Diagnosis

I was astounded while reading this article from the New York Times, about the revised estimate of the prevalence of Autism, when I came to this passage:

The new estimate is about the same as one from a study published in October, which found a rate of slightly more than 1 in 100 children who received a diagnosis. Yet that study, based on a phone survey of 78,000 households, also found that almost 40 percent of the children who had received an autism spectrum diagnosis grew out of it or no longer had the diagnosis.

(I tried to find more information on the study, but only a summary was available, and there was nothing about children who were no longer diagnosed.)

Understand, I'm not dismissing the results of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study (which was based on an analysis of medical records of 400,000 children), but I can't help but wonder how valid a conclusion can be reached based on a medical study conducted by phone. More importantly, though, what criteria do you use to determine who "grew out" of the diagnosis? Is that a medical opinion — or a parent's hope? Are parents really having their children re-diagnosed?

Jump

I'm watching my seven-year-old son, strapped into some sort of safety harness attached to bungee cords, launched into the air at a distance that's easily six or seven times his height (though it must be more). It's a sort of reverse bungee jump. He does this four or five times, landing on a trampoline to be propelled back up again.

I wonder — could I have done that when I was his age? I know I certainly wouldn't want to do it now.

Honest

The great thing about my seven-year-old is that when he says he's not feeling well, and that he doesn't want to go to school, it's because he really doesn't feel well. (I'm enjoying not having to read between the lines, while I still can.)

Of course, later that morning he was feeling much better. (At 11:00 AM he suggested I bring him to school, but by then it was too late.) He'd be his energetic seven-year-old self, but when I'd remind him that he wasn't feeling well, all of that energy would evaporate in an instant — for a few minutes, at least. I know he really did feel poorly this morning, but I think he felt obligated to play that part when called upon for the rest of the day. Somewhere between getting away with something, and intentionally getting away with something.

Pennies, Dimes and Nickels

I have been thoroughly defeated by this problem from my seven-year-old's math practice homework:

Sharla has 12 coins. She has 70¢. How many pennies, dimes, and nickels does she have?

We worked on this together for five or ten minutes, then I worked on it for five minutes more. I tried all sorts of different combinations — nothing fit! I give up — I'm sending it in with a note for the teacher, in the hope that she'll return the answer.

Find

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a Private Detective (or a "Licensed Private Investigator," to use the official term)? I have. I enjoy research — following the pieces of a puzzle, putting them together to see where they might lead (and you never know what unexpected surprises might lie under stones not turned).

You can't really hide — not any more. You might be surprised (or, depending on who you are, perhaps embarrassed) at how much information — even photographs! — are available, if you know where (or how) to look, or stumble. You'd have to go out of your way to be "UnGoogleable," but even then, there are still slender threads, waiting to be pulled.

I've been piecing together a puzzle of my own. My questions aren't so easily answered by Google, but that just makes them more interesting.

Roads Not Taken

This is what I get for not paying attention: I've just discovered, a week before Christmas, that my Christmas-themed book had somehow become all but unavailable through Amazon.com. (You could buy a copy, sure, but you'd have had to pay well over $100 to an individual seller.) I've no idea how long this has been the case, and I've no idea why — even if it wasn't in stock, the book is still very much available from the distributor.

(For what it's worth, I've quickly listed the book at cover price, available from me.)

Plausible

I let my son watch Mythbusters with me from time to time, when I think there's something he'll find interesting — say, two trucks crashing into one another at full-speed (what seven-year-old wouldn't want to see that?), or a holiday-themed Rube Goldberg contraption.

I try to emphasize the science involved (or at least, the scientific method, something he's been learning in school this year), but mostly I like showing him people building stuff, trying, failing, trying again and then (hopefully) succeeding — and having lots of fun with science. And Kari Byron is a girl who builds stuff (and occasionally blows it up) — not so much a role model (not for a seven-year-old boy), but a good example. (Why is it that Mythbusters seems like the only series left on The Discovery Channel these days that isn't completely overwhelmed by testosterone?)

Later, I've promised to show him the remote-controlled bus. (Yeah, it crashes, but he'll like that.)

Faded

Found recently at an Estate Sale.

Why is it I never seem to remember when it's Wednesday?

This Morning

See more In The Back of Beyond.

Audience

I suppose you can't really complain that you're being "stalked" when you write in a public forum, like a blog — surely that's a risk you must accept.

An old girlfriend (depending on who you ask — see below)* with whom I had a rather melodramatic falling out still reads this from time to time. Or tries to, at least. I have her IP address blocked, but I don't put all that much effort into it, and it's easy to spot when she goes out of her way to find a way around. I'm ambivalent about this — mildly irritated, I suppose (she really should have no cause for curiosity about my life), yet flattered at the interest (even if it has occasionally been expressed in obsessive bursts of activity on the stats).

* I never considered her to be a girlfriend, but I found out after-the-fact that she considered herself to be one — at least, when it became convenient to do so.

She has written to a blog, as well (several in fact — this one is best if you start from the beginning, at the bottom), and it was with some interest last year that I followed the ongoing drama of someone who was apparently stalking her through her blog. (Not that one, though, this was a different blog.) I watched as the comments posted went from familiar — this was obviously someone she knew — to amusingly odd to creepy, then threatening. (I've never understood why she didn't just turn on Comment Moderation.) Wait, who am I kidding? I have no right to ambivalence! I was watching this spectacle with consuming interest, amused that she had once again managed to entangle herself where she ought not to have, as had become her custom when we were still close. ("Walking the border of propriety" was how she phrased it.) Her blog had never been so interesting!

(Any idea of "propriety" had long disappeared by the time our friendship dissolved, but that's a story for another time.)

I tend to avoid too many specific details about my personal life when I write here, not because of her (or whomever else may be reading), but because I jealously guard my privacy and anonymity. I've avoided using my son's name 'till now, for example. (I'll probably continue to avoid doing so.) In fact, I don't use anyone's name — I can't even be bothered to make up fake names.

I've thought about not thinking about it, and I might just stop blocking the site altogether. I don't feel threatened, not really, but part of me is hesitant to surrender that small bit of selectivity over my audience.

Sketches: Six Cult Films

Slowly, inexorably, this book became a disproportionately irritating and time-consuming project, and I'm relieved to be finished with it. That said, though, the cover turned out better than I might have expected.

Work on the book dragged on for months and months (and months), so I had plenty of time for thought as to how I might approach the cover. I had only poor quality cover art (see my earlier post), so I needed to keep that reasonably small, and let the cover be defined largely by type, rather than those images. The number "6" seemed like it might be an interesting element to build the design around.

But after a page of design sketches, pragmatism began to set in ― along with concern that I could end up putting a great deal of time and effort into a design concept that would probably never be accepted by the Author. That, and I realized that I had somehow forgotten that the full title of the book was not Six Cult Films, but Six Cult Films From The Sixties.

So off I went off on a tangent that I hoped might be more straightforward, more simple.

This eventually became the finished design, seen below. I was concerned that breaking up the title might make it more difficult to follow — or, to be honest, easier for the Author to object to — or inadvertently change the emphasis (if the second half of the title were at the top of the cover, for example). All the elements just seemed to fit best this way.

