Brilliant … But Bouncy

Colleges Can’t Compete With “Real” Film.

Even though I didn’t want to do it, because I really want Shane to stay on this side of the country for college, I took Shane to visit film schools in California.

On our agenda: 10 colleges and two amusement parks in 4.5 days. And I really believed we’d see them all!

We had two tours scheduled on our first day, and we went to both. It was astounding how similar college tours sound, once you’ve been on a few of them. They all have the most spirited students as tour guides, and sometimes they use the same statistics as marketing points.

In southern California, a key marketing point: Because of the close proximity to both mountains and an ocean, you can go skiing and surfing in the same day.

Of course, Shane should be studying, not skiing and surfing – but it sure was enticing!

At Shane’s favorite college, too, he can watch fireworks from Disneyland every, single night.

After our good work on the first day, we took a day off to visit Universal Studios Hollywood. This was technically related because we went on the “studio tour” ride and drove through a real working studio – which was, ultimately, the coolest thing in the world.

After Universal, we were going to visit two schools in Pasadena, but Shane decided against them. One had a (truly) very dull way to teach film, and the other was 100% commuters. So we skipped those.

We toured three colleges the next day – two huge schools and one smaller – but our favorite stop was the Brady Bunch house, which is in a residential neighborhood. Colleges can’t compete with “real” film.

Then, Shane got sick – literally. He had a fever, so we revamped our plans and canceled one amusement park and two more college visits. He must not have been meant to go to those colleges.

By Monday morning, the day we were leaving, we were down to one more tour and a trip to the airport. The tour was nice – gorgeous views, gorgeous weather, blah blah blah – and Shane put that college on his “maybe” list, along with one other “maybe” and one “yes-I’m-applying” college.

And then we hung out by the Pacific Ocean for lunch, really seeing the west coast for the first time. It was spectacular.

We may not have accomplished as much as we set out to accomplish, but we did put some realism into Shane’s vision of California.

And mine – since I’d never seen Los Angeles, either.

It’s very nice. The weather alone is enough reason to go there – if you like 70 and sunny every day.

And it was great to see the colleges in person, and get an idea of what west coast campuses look like – what they feel like, really. Fortunately, they feel a lot like east coast campuses.

Shane’s most telling comment happened after our first tour, at his favorite school. He said, ” I don’t know if it’s this college I like, or just California.”

And he had a point. It’s hard to pull the campus out of the bright, warm weather in January.

But I hope he can. I hope he distinguishes between his “passion” for film – which is not terribly evident – and his “passion” for being in a sunny, warm environment – and someplace new.

Because I really want him to stay on this side of the world.

My recourse: I’m planning the most adventurous college tour extravaganza ever. Spring break is coming!

He will see what this side of the world has to offer.

And if it doesn’t offer more than southern California? I can always move out west.

I’m Actually Really Good At It.

Shane is interested in pursuing film as a career. He would like to act, but he thinks a more realistic pursuit is film or sound editing.

“Other careers are just boring,” he said.

I explained to him that he doesn’t know all the other careers, and that he may enjoy some of the careers he hasn’t yet experienced.

“If you don’t know how to do something yet,” I said, “it’s hard to say that you wouldn’t like it.”

“That’s like math,” he said.

What? I thought. What could that possibly have to do with math?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, when I don’t know what I’m doing, math seems really hard. But as soon as I understand it, it’s really easy and I could do it all day.”

MATH?!? I thought. He LIKES math???

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” Shane said. “I’m actually really good at it. And it’s fun as long as I know what I’m doing.”

He likes math. Shane is in Honors level classes, and even an AP class – except in math. Because he struggled so much in Algebra I – and despised it – I told him to take non-Honors-level Algebra II, so he’s been taking on-level math classes since he started high school.

“So maybe you’ll really like some forms of math,” I said. “Remember how you liked Geometry?”

“It wasn’t my favorite,” he said.

“Well, you were good at it, even though it was an Honors class. And I have a feeling you’ll like next year’s class, too.” Next year, Shane is taking Intro to Statistics, to prepare for the AP Statistics class in 12th grade. It seems like it might be his kind of thing.

“Maybe,” he said.

“You might like some college-level math classes, too – like accounting,” I said. “You might love accounting. It’s a completely different kind of math. I think you will find a whole bunch of other things in college that interest you.”

