of deciding that I'm not going to be a Muslim or a Buddhist without fully investigating the claims that Islam or Buddhism make, but at least I make that decision because I've made a thought-through decision for Christ, and it would be hypocritical to then consider other religions. (This doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to learn about other religions and belief systems, so that I can understand and respect those who practice them.) I also know that there are a lot of Christians who put people off Christianity through bigotry and intolerance or answering every honest question with a quotation from the (King James) Bible. But I remain convinced that Jesus is who he says he is and that an adult Christian faith, which Reuben will be confirming he has tonight, should be both flexible and robust enough to stand up to whatever questions and doubts and objections are thrown at it.

So I'll be very proud of Reuben tonight, not only because he has chosen to confirm publicly that he is a Christian, but also because he is a young man who knows how to think, and and has made an individual and thoughtful choice.

Which is pretty much all you could ask in a son.

Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, er...

As I crossed the busy road in front of our office at lunchtime without waiting for the traffic lights to change, I started thinking about the negative consequences of being hit by a car and killed, and then realised that they were all about other people being upset or inconvenienced. It didn't occur to me to think of things that I want to do with my life. So then I thought I'd try compiling a mental list of "Things I really want to do before I die", and I couldn't actually think of anything. There's lots of things I'd like to do, some of which I will do and some I'm pretty sure I won't, but I couldn't think of anything that would make me think "I really really want to do that", other than "Have my family grow up to a point where it's not going to be a complete disaster when I die".

I wonder if it's selfish to live in such a way that people are very upset when you die (as you must), or if there's some kind of balance between bringing good things into the lives of others and their inevitable grief when you're gone. Me, I hate upsetting people; better stay alive.

Many teenagers

Well, it's Friday night and I am at home with only fifteen teenagers for company. It's Peter's birthday party, so he invited Josh, Ansley, Dan, Callum, Elliot, David and someone whose name I don't know round for pizza and a DVD. This was a good night to do so, because the others would be out - Rachel dancing, Benjamin and Reuben at NRG and Daniel almost certainly out somewhere or other. Unfortunately JK had gone away (to a stag night apparently) so the usual group of young people who gather at our house before NRG each week gathered anyway, but ended up with nowhere to go. After a certain amount of confusion and to-and-fro-ing, we said they might as well come round here. So now we also have Benjamin, Reuben, Ben, Shelby, Sam, Lucy and Zoe. A few are still watching Stardust, but there are also groups shouting at each other over Halo or playing outside on the trampoline. Katrina has gone to Tesco and to fetch Rachel, so I'm left here with many many youths. It's not that bad actually.

Being Dad

Rachel was getting very fed up with me giving her suggestions on the way to the festival this morning; I was only trying to give her reminders about putting lots of energy into her performance etc, but she had clearly had enough of me going on at her. I had a sudden moment of insight, and explained to her that because I'm her Dad I really want to do the best I can for her, but since I can't sing and I can't dance all I can do is try to give advice, even though she may not want it and almost certainly doesn't need it.

I guess that's the fate of Dads: we watch our children getting more and more capable and talented, and suddenly realise that they've gone past the point where we can do anything useful to help. Watching and supporting is great, but Dads long to feel useful... and sometimes it's hard to let go of that.

Priorities

Compare the number of people who have a picture of their home, family or pets on their desk or computer at work, with the number of people who have a picture of their workplace or work colleagues on the wall at home.

Shrove Tuesday (2)

Because our children are scattered all over the place doing various activities on Tuesday evenings, I got up at 6.15am so that everyone could have pancakes for breakfast. Do I like being a dad? Absolutely. Do I wish it didn't involve being quite so tired? Oooh yes.

Well I haven't been here for a while

Bah. I am so tired, I am flicking through Facebook pages without any clear idea of what I think I'm doing there. I can't go to bed for at least another hour because I have to pick up Daniel from Emfest at about 11pm, and then go up to Park Gate to bring Benjamin and Reuben home from roleplaying. Bah, bah and bah again.

On the other hand, I'm 90% sure that I want to train as a plumber with these people after their rep came to see me today. I need to do a bit more checking out about whether it is as good as they say, but it looks as though I might be able to change career.

Eurgh!

Having a bit of a down week. Nothing wrist-slashingly major, just that all the things I've been putting off are catching up with me and leading to a generalised feeling of dread and incapability (is that a word?). However, I'll start knocking things off the list one at a time, and I'm moderately confident that life will be sunny again before you can say "You have eaten my best friend's goat" in Albanian (if you are Albanian or a fluent Albanian speaker, it might be slightly longer).

Last night we continued our mission to find an Italian restaurant for Rachel's birthday. So far we've tried La Dolce Vita in Hamble and Reggina's in Botley. La Dolce Vita have live music on Wednesdays, when we went, so we had to put up with a slightly annoying singer, but the food and service were good and it was reasonably priced. Last night at Reggina's we were put on a table near to the kitchen and the main entrance (despite having booked) so there was lots of coming and going right next to us, which wasn't conducive to relaxation. Although it looked more upmarket than La Dolce Vita, the food was not as nice and the service was indifferent, and it cost more. We'll see what else we can find between now and Rachel's birthday.

I thought I'd give Facebook a go, since Si has been saying how good it is for keeping in touch with people. I have to say it's not a site for the miserable and socially incompetent, simply reinforcing that everyone else has more friends than I do, and that they're all closer and more relaxed with each other than I will ever be. I'll give it a go, but as someone who finds it hard to do social networking in real life, it doesn't come easily online.