You know, I was really expecting much more resistance to this cover design than it received. (If only the rest of the book had been that easy.)

Susan Slept Here

I was watching Susan Slept Here this afternoon while working, mostly out of curiosity — I've seen so much of Dick Powell at Warner Bros. in the 1930s, mostly in musicals, and this was his last film as an actor (by choice). He's quite likeable here, but bland, which is more or less as I remember him from his early films (when he wasn't singing). He might have had a long career as a "nice guy" — he reminds me of Fred MacMurray, but without quite so much character.

Like Fred MacMurray, I think Powell's most memorable late-career roles were the occasions where he was cast against type, such as Murder, My Sweet. (He reportedly wanted to play the lead in Double Indemnity.) Watching him defy expectations in a film like that, you can't help but wonder how he might have fared in more (for lack of a better word) nuanced dramatic roles. But I'm not sure he had it in him.

The most pleasant surprise was that Susan Slept Here was directed by Frank Tashlin. There's a wonderful sort of heightened reality in Tashlin's films, with character actors that walk off with most every scene (though much less so here than at the height of his career a few years later). Perhaps that's what made Dick Powell seem so bland in comparison.

Sketches: Kyle's Inventions

This year, I've decided to give my seven-year-old a gift every bit as appropriate as the iPod Touch was to a six-year-old — his very own logo!

Don't you give me that look...

One of the first things I did after my company logo was finished was to order a mug with it — more than one, now that I think of it — which now sits proudly on the shelf next to my desk, holding my set of fine-tipped Sharpie Markers. I think it was all of $15. (I also spent $200 on a very small number of embroidered baseball caps, but those were better times.) So I thought it would be fun to design a logo for my son (for a fictitious business), and get him some stuff — a mug, a magnet, a cap, perhaps even a sweatshirt. I think it will be a nice surprise.

There's a long and fabled tradition in design of concepts being sketched out on cocktail napkins — this one was on the back of a receipt from the grocery store.

My son is preoccupied with machines, and the making of his own machines, and I knew the idea of "gears" would appeal to him. (I thought about trying to make a "K" out of the teeth of a gear, but that wasn't going to work.) And he says he wants to be an inventor when he grows up.I ended up going in a slightly unexpected direction with the type, because I had trouble finding the perfectly circular "e" that I wanted to use. (In the end, I think I redrew the "e" from this typeface to make it work the way I wanted.) But it worked out better than I had expected, and I think it provides a sort of classic "mechanical" look that fits well with the gears.

(Originally, it was just going to be "Kyle Inventions," but I thought it would make more sense to a seven-year-old as "Kyle's Inventions.")

I set up the various products late last night, and I'll order them soon. (I only hope my seven-year-old is a less harsh critic than some of the people I've done work for through the years.)

Johnny Mercer

I've been watching a documentary on Johnny Mercer this afternoon, while working. (It will air again this month.) I'm embarassed to admit that I had no idea he was a part of so many of my favorite songs.

Same-Sex Marriage

I'm fascinated with this issue of same-sex marriage, and I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be more support for the issue when brought before the public. Some will say that this is because opponents have been better at mobilizing against, or that there's greater support among young voters, and they don't tend to vote in great numbers — I don't know how much truth there is to either. I suspect public opinion may be more divided on this issue than the legislative and judicial progress of the past several years would indicate.

I'll admit, though, I approach this subject from a very distinct point of view — I think of marriage as little more than a ceremonial custom, and in that, I wonder why this is such an important issue, for either side.

I found it interesting, though, that the day after the New York State Senate voted down a same-sex marriage bill, none of the Senators who voted against the bill were willing to go on record with comments about their decision.

Puzzle

I was close to thirty before I discovered the missing piece — I had no idea who my maternal Grandfather was. More than that, though, I suddenly realized that I couldn't recall the subject having ever been mentioned among my Mother's family. It had never come up at family gatherings, certainly not since I had been old enough to be aware of it. There were no pictures, no letters, no remembrances. Apart from a name obtained through marriage, it was as though he never even existed.

And really, I had never thought to ask. Just as my parents had divorced when I was very young, and it all seemed perfectly normal to me that my Father wasn't around, it never seemed the least bit odd to me that there had been no mention of my Grandfather. It just was. By that time it wasn't, I was estranged from my Mother's family, and I wasn't about to ask. I've been left to wonder, instead.

My Grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. Her obituary mentions she was predeceased by a "friend of many years," but says nothing of a former husband. (Perhaps this is the custom of the obituary. Her Brother — would that be my great Uncle? — passed away just over a week later, and his obituary mentioned nothing of his former wife, who had died ten years earlier.)

For a time, I thought might have died during WWII, but with two daughters born during and just after the war ended, that seems unlikely. And there were no ritual visits to leave flowers at a grave site, not that I could remember. I've always wondered — was the enforced silence was meant to hide some sort of family secret? Divorce seems obvious, but could there be more to it than that?

Unlicensed

I'm not sure what to make of this: the owner of the facility where my son used to receive Physical and Occupational Therapy has been arrested. She's accused of fraud, and employing unlicensed therapists (one of whom I know).

Things were much different when we were going there, two or three years ago. We began using the facility on the advice of our beloved Physical Therapist (who had started working there) and I never had any reason for doubt. We went twice a week over the course of two years — we loved the staff, and my son made terrific progress.

We hadn't been back in ages — when my son entered the school system, the few remaining therapeutic services he still needed were provided by the school district. I always meant to stop in and say hello.

Nom de Plume

It's come to this — I'm taking my name off of a book I worked on. I could use a clever and suitable pseudonym, if I could think of one, but I haven't thought of one. I thought about using "Alan Smithee," but that would be too obvious, and I don't want to draw attention. I'm not doing this to be a jerk, I'm doing this because I believe the quality of this book, and my work on this book, has been compromised. I don't want my name associated with it.

I know, I know — it isn't my book — but when I put this much work into a project, I have a vested interest (and, I think, a responsibility) to see it through to be the best it can be.

I've been back and forth (and back and forth) with the Author of this book for months, expressing concerns about the poor quality of many of the photos — I felt they were inadequate for print, and to use them would make the book appear amateurish. (The publisher is well-meaning, but more hands-off in these difficult situations than he ought to be.) I went to great lengths to research and find replacement images, where possible, but those efforts have gone largely unacknowledged. The Author has become a pest (this will be the second time I've had to substantially rework this book) and I've spent much, much more time on this project than I'll ever be properly compensated for. By now, I just want it off my desk.

I spent most of this day working to finish this book, and I should be done with it tomorrow (by which I mean, today.) Tomorrow — or is that today? — cannot come too soon.

Thanks

This isn't the first Thanksgiving I've spent by myself. Many years ago, while I was still in college (sort of), I decided not to go home for the holiday. I've no idea why, I don't think there was any specific reason — but it felt right to step out-of-step with everything.

(That was the year I found out that my Uncle, who had always been held up as the example of the devoted family man, left his wife suddenly and without warning. I never found out why.)