I wish I could have told him more about accounting. Unfortunately, I know nothing about it.

But I started thinking about how little I know about how Shane’s mind actually works. He likes MATH and I’ve been holding him back from tackling the higher level stuff. He’s taking a slower paced class because – well, because algebra is not fun. It’s been documented a billion times over that algebra has little purpose in the real world – yet it’s taught in schools like Latin, as if anyone would really need to know that stuff.

Meanwhile, accounting is an “elective” that doesn’t get any credit as genuine math. It’s a “business” class. And don’t we need people who can understand business? Don’t we need people in the world who have an interest in new and varied types of numerical equations?

When Shane was young, he had more interest in the numbers on the pages of books than he did in the books themselves. I always blamed his vision processing for his attraction to numbers – but at this point, who cares why he likes numbers? Maybe he can enjoy numbers in college! Maybe he would like something other than film editing!

Of course, that didn’t stop me from taking him to California to visit film schools – but it did give me some insight into how to proceed with his college explorations.

Can’t You Say Something?!?

I was driving Shane to school – one of the few times I get to actually talk to him, since he hides out so often nowadays – and I started telling him a story.

I can’t remember what the story was about; it’s irrelevant. It was a story that I thought would be interesting to Shane. I started talking a minute or two after we left the house.

I continued talking as we turned onto the main street, and as we drove through the first light. I talked all the way through the three-minute stoplight break. I talked for another few blocks, when we turned into a residential neighborhood, and then I talked for another five minutes as we drove through the neighborhood.

Shane never spoke. He never said, “oh wow” or “that’s interesting” or “I wish you would shut up.” He never said, “why did that happen?” or “something like that happened to me once” or “don’t you hate it when that happens?” He didn’t utter a single word.

Since ten minutes had passed, and I had been waiting for him to chime in on the conversation, I just blew up.

“Can’t you say something?!?” I screeched. “I have been talking the entire way to school and you are just sitting there! You seem to be listening but you haven’t said anything that makes me think this is a conversation! I feel like I’m talking to a brick! Don’t you have one single word to say?”

“Not really,” he said.

“But don’t you think you should say something, since I have been talking non-stop for ten minutes? Like maybe so I would know you are listening? Like maybe something that would show some interest in the conversation that I thought we were having?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said. Shane seemed a little hurt, as if I’d smacked him in the face for sitting still.

I know there’s a difference between females and males, and that males tend to think first, then talk. I know that females tend to talk while they think. I saw it on the Discovery Channel video I bought. But this is beyond that.

And I also know that I shouldn’t blather on for ten minutes and then explode with no warning. I had to apologize for that.

But still… I felt like Shane should have said something. Anything. Something that would imply that he heard me, that he was there.

Shane has never quite gotten the art of conversation. On the telephone, he’ll say, “Okay bye,” and hang up after he gets whatever information he needs. And in person, he’s much the same way. It makes me wonder if he ever speaks when not spoken to.

So now I am on a quest: discover how to help Shane converse.

And also: stop yelling at him for saying nothing.

Why Are You So Sad?

One Sunday morning, I was minding my own business when I heard, quietly on the other side of the room, Dylan’s voice. He was singing one of his own songs, and my stomach flipped for a minute before I remembered:

Dylan’s not here.

Bill had music playing on his computer on the other side of the room while he worked. He was listening to Dylan’s songs, as if having Dylan’s music playing wasn’t something to be treasured while doing nothing else at all except attentive listening.

I turned around with a tear in my eye.

Shane said, “Why are you so sad?”

“Because Dylan’s not here!” I said. His music was here; his videos were here. Heck, his bed is still here. But Dylan is not here.

This is something that hasn’t really bothered me before. I was just talking to someone about how easy it’s been, having him at college.

“I’m just so happy that he’s happy!” I said, and I meant it. I think about Dylan all the time. But I think about the things he’s doing at college, and it makes me happy.

I’m happy that he has close friends and that he’s got plenty to do. I’m happy that he likes his classes, that he’s getting phenomenal grades, that he’s on track for graduation in four years. I think about him turning in his work, sure, but compared to high school – I don’t think about it at all.