Fed up

Nobody puts any comments on Conversation, even when I email and ask them to. Most of the people who come don't seem to look at, never mind contribute to, the site. Visitor numbers do peak when I ask people to visit but half of them turn out to be random strangers.

I have teenage sons who moan when asked to do anything and don't appreciate what I do.

I have too much to do.

I feel miserable and hopeless, with the general feeling that things will pretty much carry on the same; not terrible but always vaguely not good enough.

Pentecost

Didn't manage to get to church this morning, despite it being one of the major church occasions, because we were back at The Point again to watch Rachel dancing her modern solo. Not really any pressure, since this isn't a qualifying festival, and she's already taking this dance to the Regional Finals next week, but we learned some things about what not to use for Rachel's hair. But apart from seeing my daughter on stage, one of the best bits of today was having a Sunday afternoon spending a couple of hours not doing anything much. No school uniforms to wash, too rainy outside to do washing in any case, nothing urgent at all. We'd already decided that we were too tired to go to the quiz - too many late nights and early mornings - and then it was a real bonus to have the boys asking me to play a game with them and just say "Um. Yes. OK then." Lovely.

Half-truths: the drugs don't work, they just make things worse

Specifically in the case of caffeine, which at the moment is working very well, in that I'd be asleep at my desk if I weren't on my second cup of strong filter coffee. Being seen to be awake at my desk rather than asleep may be an example of the drugs making things better, but balanced against the lightheadedness, irritated stomach, headache and general irritability from being awake when I'd much rather be asleep, not to mention the whole addiction/dependency thing, I'd concede the point that while the drug in question may in fact work by enabling socially normative behaviour, it does indeed make things worse when a broad range of factors are considered.

So there we are then: a post that isn't about things I've done for Conversation. I'm at work, avoiding either reading best practice guidelines for autism or entering outcome measures from the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Families into a database. I dicovered myself reading this (thank you Dave) and thought that if I was clearly not going to be doing anything useful for the next few minutes I might as well write something here.

Umm. So what's been happening? I gave up tea and coffee for Lent (more difficult than I thought it would be) and also had a couple of glasses of wine (very easy; I won't do it again for a while I think). Took Katrina to Beaulieu for the day with the family and then for a night here by ourselves, both of which were a surprise for her birthday. I'll try and add some pictures at some point in the near future. Rachel got a high enough mark in her Modern solo at Portsmouth festival to qualify for the Southern Regional Finals. We went to see Peter play his violin as part of the school orchestra. Daniel has got a college place. Reuben went to a celebrity launch party for a new ride at the London Dungeon which was a bit rubbish (the party, not the ride), but also went to the Tower of London which was not rubbish at all. Benjamin hasn't got any work experience sorted out because the Junior School took so long to tell him he couldn't do it there that it was then too late to sort out anything else.

In short, life goes on. And I need to do something tangible so that when I see my boss tomorrow morning I can show her and say "Look at all the constructive work I have been doing", so I'll post this and get on.

I've been busy

I did this



and made these





which I was quite pleased with. At least I was pleased with the video and fairly pleased with the flyer, except that I faded the praying hands too much and they didn't come out on the photocopied one they gave out at church.

I've also been planning things for Katrina's birthday tomorrow - hopefully it won't be too long before I can get back on here and say how it went.

Very quick update

Just a quick post in the expanding desert of post-free days. Benjamin's birthday today; fifteen years since we became parents of two. Going out for a meal at the Rising Sun soon, never been there to eat so hope it's OK. First day in ages that I did anything productive at work; I've committed myself to giving my boss a daily update on what I've been doing as a last-ditch attempt to stop myself procrastinating and wasting time. Also have given in and started taking Amitriptyline to get some sleep, which actually works! I don't want to take it for long, but the thought of having a couple of weeks of sleeping six or seven solid hours a night is worth it. Anyway better go and pick up Rachel from Brownies, and then get the boys organised and out.

I don't know a lot about art...

...but I know a good way of spending a Saturday morning. Benjamin and I spent the morning at a still life masterclass at Wildern, run by Anthony Kawalski, and jolly good fun it was too. Very relaxed (so that's what Saturday mornings are supposed to be like!) and non-threatening, nobody being critical or telling you what you ought to be doing, just a small canvas, a choice of paints or pencils and a selection of objects to draw. In the end I opted to draw some of the contents of my pockets, and ended up with this:
My phone is in the picture (resting on the gloves) but I took it out of the arrangement to take the photo!
However, on our way over to the D@rt centre for a mid morning cup of coffee, there was something better than any of us could have drawn: grafitti made of light:
The metal letters on the wall were reflecting the sunlight, but what appeared on the ground were strange alien squiggles that changed and disappeared as you walked past them. Fabulous!

Happy New Year!

Here's hoping for a good 2007, with a clear idea of what God wants us to do, and enough grace and courage to do it!

Had a nice little get-together last night, Amanda and Alex and Ellie came round with their respective children and though I had a moment of grumpiness when I was being sober and setting off fireworks that nobody seemed bothered about while everyone else was drinking and/or doing something warmer and more fun, I managed to get over it and just enjoyed being with people to watch Big Ben striking on BBC1 and set off party poppers. Thankfully nobody was interested in the usually obligatory round of kissing everyone else (and there wasn't even a suggestion of singing "Auld Lang Syne" - possibly because we were watching the London fireworks for 10 mins). Of course I completely forget to take any photos or video. Duh!