This year, my wife felt obligated to visit her parents (briefly), and I'm thankful not to have had to come along. I'll spend the day working, instead. Thanksgiving will wait a few days.

Sketches: Let Me Tell You How I Really Feel...

Yeah, I know — this isn't really a sketch. I didn't do much of one for this book (which is unusual for me) because I went in with an idea of exactly what I wanted to do with it. The Author rejoices in the caustic reception her book reviews often receive, and I wanted to use red to accentuate the hostility and anger she provokes in her readers.

Unfortunately, the Author wasn't as enthusiastic about the red cover as I was. (So goes the life of a book designer.) But this was still a fun project — particularly putting the cover of the book in the cover on the book, which is also in the cover on that book, if you look closely (and if that made any sense). In the comics trade we used to call this an "infinity cover." (I'd have thought for sure that term would have a Wikipedia entry, but it doesn't.)

Oh, No!

Oprah Winfrey has announced that her long-running program will go off the air the year after next. Where will the foolishly naive and easily-persuaded go to be drawn into cultural phenomena like "The Secret"?

Sunny Days

I've been watching Sesame Street long enough (and I'm now old enough and set in my ways!) to be irritated when it changes. Not so much the two-minutes-of-sponsor-messages at the beginning and end of each program (that I find deeply disappointing), but the small changes in pace and format and content. I know, I know, it's all done with the best of intentions — but it's just not my Sesame Street, and I miss seeing favorite segments I remember.

(You can't imagine how overjoyed I was when DVD collections became available. I was amused, though, to find a disclaimer to explain that the older episodes no longer reflect commonly accepted practices in preschool programming.)

I'm watching the first show of the 40th season, as I write this — complete with that familiar feeling of discomfort. (I'm also underwhelmed, but that's another matter.) It looks as though favorite segments I'd come to love over just the past several years (watching with my son) have already been replaced. But not "Elmo's World." People tend to complain about "Elmo's World," but apart from that it seems to take over about a third of every show, I grew to enjoy it. In many ways "Elmo's World" now seems like the only link to the Sesame Street I remember.

A few years ago, there was a very self-aware parody called "Cookie World" — with Cookie Monster, of course — that was lots of fun, particularly in that Cookie Monster was the only character aware of the segment, leaving other characters confused, even indignant! It was Sesame Street at it's best, gently making fun of itself instead of a popular TV series.

And the more I think on it, that's what often seems to be missing these days — fun, simply for it's own sake. That's not to say the series isn't entertaining and full of wit (even to a parent in his mid-40s), but the Sesame Street I remember placed it's teaching moments among parody, nonsense, and general silliness. There's not nearly enough of that now. It all seems too earnest — a trend that, I think, has made PBS' kids programming bland and dull over the past several years.

(And please, don't get me started on the new version of The Electric Company. Ugh.)

Balloons

I really like this idea. It's the modern equivalent of a message in a bottle, with the added advantage of being able to follow your messages as they travel, and retrieve others, as well.

At first, I was put off by the price — all of $2.99! — but the more I think about it, the more I believe that it's become far too easy for innovative, well-thought-out applications to get lost in the 99-cent race to the bottom of the iPhone App Store, and those innovative, well-thought-out applications deserve better.

So I'm looking forward to trying this.

Place

I had a dream this morning, and was startled to discover that a place was just as I remembered it (though I hadn't been there in many, many years). And now I'm left to wonder if it really was as I remembered it, or if that memory was entirely a part of my dream.

Negatives

I agreed to scan a set of photos for a book I've been working on. Included with many of the prints were 4 x 5 black-and-white negatives in faded brown envelopes, with handwritten notes from almost fifty years ago. (The photos were publicity stills for a short-lived TV series that went on the air in 1959. It's small wonder they've survived.) The paper was yellowed and aged, and it had the most wonderful scent. (I've always loved the way paper smells as it ages.) The negatives were in beautiful condition, never betraying a trace of their age. It's hard to imagine digital photography will ever have that sense of permanence.

One of the first jobs I had after leaving college was with a photography lab. This was a small business whose better days had passed — not because of digital photography, that was still in the far future, but because of changing times. General Electric (whose headquarters were literally just down the street) once provided a steady source of business, but fortunes had turned for both the company and the city of Schenectady. There was all sorts of interesting equipment and chemicals, boxes of film and paper, but most were left unused. The business had been purchased with the hope of finding a way to turn it around, somehow, but most of the work that came in were small jobs, making prints from older negatives that more modern, automated labs couldn't accommodate.

The lab could also print murals, on large rolls of photographic paper. Once the exposure had been made, the paper would be rolled up, and unravelled by hand into a series of chemical baths for processing. You had to be very careful doing this, as the paper would easily crease if not rolled evenly.

I once printed one during off-hours — I forget what it was, exactly — that hung on the back of the door of the small studio apartment I shared with my girlfriend at the time.

Abstract

I now believe my seven-year-old will grow up to be one of those artists that design the large, inexplicable sculptures you see on the grounds of many corporate campuses.

Soggy

I'll admit, my memory has become somewhat short of an impeachable source, but I don't think it ever rained on Halloween — not when I was a kid. So I couldn't help but feel bad when the weather failed to clear up as the afternoon progressed. I mean, Halloween has got to be just below Christmas in the hierarchy of Important Kid Holidays, and it should be crisp and slightly cool — not pouring rain.

Stray

Stray Kitty could be ornery. That's why she stayed with us, why we never tried to find another home for her — because we knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to adopt out a cat who was likely to strike out at anyone who got too close to her, even someone she knew and (ostensibly) had come to trust. She was one of the never-ending series of stray cats we encountered when we rented an apartment in Jersey City. We never knew for sure, but we always wondered, based on that temperament — and her beautiful markings — if she had some Bengal in her bloodline.

She never got along with any of the other cats in the house, either. She preferred solitude, and I think she was happiest when we bought a house, and there was plenty of opportunity to be left alone. Toward the end of her life, she kept to the Master Bathroom upstairs — she liked to sit in the sun, on a shelf beneath a skylight. She would occasionally wander out into the bedroom, even into the hall, but she never needed to go too far, as food and water and everything she needed was in that small room.

It was years before Stray would demonstrate any real affection. And even then, if she got too excited, she'd swat at the hand that was stroking her (though in her later years, without using her claws). But that was simply who she was, and I understood the nature of our relationship. I'll always remember a Christmas day when she curled herself up on my lap and went to sleep, in front of the fireplace.

And she was the only cat I've ever known who sort of chattered at me, when spoken to. (It often sounded as though she was muttering at me, when scolded.)

She died not too long ago. It wasn't unexpected, she was old, and her health was obviously failing. I could have, perhaps I should have, brought her to the Vet, but the experience would only have been traumatic for her. She had grown weak in her final days — I could see the end was coming, and I hoped it would be swift.

Hours before she died, as she lay uncomfortably in her basket, she cried out — while stroking her head to try to comfort her, I wondered if she was calling for attention, or because of pain or discomfort. I'm haunted by that cry.