I wait to get texts from Dylan, and hope for FaceTime calls and photos. I treasure them the way I treasure watching a song of his on YouTube. Sometimes he just “likes” something that I text to him – a skill that I have yet to acquire – and even that, I treasure.

But when I hear his voice, his gorgeous singing voice, coming from a computer and being relatively ignored, it absolutely breaks my heart. Even though Dylan would be thrilled to have his music be someone’s background music, it makes me sad.

Because to me, Dylan isn’t background. He’s front and center, light of my life, always. He and Shane share a spotlight that no one else will ever be able to share.

It’s sad, in fact, for those people in my life who probably want some of that spotlight. There are people in my life – my husband, for example – who definitely have my heart, but who don’t have the spotlight.

I keep thinking about a comment, when I was pregnant. He and Bill both had children, and I didn’t. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly even like the child I would have – and what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t feel like kissing my own baby?

Our mutual friend, “I’d jump in front of a train for my daughter, and I’d never even think about it.”

Bill said, “You’d jump in front of a train for your wife, too, wouldn’t you?”

And he said, “Sure! But I’d think about it first.”

And that, they agreed, is how parenting works. It’s an instinct, to protect those babies.

But when the baby is grown and gone, and I can’t physically jump in front of the train, quite honestly: I just miss his personality. I miss listening to him sing, and talk, and just be him. I want to see him, to hear him, to be with him.

Even though I know it’s way better for both of us if he’s living entirely independent of me.

Still, when he sings, I will stop. And I will listen. And I will treasure every moment I can.

We Had No Internet.

We cut the cord.

No, no, not the umbilical cord – the cable cord. Technically speaking, we got rid of Fios, which is apparently something different – and we really liked Fios more than cable, too.

But…

I discovered YouTube TV with its unlimited DVR, and all the channels I love except one – plus a slew of other channels I didn’t know existed – and I just had to have YouTube TV. And we love it.

Getting YouTube TV was easy – but Bill (who is the only tech geek in the family) said that we needed ethernet instead of whatever we used to have, in order to download stuff and stream faster. YouTube TV seemed to be working absolutely fine without ethernet, but I told him I didn’t think we needed a gigabyte, whatever that is – so he settled on ethernet as a compromise.

Here is what I know about ethernet: a guy has to come and install it, or we won’t get it.

So, one morning, a guy come to our house shortly after 8 a.m. Marvin was great. He was friendly and professional and asked all the questions that Bill told me I’d have to answer, so I figured he knew what he was doing.

Marvin encountered a problem with running some wire thing through something else – “and there was even a pull-string!” he told me, recognizing the value of a pull-string. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I could tell instantly that this guy was going to do whatever it took to run whatever-wire-thing through the whatever-else. And he did.

Meanwhile, though, we had no internet. I couldn’t check my email. I couldn’t surf the web. I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t look up the answers to the plethora of questions that pop up in my head and normally send me to the internet.

The problem could take hours to fix! So what on earth was I going to do?

Well, I packed for a trip. Conveniently, I had a trip in my immediate future – although I was actually already packed. But I put in toiletries and books for the plane ride and even chose my snacks for any time I might get hungry in the rental car.

I also did laundry. I cleaned up some stuff. Then I cleaned up some more stuff. I put stuff away that had been sitting out for days – maybe months – and I reorganized stuff that was already organized sufficiently.

I ate breakfast. I played with the dog. I fed the birds and the squirrels, who were very happy. I also fed the dog. Twice.

I texted people – just because I could – and talked to Bill, who kept calling to see if the guy was done installing our ethernet.

Then I started studying the Senior Outdoor Adventures in Recreation booklet. This meant I could read about all kinds of day trips for seniors – like myself – to take in the spring. Registration opens soon, so I gave every option serious consideration, making marks in my booklet so that I could discuss these options with the other seniors I know.

Then I gave up trying to be productive and wrote a blog post. Then I considered taking a nap – but failed.

Life without online activity is far more boring than I remembered. Whatever ethernet is, it’s going to be wildly worthwhile.

I Know He Needs to Break Away.

I am having trouble coming up with material for my blog.

This is not to say I’m not parenting, or learning new things every day. When I started this blog, I thought I would be having little revelations every day – and often, I do have little revelations.

But lately, they have been about the dog. He’s tough to train, and I never know if I’m doing anything right. Loki, in this way, is like Dylan.