Nook

I'm inching ever-closer to eBooks. By which, I should say, I'm probably not that much closer, really, but I do find myself more attracted to the simplicity of Barnes and Noble's new Nook device than I ever was to the Kindle, which has always struck me as inelegant. I think it's the promise of the virtual keyboard that makes all the difference here, for me. By hiding all but the most essential controls, it all seems so much less — distracting.

That said, however, I still love my books, my real books. I can't imagine having any real use for an eBook reader until, say, the time comes that books can be lent from a digital library (perhaps as a subscription) rather than sold on a per-book basis.

Sketches: Stronger Than Spinach

Every so often, a project comes along for which I will find myself possessed with a clear-minded sense of purpose and determination. I know exactly what I want to do, and I can't wait to get to it.

The problem with a book about Popeye, particularly one being written and published without the cooperation of King Features, is that it can be difficult to find good art for a cover. The Author and I just about gave in to that conceit at the beginning of the process, and when he suggested "a can of spinach," I thought that was an idea that might be made to work — even better, I thought it might be made to work by photographing a real can and real spinach.

So I did a series of thumbnail sketches to work out how everything might fit together. (I did about twice as many as seen here, but this will give you the general idea.) At that point I didn't have the final title for the book, so I sort of made that up as I went along.

The Author and I agreed that the idea showed promise, so a week or so later (on a sunny day), I set up a small area to do some photography. This took place, believe it or not, in the Master Bathroom — there's a skylight, just above a sort of recessed shelf, which allows for lots of light. I had a roll of white paper that I put up to diffuse the light and to act as a backdrop.

I bought a few different cans (I wasn't sure which size would work best), a new can opener (that required an unanticipated return trip to the grocery store), and a large quantity of fresh spinach — much much more than I needed. (Yeah, I know, fresh spinach looks nothing like what you'd find in a can — but fresh spinach is easier to handle and much more photogenic. I'm not sure you can even buy spinach in a can these days. Can you?) So I set everything up, carefully selecting and placing the spinach leaves — then tore it all down and started all over again. And then I was ready.

This was the result. I'm sure it doesn't look all that promising, but it was exactly what I wanted.

One full rich working day later, I had cleaned and brightened the spinach (removing anything unsightly), removed the spinach at the bottom right (it didn't work as well as I had expected), put that spinach into the can, and added a label with the title of the book. (It might have taken less time, but I get incredibly fussy with projects like this in Photoshop.) And the result was something like this.

It's usually difficult to accomodate a book title this long, but it all came together quite nicely, don't you think? (I even found use for two fonts that were based on the sort of hand-lettered titles that often appeared in the Popeye cartoons.) I'm anxious to see it in print.

(And as a result of all this, my son has acquired a fondness for spinach, which can't be all bad.)

Encyclopedia

One of my favorite possessions that I almost never seem to find any real use for is my set of the Encyclopedia Americana from 1912. "A Universal Reference Library" it says, "comprising the arts and sciences, literature, history, biography, geography, commerce, etc., of the world." (It actually says etc., too.) They're beautiful books — leather-bound, gilded edges, tissue paper delicately bound against the color plates, and an odd sort of intricate design on the endpapers I can't quite make out. And they're in remarkably good condition, for books that are almost a hundred years old — they don't seem the least bit fragile.

They were on a bookshelf, behind glass doors, in my grandmother's attic when I discovered them almost 20 years ago. I don't think she ever understood why I was so eager to have them.

I love these books because they're a snapshot of the state of the world, and all that we knew about it, so long ago. Some of it we would now know to be inaccurate, of course, but there's a wonderful breadth of detail that has long since been lost, or at least crowded out. There's an entire page on "condensed milk." And three pages — three pages! — on "clay-working machinery," with illustrations.

And had you ever heard of the "Cock Lane Ghost"? That was "a famous hoax by which many people of London were deceived in 1762, arising from certain knockings heard in the house of a Mr. Parsons, in Cock Lane. Dr. Johnson was among those who believed in the supernatural character of the manifestations; but it was found out that the knockings were produced by a girl employed by Parsons."

And, of course, the use of language was so wonderfully different. We would commonly think of a commissary as, say, a sort of restaurant. In 1912, it was "an officer of a bishop who exercises spiritual jurisdiction in remote parts of a diocese, or one entrusted with the performance of duties in the bishop's absence."

And there are pages-long entries on major cities like Baltimore and Cleveland, with beautiful photos and maps of the era.

You can read entries from the 1851 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana on the web — but that will never have to same appeal to me as wandering through the yellowed pages of musty old books.

Lost

My seven-year-old and I were lost in the woods — sort of. We knew where we were, more or less, but had wandered off a marked trail, and we didn't make any real effort to find it again, thinking we were headed in a direction that would take us home (or at least, to where the car was parked). By the time we realized we weren't where I thought we were it had been a long day, and my son was losing steam, so we decided to head toward the road and call for a ride home.

But it was a grand adventure. We found the remains of the granite quarry that last operated on the site over fifty years ago, large blocks of stone, abandoned buildings (or what was left of them), and rusted machinery. And we wandered aimlessly, which was the most fun of all.

Bottle

I came across this during a walk in the woods — a very old bottle, left forgotten on the floor of the forest, perhaps for decades. It's survived the change in temperature from the change in seasons intact, and has somehow accumulated a small amount of soil. (I can't imagine how. Could it have been washed in with rainwater, or melting snow?) Inside I found growing a small fern.

I'm fighting the temptation to go back and find this again and bring it home. But that seems wrong, somehow, not to leave it. It was never a part of nature, though it seems to have become a part of it.

Out, About

I've finally added new photos to my other blog, In The Back of Beyond, after just over a month. Between my back injury and the great deal of work to be done, I just hadn't had the chance to get out and have an adventure. (More on that particular adventure shortly.)

Pennies

I was too busy to get to the bank this afternoon, so I had to find one hundred pennies. (My seven-year-old will be learning about "taxation" this week in school.) We have an enormous glass bottle (it used to be filled with spring water) that most spare change is tossed into, sooner or later. I've been doing so for about ten years now, and the jar is just under half full.

(We had another that served the same purpose for many years — before we moved, we emptied it out and brought a bucket full of coins to a Coinstar machine that amounted to just over $400!)

As I was counting the pennies, I was struck by how insubstantial they felt between my fingers, as though I were counting some sort of unfamiliar foreign currency. It isn't as though I don't come across pennies from day-to-day — or, perhaps I don't, really. Or if I do, I don't take notice of them.

Estranged

I don't have a particularly close relationship with my mother, or with my mother's family — I haven't seen or spoken to them in many, many years. ("Estranged" is a good way to describe it.) I'd rather not get into the details (I'm not sure I'd even know where to begin), but suffice it to say there was no specific moment or incident that prompted this. There was never any anger or pain. And it's a conscious decision, one I am completely at peace with.

But I don't know what to tell my seven-year-old. Sooner or later, he's going to ask about my mother, and I've no idea what I'm going to say. I don't like to lie to him — he's bright and inquisitive, so I try to stumble through even the most complex of explanations to help him understand. He deserves that. But I couldn't possibly explain this to him.

GloFish

I know what kind of fish I'm keen to add to the aquarium, though, as soon as it's established — these are GloFish. I understand these are genetically modified zebrafish (or rather these are descendants of the original genetically modified fish), developed with the intention of indicating the presence of toxins in water. They are literally florescent, and glow under black light. They look really nifty under ordinary light, too.

Many years ago, my wife was talked into buying some transparent Glass Catfish with beautiful streaks of vivid color — only to learn, to her horror, that the fish had been injected with a small amount of dye to create that effect. Since then, we've been careful to avoid those kinds of fish, no matter how beautiful they appear.

(Thankfully, GloFish are born to brilliant color.)

The Life Aquatic

I've set up the aquarium this week, for the first time in two, perhaps three years. (There was some problem or other, back in the day, that caused all of the fish to die, and for whatever reason it's taken this long for me to take everything down, clean it thoroughly, and put it back together again.)

(Actually, I do know what the reason was — it's a lot of work!)

The last time I had to do this, which must have been ten or eleven years ago (not too long after we moved into the house), we set everything up, added a small number of fish, and hoped for the best. In the years since, with the accumulated wisdom of the Internet now available, I can go about this slightly better informed. (I had Internet access ten or eleven years ago, of course, but I don't recall thinking of it as a resource where I would expect to have any question answered. And I probably hadn't discovered Google yet.)

Now, for example, I know about the very necessary step of "cycling" a new aquarium, the process of establishing the biological colony that keeps the water healthy for aquatic life. I had read that I could encourage that along by the use of an additive — though I had also read that the results were often hit-and-miss, and it didn't seem to do much for the small (very small) number of fish I tried adding yesterday.

So now I'm trying again. I've discovered what I somehow missed in my research from the beginning of the week, and wish that I had known — a process popularly referred to as "fishless cycling" that seems to have caught on over the past several years. Without getting into too much detail, rather than slowly stocking a new tank with fish and hoping they survive long enough to encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria, you use small amounts of ammonia (to simulate fish waste) that will (if done with a certain amount of care) accelerate that process.

Part of this involves carefully monitoring the water quality, testing for levels of various compounds that indicate that the process is working as it should. This part appeals very much to the scientist in me — I have to fill these little glass vials with aquarium water, add several drops of various chemicals and compare the color of the results to a chart. So that's fun. (I only need to do this twice a day, but I've already done it twice in three hours.) I've been having my seven-year-old help me with this, adding the drops, shaking the vials, et cetera. He has a basic understanding of why we're doing this, but no idea what it all means. (Perhaps I'll set up a chart and set a goal to try and emphasize the scientific process for him.)

If only I had known, I would have started this process last week. (And I wouldn't have bought any fish, either.)

Yale

Yale University Press is abandoning its' distinctive logo, which was designed by the legendary Paul Rand. Most people probably won't recognize his name, but you probably see his work almost any day — Rand designed the logos for IBM, Westinghouse, ABC, and the UPS logo that was used for almost forty years. And many, many others too numerous to list here.

I'm not sure what it is I like about this logo (I'll bet only a designer of Rand's stature could have gotten away with it), but it certainly shows more imagination and distinction than just setting the word "Yale" in type.

Mint

I've no idea when this happened, but my beloved Snapple Mint Iced Tea has returned — I found it completely by chance this afternoon! All is once again right with the world.

Or it will be, once they bring back Blueberry Iced Tea.

Stay-at-Home Slippers

I must have bought these about seven years ago, right around the time my son was born. They're not much to look at (they never were), but I wore them constantly while he was younger — less so when we were doing less staying-at-home and more getting out to various therapy appointments, and then to preschool. They spent many years hidden under the bureau in my bedroom, but I rediscovered them over the past year or so and quickly adopted them as something comfortable to wear while working.

Of course, you'd never know that, given the wear they've experienced. (You can't tell from the photograph, but I'd worn enormous holes in the front of both.)

I finally bought a new pair this morning. We'll see if these last another seven years...

Just Passing Through

I am procrastinating in the worst way right now.

Sjogren's Syndrome

Apparently, I have — wait, how do I spell this again? — Sjogren's Syndrome. Or I may have, at any rate. It came up in a routine blood test. It's an autoimmune disorder. I'm a bit early for it (it tends to come on in the late forties), and it's unusual in men (it's much, much more common in women) and there is — gasp! — no known cure (so they treat the symptoms as they come, instead of the cause).

I suppose there could be a great deal to get upset about, particularly if you're the kind of person that experiences medical symptoms while reading about them (my wife is that way), and there could be rather serious effects — but I'm not all that concerned. I'm not even sure I've exhibited any of the common symptoms.

It seems that a purple ribbon is worn to promote Sjogren's Syndrome awareness, but could also represent some two dozen other causes as well, which seems rather confusing. Perhaps there's some sort of wink-and-nod or a secret handshake that is used to distinguish Sjogren's Syndrome patients from, say, someone wanting to call attention to the risks of drug overdose.

Forbidden

I'll come out when I hear them making noise on the deck, chasing after one another or climbing on the furniture, not too long after dark. They're excited and very animated when they see me — they'll often run away, but then when they realize who I am, they come scurrying back, to sniff and paw at my feet. (I try not to wear sandals when I do this, just to be safe.) The more timid one will usually peek at me from the edge of the deck, only to come up when everyone else is eating. They still don't trust me, not completely, not enough to be completely comfortable around me, which is probably for the best.

It's a bit like a forbidden romance, really. You know it must end, sooner or later, but you enjoy the small moments while you can (and you hope nothing leaves a mark you'd have to explain).

Steinbeck

I went into watching Of Mice And Men afraid that, after years of seeing the characters relentlessly parodied in cartoons, I'd never be able to take it seriously. But it's been years since I read the novel, and I'd forgotten how deeply sad the story is. Now I wonder if I'll ever be able to watch the cartoons in the same way again.

Bronchitis

Why is it I can't just 'catch a cold' and be done with it? I'd just take a cold remedy, bury myself under several layers of blankets, sleep it off, and be better the next day, or perhaps the day after that. These past few years, though, when my son brings home some exotic virus from school, it taps him lightly on the shoulder and completely knocks me over.

This time? Bronchitis. I did my best to ignore it last week, but it finally caught up with me yesterday.

Canal

I think I've discovered what I want to do for my next vacation. (It's been so long since I've had a formal vacation, I think this might even be my first.) Did you know? You can rent a boat and travel the length of the Erie Canal (it runs the length of upstate New York). The boats are well-accomodated (almost a floating hotel room), and while the small towns along the way are supposed to be the big attraction, I think I'd enjoy the quiet of a peaceful journey — and sights like this one.

The Bird and The Bee

I had a $5.00 credit with Amazon.com — but could only spend it on an MP3 Song or Album. Amazon's MP3 store seems fairly thin on music that I recognize (or don't already own), but I happened across The Bird and The Bee. And I remembered a review I'd heard on Fresh Air not too long ago...