But Dylan went to college, and he was a source of great learning for me. Watching the kids together, too, taught me a lot. But when Dylan left for college, Shane started hibernating – as teenagers often do – and I was left virtually alone.

We don’t eat dinner together anymore. I know it started when I stopped eating gluten, but it’s gotten worse. We don’t even eat dinner in the same room anymore. Everyone just grazes at random. On a good day, two of us will go out to eat together. Often, we will drive through somewhere and hand Shane the crappy food teenagers enjoy. Later I will have a bowl of spinach and green onions or something.

Truthfully, dinner and car rides is all we had left – and lately, we don’t even have dinner. I can’t help but think about that commercial that says families who eat dinner together are better off. And we ate dinners together for many, many years.

But that darned gluten is in everything, and making three separate meals just seems ridiculous.

We do occasionally watch TV together. Recently we watched Jeopardy’s “Teen Tournament” with Shane, and that was great fun. It was short-lived, but great fun. And we watched the entire season of The Masked Singer with him. Sometimes TV is the only way we can drag him back to us.

I know he needs to break away. I know he needs to be independent. And I know this is a natural phase of his life.

Shane is doing his own thing, his way. He’s quietly moving out of the childhood realm and into the adult world. I miss him, as he’s going, and it’s hard to know that he’ll be fully grown if I so-much-as blink.

And unlike Dylan, there are no fights, no disagreements, no debates over what should and shouldn’t be done. Shane is a completely different person, and he is growing in his own way – which is to say: a completely different way.

And that is fine. It just feels like Shane is growing up without me.

And with Dylan gone, it’s just so very, very quiet.

So while I will keep writing, please understand if it’s not as frequently, or if it revolves around parenting a dog. It’s just my life these days.

It’s Hard Dealing With Boys.

When Dylan went back to college, I was ready. He was ready. Bill was probably ready, although he worked through a lot of Dylan’s days at home.

But I’m not sure Shane was ready. In fact, I think Shane may have had the best time with Dylan out of all of us. He actually hung out with Dylan. They did stuff together.

As parents, we tried to “do stuff” but it usually ended up with Shane and Dylan complaining about Bill or me, or both. There was some fun reminiscing about their childhoods – done mostly by Dylan – but when Shane and Dylan were together, they really enjoyed alone time.

So now that Dylan is gone, Shane is – well, alone again. And I don’t think I realized how much time he spent alone until Dylan left and Shane started thoroughly enjoying the electronic gifts he got for Christmas – by himself.

So I’ve been trying to encourage him to do things with other people. I’m particularly trying to get him to hang out with guys his own age – which, it turns out, is nearly impossible.

It’s hard dealing with boys, and I didn’t know that. Boys don’t really respond well to other boys. As a female, I’ve never been very comfortable with male communication styles.

And in high school, male communication is not comfortable for anyone – not even boys.

Dylan always texted girls, invited girls over, wanted to hang out with girls. And I never understood that – until I was reading a book and the high school guys joked about how “only girls text each other.”

So that explains a lot. And Shane has some wonderful girl friends, and they do a lot with Shane. But I still try to push the guy friends on him – and I think, as I am writing this today (having had a rough morning with Shane already), I am going to stop pushing the guy friends. Shane has guy friends, and if they don’t want to hang out after school, that’s going to be okay.

As long as Shane is okay with it.

The Jar Trick is a Symbol.

I had to open a jar, and the lid was on tight. So, excited to show Shane what I knew, I pulled out a butterknife and held up the jar for Shane, who was eating breakfast.

“Wanna see a cool trick?” I asked.

Shane rolled his eyes at me. “Not really.”

Unperturbed, I continued. “You take the handle of the butterknife, and you whack the lid a couple of times in the direction that you want to turn it – just gently.”

“You already showed me this,” Shane said.

“But look!” I tried again. “Just two or three simple whacks in the right direction and it will open right up!”

“I know,” Shane groaned. “You’ve told me this like a million times.”

I backed off, opening my jar with less enthusiasm – but still happy to be opening the jar.

Because: that jar trick belonged to my grandmother. It is one of the few things I know that was handed down through the generations. And it’s such a cool trick that I wanted to make sure my own kids would pass it along to their kids, too.