(I must tell you, one reason I wouldn't otherwise bother with Amazon's MP3 store is that it requires the installation of a separate program to facilitate the download of purchases you make. I'm honestly not sure why that irritates me so much, but it does.)

So where was I?

There's a distinct quality of distance to the music, and even to the vocals — yet I still find it all charming and delightful. I've been completely won over.

Inside

There's a hole in the screen door in back. It's not a hole, really, but a large section where bottom has torn. It would be large enough for the cats to get through, if they knew they could. (They don't.) I know this, because it was large enough for two of the young raccoons to crawl through last night.

I was upstairs working, and hadn't noticed how late (and how dark) it was. When I went downstairs, I was greeted by two little masked faces peeking at me from the dining room. One bid a quick retreat back through the hole in the screen, and the other followed, presumably, while I was upstairs making sure the cats were all at rest. They missed out on all the excitement, which didn't last all that long to begin with. (I don't think the raccoons were in the house for more than a minute or two. I don't even think they found the bowl of cat food.) But no harm done.

One of them even tried to sneak back in beneath the screen, though he quickly scampered away when I warned him off. (I admire his persistence and curiosity.)

Make Inferences

I'm not ashamed to admit that I was confused by my son's second grade math homework this afternoon. He's been doing a unit that uses surveys as the basis for problem solving: 7 children voted for cats. 5 children voted for dogs. How many more children voted for cats than for dogs? Simple enough.

4 children voted for both dogs and cats. 3 children voted for none. Here's where I lost my way. Does that mean four voted for cats and four for dogs? Or four cast a vote for "both"? Or that four children cast two votes?

I know, I'm probably just over-thinking this, but the way the question was phrased left me confused!

Left

I've been researching and compiling a list of email addresses — hundreds of email addresses — using Google. (It's a freelance assignment.) Mostly, it's mundane. More often than not, I can't find an email address. Often, I'll find that someone has changed jobs, as the list I'm using for reference was compiled a few years ago.

I've just found an entry for someone who has died.
She was killed in an automobile accident a few months ago. She was 38 years old, and left two daughters behind. Traces of her professional career remain, and will remain, for the forseeable future, should anyone have reason to look for them.

I couldn't find her email address.

No Borders Here

Borders is one of those retailers that I'll go to only if I have a really, really good reason to do so — I've just had far too many poor experiences with them. (I try to avoid Best Buy, too, for the same reasons.)

But a 30% discount was tempting enough to get me to try again, so off I went to Borders the other day. This one was close enough that it wouldn't have been a disappointment if the item I was looking for wasn't available, though the web site said it probably was. (Take it from me — never, ever trust the web site if you're checking to see if a product is in stock.)

And it was. But I had neglected to notice that the price of the item from a Borders retail store was about $15 higher than the price of the item purchased from the web site — which more or less negated the 30% discount. (You can find the price of the item at retail when you check to see if it's available in a given store, but it's in tiny little type, so you tend not to notice it. I didn't.)

And that's why I usually shop at Barnes and Noble, instead.

(Extra points if you recognize the reference in the title of this post. It's a favorite album.)

Visceral

We have friends with a son, about a year younger than my seven-year-old, who is also Autistic. Unlike my son, his symptoms are very different, his struggles much more significant. His pediatrician (who is also our pediatrician, and who specializes in the treatment of pediatric Autistic Spectrum Disorders) has characterized him as "living in the now." Everything is about his immediate needs. His behavior primarily driven by the second of the three human brains, the Dog Brain.

You know, I often feel that way — driven by impulse. For someone who spends far too much time inside of his own head, I think I'm keenly in touch with my Dog Brain.

Medicine

It took a month, but I finally made an appointment to see the Doctor. Even after I regained my strength, the symptoms never entirely went away, and I thought it worth checking just to make sure I haven't done something worse to myself.

I have to get an X-Ray next week. And I've been prescribed some pills. I'm often wary of taking medicine, vaguely unsettled and suspicious that it really isn't necessary. I could probably do without, but I was told it would be therapeutic, so we'll give it a try.

Shorn

I've been thinking of doing this for a long, long time — it's just taken me this long to find the courage to go through with it.

A particular pattern of male pattern baldness runs through the men in my Father's side of the family. I watched my Father half-heartedly struggle against it, though I never thought all that much (or worried all that much) about it, even as the hair at the top of my head thinned out as the years passed. I've come to prefer wearing my hair short, anyway (it felt more comfortable that way), and I suppose this was just the next logical step. (I let my seven-year-old do some of it.)

I'm finding it strangely comfortable — even liberating.

Second Day

My son has his first full day in the Second Grade today. (Yesterday was a short sort of meet-your-teacher day.) He's starting off this year with the larger, mainstream class. And you know, I haven't once been worried about how he'll do.

I think Governor Paterson has finally lost it.

I think I've had a better opinion of the Governor than most, but with his recent comments — attributing poor reaction to his public performance and his lack of support among fellow Democrats as "an orchestrated, racially biased effort by the media to force him to step aside" — I think accusations like that are usually a better indicator of exasperation and frustration than qualities important for leadership, in bad times or good.

This week, he claims he's been misunderstood, which might have been possible if he hadn't made his comments in a radio interview.

Comfortable

Have I mentioned the family of raccoons who visit the backyard here most nights? There are five of them, all born during the past several months. We used to see them trailing along after their mother, but there's been no sight of her for weeks. (It may not be all that unusual for the young raccoons to be on their own at this age, but I wonder if she wasn't injured or killed.) So as is often the case, I worry a bit, and I feel obligated. I've been leaving a small amount of dry cat food for them out back on the deck most nights.

For better or worse, they seem to have become increasingly accustomed to me. Last night, they happened to be under the deck waiting, and as soon as I stepped foot outside, three of the five spilled out from under the deck and came to see what I had. Two scurried about my feet, while another stood up on hind legs trying to get at the bag of cat food.

After eating, they often climb into the small fountain to drink (and cool off), relax and groom themselves on the chair cushions, and chase each other around the deck. (All but the smallest, who doesn't seem to appreciate being pounced on somewhat larger siblings, even in good fun.) In about an hour they're off on another adventure, and all is quiet.

At times I wonder if this is a good thing, to allow them to become so comfortable with me. But we've been watching raccoons since just about the day (or rather the night) we moved in — they're invariably curious, and that curiosity often extends to humans, as well, if you don't frighten them off. And raccoons are one of the few animals able to acclimate themselves to life in the wild after living as pets — although I'm giving them food, these raccoons are far, far from domesticated.

Compassion

I must confess, I honestly do not understand the objection to allowing a terminally ill prisoner — no matter how great his crime — the opportunity to return home for his final days. I know some people have a great difficulty with the idea of "forgiveness" (and I have no place speaking for anyone who has suffered such a terrible loss), but this isn't even about forgiving — this is simply a matter of compassion. Making this a stronger and more loving world, even in the face of horror and destruction.

Les Paul

I first discovered the music of Les Paul in, of all places, an episode of Happy Days. (It was one of those early episodes, without a laugh track — they're really quite good, nothing like what the series would become. As a general rule, if The Fonz isn't seen so much and isn't wearing a leather jacket, you're probably safe.) A brief bit of "How High The Moon" was played over the opening scenes. I've no idea how I got from that to actually buying a Les Paul cassette (how did I even know who the artist was? This was the mid-1980s, long before that kind of information was rarely further than a few keystrokes away), but I got there, somehow.

It was many years later that I learned of the significance of his work, that he had pioneered the multi-track recording techniques that made his records sound unlike anything else in the 1950s. It was only recently that I learned how he did this, without the benefit of separate recording tracks and mixing boards, by backing up the tape and recording each separate pass of vocals and guitars over the previous ones, each in a single take. (That was all the chance there was.) That certainly explains the precision in those recordings, which is an aspect I've always enjoyed. (I think it appeals to my sense of order.)

If you've ever heard his records, you know he had a sort of excited (for lack of a better word) style of guitar playing, but incredibly precise, and all his own. And the vocals, provided by Mary Ford (to whom he was married at the height of his fame), have a richness and depth, a quality accentuated by her singing harmony with herself.

It's great stuff. I always admire someone who finds a way to create something so distinctive, so different.

Blocked

If you find you can't read this, there are very good reasons why (and I'd much rather you didn't).

Goodbyes

I don't think I really know how to say goodbye. I've been thinking about that over the past few days and weeks. At times, I think it's best to quietly disappear (and I often do), leaving behind the wake of pleasant and warm memories, rather than making some sort of misguided attempt to be sure that this is the case.

But I never want to leave hard feelings, and certainly no misunderstandings. So I struggle to find the words I want, and put off saying them — and often by the time they come to me I've quietly disappeared, after all.

Noggin

Even though we've long since moved on from watching, I'm still kind of disappointed at the news (which I somehow completely missed when it was announced in February) that Noggin will be rebranding itself as "Nick Jr." in September.

We came in just as Children's Television Workshop was leaving (and missed the days of Sesame Street and Electric Company reruns), but Noggin would become a fixture in our home for many years. Not because my son watched too much TV (at least, not entirely so), but because I enjoyed so much of what Noggin had to offer. It was all very lively and imaginative, at a time when PBS's kids programming had become (with rare exception) increasingly dominated by series that just seemed more earnest than fun.

I was even getting into watching Blue's Clues toward the end. (Joe has always struck me as too much of a blank slate, likable but not especially deep. I'm much more fond of Steve.)

Then one day, a few months ago, my son announced that he was too old for Noggin. I'm not sure where he got this idea (it couldn't have been from his 44-year-old Father, who enjoyed it just as much as he did), but we haven't seen much of it since.

The identity the channel had built for itself was quietly charming, very much the opposite of what Nickelodeon has come to represent through the years. I'm sort of sad to see Noggin become another cog in corporate machinery — though I suppose I'd only be fooling myself to think it was ever anything else.

Faeries

My seven-year-old, who has just lost his second tooth, thought he had a typically brilliant plan to be able to see the Tooth Fairy in action — he would sleep on the floor of his room, so she would be inclined to pick him up and put him back into bed, which would wake him up with enough time to catch a passing glimpse.

(He was talked out if trying, but I'm sure he'll come up with something even better next time.)

Missing

What would you think if you happened to notice that the name of a woman from the next town over who was the focus of a well-publicized missing persons case just over a year ago, later the victim in a murder investigation (she was supposedly killed by her husband, though the remains have never been found) suddenly turned up as the name of a wireless network in your neighborhood?

Not Quite

I might have spoken too soon. I feel better, yes, and I'm a good deal more mobile — but I'm still not quite there yet. Ugh. (No, wait — "Ugh" is too much. A sort of resigned "Sigh" would probably suit this situation better.)

Blueprint

I really have no idea what this is supposed to be (but at least my son has provided detailed directions for how to build it).

Better

The strength is slowly returning to my lower back, which is most welcome. I've had quite enough of not being able to do, well, most anything.

Of course, the house looks like it hasn't been cleaned in two weeks (even though I've only been out of sorts for a few days) so I have that to look forward to. Ugh.

Back

Ages ago, when I was in college, I had a good friend who used to suffer from terrible menstrual cramps. I think she used to take Motrin (which was still relatively new at that time), which I had thought was a muscle relaxant. Years later, though, it seems to be nothing more than the same Ibuprofen found in virtually every other over-the-counter pain reliever.

I helped an old friend move, a few years ago. He is an avid reader and an accumulator of stuff — and had lived in the same apartment for ten or fifteen years. What was supposed to have taken a day took three, and as a result, I sprained my back. (That's much more serious than it sounds!) Ever since, every so often, it comes back to bother me, usually after I've done something thoughtless to provoke it. Yesterday, it was helping to carry a new mattress up the stairs.

It isn't so much the pain or discomfort that bothers me, just that when these episodes occur, I have almost no strength in my lower back. I can still get around, slowly but surely — I shuffle around sort of comically for awhile, then with a bit more energy once my back muscles loosen up — but if I sit down, getting back up becomes a complex process of shifting my weight and finding a way to lever myself to a standing position, or at least something I can pull myself up by.

It inevitably goes away in a few days — but it's not much fun until then. Ugh.

Myrna Loy

I've been trying to watch The Rains Came, but I've become bored with it. And Myrna Loy seems to be in this sort of awkward phase between young and vivacious (in The Thin Man series) and more mature and beautiful (as she was in, say, The Best Years of Our Lives). Or maybe that's just that the character she's playing, cold and distant.

Seven

Today was my son's birthday. He's just turned seven.

In many ways, his being a six-year-old was the longest year of his life, for me. That could be because I was more emotionally "here" than I have been in recent years (that's a digression for another day), or perhaps because this was the year he became more self-contained, more of a separate and distinct individual, following his own chosen path. (I prefer the latter explanation.) Whatever it was, it feels like he's been six-years-old forever. I'm sure it's going to be a few weeks before I stop reflexively typing "my six-year-old."

(The Wild Raspberry Ice Cream was lovely, by the way. When you first taste it, it seems more vanilla than anything — but when your tongue finds a bit of raspberry it all sort of explodes in flavor. I've used the rest of the raspberries to make more this evening.)

AOL

I read this week that Google, which had bought a 5% stake in AOL in late 2005 for about $1 Billion, recently sold it back to Time Warner for a mere $283 million (or about 28% of what they paid for it).

I was working for a division of Time Warner when AOL bought the company, about ten years ago. I think most of us were largely indifferent to the transaction (and I doubt any of us could foresee that AOL would so quickly become unnecessary). But we did receive free AOL accounts. I don't think I ever used mine. (Back in the day, anyone who knew better wouldn't be caught out with an AOL email address.) It wasn't long, though, before there were reasons to be resentful.

First among them was this ill-conceived (and thankfully short-lived) idea that we should all be using AOL for out inter-office e-mail. (I imagine AOL had an idea that they could offer this as a service to the corporate world, and forcing their own employees to use it was the way to smooth out the rough edges.) For security reasons, we would all be provided with an electronic device (it was commonly referred to as a "key fob") which would generate an ever-changing sequence of numbers, a code we'd need to be able to login to our accounts. (I found an article about all this here.) You know, I honestly don't remember if we ever did use them.