And it’s disappointing when my kids don’t react as they should, about something as exciting as opening a jar. I mean sure, maybe Shane did better with it the first time I told him – but probably not. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a history – or what it’s like to hold on to that history after your grandmother dies.

He doesn’t know that the jar trick takes me right back to Grandma’s tiny white kitchen, with its short shelf of breakable things that I wasn’t allowed to touch, an enormous jar of Lemon Blennd on the floor behind the door, and a lidded pot of stewed tomatoes cooking on the stove.

Shane doesn’t know how proud I am that my ancient grandmother, who was in her mid-sixties when I was born, found a way to open a jar without any silly man around to do it for her. I’d spent my entire life handing jars to my dad or boyfriend, until I learned the trick.

Shane doesn’t know that for me, the jar trick is a symbol of the strength that oozed from my grandmother. The oldest of ten children, she survived the death of an infant, and then raised four beautiful girls completely on her own since my grandfather disappeared long before they coined the term “deadbeat dads.”

Then my grandmother got to know all eleven of her grandchildren and some great grandchildren, outlived all of her siblings, and never once wavered from her strong Christian values.

And my grandmother did it at a time in history when women were generally considered incapable.

Shane doesn’t know that my own mother showed me the jar trick. He doesn’t realize that from that day forward, I felt empowered.

Shane doesn’t know that the simple act of opening a stuck jar is a testament that women can do anything – and everything. We can tackle tasks that, once, seemed impossible.

Still, I think he will remember the trick. Shane likes tricks.

And I think Dylan probably remembers the jar trick, even though I’m not there to remind him. And I think he remembers the other stuff I told him about how to do things.

I don’t know which things my kids will choose to do the way I did. But I can hope – with as much hope as I am able to muster – that I’m leaving them a positive example of how to live a life, like my grandmother and mother left to me.

Go Get Your Shoes.

I keep thinking about when Dylan was eight, nine – maybe ten, and a recurring situation that happened nearly every day.

Dylan would be in the kitchen, finishing his meal or done building with his toys. It would be time to go – somewhere – and I’d say, “Dylan, go get your shoes.” And Dylan would go upstairs, presumably to get his shoes.

But then Dylan wouldn’t come back.

Sometimes I would call him back downstairs, and he’d meet me in a flash – still in bare feet, or socks – with a book in his hand, or a toy, or a shirt. Sometimes it was his shirt that he’d taken off. But he didn’t have his shoes.

Sometimes I would go upstairs, and I couldn’t find him. He’d be in another room entirely, nowhere near his shoes, inventing a new way to shoot paper clips down the hall or sorting rubber bands in the dry bathtub.

Sometimes I would go upstairs and he’d be in his room near the shoes. These were exciting moments for me – until I realized that he was actually digging through a pile of monster trucks that he’d found under his bed and had no intention of getting his shoes.

We were always late; Dylan was always late. He rarely, if ever, got his shoes when it was time to get his shoes. And he never put them on fast enough to get to where we needed to be on time.

Eventually, as he got older, he learned to throw his shoes and socks in the car and put them on as he rode.

Ten years went by in an instant.

Dylan came home from college for Christmas and suddenly, we were late for everything again. Bill, Shane and I would be sitting around with our coats on, and Dylan would be doing something – no idea what – but he wouldn’t be ready to go.

Dylan’s version of “getting ready” is to be awake and then spend three hours doing whatever he wants, which may or may not include a 45-minute shower, wearing shorts and flip flops in a snowstorm, or texting 75 of his closest friends – all while we wait.

I have no idea how much of his behavior is related to ADHD, and how much is related to me spending the first 18 years of his life waiting, and reminding, and prodding.

I wonder sometimes if I had said, “Go get your shoes” and then gotten in the car – would he have shown up? Would he have come back with those shoes immediately – could he have come back with those shoes immediately? Or would I still be sitting in the car all these years later, while Dylan does whatever Dylan gets distracted doing – while the rest of the world whirls around him?

Maybe it’s worse now, since he’s had no one prodding him for four months. Or maybe it’s the same, and I’d just forgotten how it went back when he lived at home full-time.

And of course, no matter how frustrating it was, I love him and I miss him terribly already.

But I do wonder how he ever makes it out the door of his dorm room.