And not only was using AOL slow and cumbersome, it was also ad-supported ― which meant that every time we accessed our e-mail we'd have to see paid advertising. I complained bitterly about that.

In fact, I remember being so resentful at having to use AOL that I installed an alternative program, Claris Emailer, which could access AOL's mail service. This was the sort of stuff that irritated the IT Department no end (one of a long, long list of transgressions I was responsible for through the years), but I was not going to give in without a fight.

In all, I don't think this endeavor lasted more than a few weeks before everything returned to the way it was. (It would be the first of many, many failures in the AOL Time Warner merger.)

Observed

I have no idea what this means, but it was hanging on a door at school.

Wild Raspberry Ice Cream, In Progress...

Berries

My six-year-old and I have now picked almost every wild raspberry in the backyard within reach (and many that were not). Wild Raspberry Ice Cream has been promised in time for his birthday, which is the day after tomorrow.

Second Day of Summer Camp

Mums

Talkative

My six-year-old has been home from school for a few days, with a familiar strep infection. (He was fine the day after he was diagnosed, but we needed to make sure he wasn't contagious.)

I'll bet most kids get kind of quiet when they're sick. Not my son. For some reason, he gets even more talkative than usual.

Editor

There are certain advantages to working with a small (very small) publishing company. I have a great deal of autonomy, for example, which I'm usually quick to take advantage of. But so do many of the authors I work with. In fact, most of the projects tend to be author-driven, and this can become a source of difficulty.

Lots of people seem to think they have a book in them. What they need, however, is an Editor.

I occasionally work on books by and about celebrities you've forgotten (or have probably never heard of). Many of these are autobiographical, some are better written than others, but many of them are long — they often go on for hundreds of pages, past the end of career and visibility, into retirement and stories of family and friends. Detail that is, I've no doubt, important to the person writing it, though not necessarily of interest to the person reading. (I recently finished a book by a not-particularly-well-known actor that ran to 400 pages, only a third of those about his career in Hollywood.)

And then there are the authors who want their book to be the last word on the chosen subject. I was working on one of those last week, an exhaustive book on a long-running TV show. The series ran for 251 episodes over the course of eleven years, and that alone would make just about any book a labor-intensive project — but in the absence of any guidance, the authors seem to have given in to their enthusiasm.

This book is packed with incredible, almost unbelievable amounts of detail. It could be a truly useful and valuable resource, if only so many of those details weren't so much minutiae. There are entire sections, close to a hundred pages in total, of not much more than lists of the passing references in each episode that describe the various characters' personal histories, with observations on when something contradicts something someone else said somewhere else. That's interesting, I suppose (or at least, it could be) but these lists read like notes that were hastily scribbled while watching a DVD.

I admire the hard work that goes into an endeavor like this, I really do, but what this project needed was for someone to sift through everything and make the difficult decisions about what was truly necessary, and how and where it might best be used. (It fell to me to offer my own suggestions.) For want of that, this will likely end up as an 800-page book that purports to be thorough, but is leaden with fluff.

There are also, however, books that are so thoroughly and meticulously researched, so densely packed with detail that you wonder how it all fit into 500-odd pages — This is one of them, and this is another. (I put both of those books together, though I had nothing to do with the covers.) Those projects were a pleasure to work on, even under difficult circumstances (both had to be put together rather quickly) because so much forethought had already been put into them.

I think I become more involved in the books I work on than many designers — correcting errors, offering suggestions, often acting as a de facto Editor. It usually means more work for me, but it's much more interesting this way.

Walter Cronkite

His final broadcast as anchor for the CBS Evening News happened to fall on my birthday. I went out to dinner with my family, of course, but I brought along a portable radio and earphones so I could listen to his farewell. (The local CBS affiliate was Channel 6, and the audio could be heard at the lower end of the FM dial.)

That's what I'll always remember when I think of Walter Cronkite.

The Washing Machine of Tomorrow

Our new Washing Machine was just delivered. Out with the old model, which had served faithfully for almost ten years (the past six of those with a child in the house). It broke down almost three months ago, Sears attempted to repair it about two months ago (but didn't), and the problem was finally (properly) diagnosed about a month ago. To repair it, we would have spent more than half of what a new model would cost. (That, and it would have continued our frustrating relationship with Sears Appliance Repair service.) So this was an easy decision to make.

(As an aside: don't ever call Sears for appliance repair service. Or at least, don't say I didn't tell you so. We had to wait weeks for a diagnosis and attempted repair, they tried several times to reschedule without notifying us in advance, and they completely misdiagnosed the problem. And when all was said and done, we had to pester them to get an acknowledgment that the original misdiagnosis had been in error, and obtain a refund.)

In the meanwhile, we've been doing laundry at the Laundromat. I don't much mind, and there's one nearby that I like to use, because it's usually empty and quiet (though I just start a load and go off to run errands, anyway).

This one has nifty whiz-bang light-up buttons and an LCD display, and it plays a little tune when you turn it on and off. (No, really.) In fact, the button you press to start the wash cycle is modeled after the familiar "play" button from a cassette deck or VCR — I know, I'm dating myself — or DVD player. (My six-year-old will love this.)

In the end, it was the mechanical timer mechanism that failed the old model, after so many twists and turns. Ten years seems a good, solid run for a heavily-used appliance, don't you think?

Now I wonder how much longer the Dryer is going to last...

After The Rain

The day is getting closer. It can't come soon enough — it's becoming more and more difficult to persuade my six-year-old not to eat the wild raspberries as they turn up, to wait just a few more days for them to appear, everywhere.

Search me!

I'm not sure why, but the "search" function on this page seems to be hit-and-miss these days. I'll try to fix that soon.

Summer School

Summer school started this week. (It actually started last week, but my son was away.) We were offered the opportunity for my son to attend by the School District, even though he'd been moved out of a smaller special education class toward the end of the school year. I was eager to take them up on it — I thought somehow it might help prepare him for next year.

I've no idea what might have given me that impression (or what I was thinking). His summer class is, essentially, the environment he left behind, months ago. (In fact, many of the same students are there.) The classwork is far, far behind what he had been doing in his mainstream class. He's doesn't seem frustrated by it, not really (not yet), but I think he is a bit bothered that he isn't learning anything new and novel.

And I'm beginning to wonder if it's become a challenge for him to deal with his former classmates. As he spent more time with his larger mainstream class through the school year, that class became his peer group. Socialization with other children was always one of his weak points (part of his Autism), but he's shown great improvement from moving into an environment where he has more typical kids to interact with (and learn behavioral cues from). Now he's back among the problem behaviors of his former classmates, and I think he's finding that to be difficult at times.

Thankfully, his teacher for the Summer was his teacher for Kindergarten (and for last Summer, as well), and knows him well. And we know her well enough to ask how he's getting along, and if she feels this is best for him.

I've already promised him we won't do this again next year, that I'll try to find something better.