Tiring Out Your Own Legs, Why Don’t We Hang Out and Podcast Issues
I couldn’t get this blog to work for awhile and I was struggling because there were things I wanted to write. I also have found myself struggling with my limited activity on social media in regards to getting help. Twitter is a problematic spot, but I’ve gotten some great advice on practical and impractical issues from my throngs of follows (or TOF for short). In my tweeting days I’d be asking questions like this:
Why can’t the windshield wipers on my Volvo stand up away from the car like everyone else’s can?
Is anyone else having a problem with the podcasts they listen to seeming to dart around the conversation perhaps through a bug in the player or with crappy editing on the producers part (Ezra Klein’s latest with Dan Savage is the one I’m struggling with the most)
What is the deal when your squarespace page looks fine to visitors, but editing it is lacking the colors, fields and other areas you need to create a new blog. My “edit” side of squarespace for a couple days looked like a website that was loading on bad internet quality. . .no images. . .no colors. . .many formerly clickable things that weren’t clickable. . .it sucked
Questions like that are a place where Twitter really excels. You ask those questions, one person makes fun of you for your Volvo but mainly you get answers, quickly, and without wading through tons of articles that have false information on it. Feel free to give my your former twitter takes at s@heiruspecs.com
January is a great month for re-appreciaiting your existing routines. I know it is a ripe time to change up routines as well, and I’ve done a bit of that. But after about two weeks of schedules losing nearly all meaning with holidays, e-learning days and additional days off, it feels pretty magical to fall back in to some things. On Sunday I got to fall back in to doing a workout at the Y and then hanging out with Martin Devaney at the coffee shop of your dreams and mine, J&S in St. Paul. The workout was particularly magical because I had hurt the top of my ankle on January 2, had to cancel a session with a trainer related to that and the snow days and was basically M.I.A. from exercise for about ten days. The foot thing was particularly hard because I am still stuck in that mentality that anything is wrong with me must be a symptom of permanent, lasting damage I’ve voluntarily inflicted upon myself as a fat person. Even though I test negative for diabetes and take many actions to keep diabetes at bay, this pain in my foot has me thinking about my foot being amputated and wondering how I can hit effects pedals on stage from a wheelchair. I can’t explain why the foot hurts, I didn’t do anything to it. And ye’ old internet is happy to double down on my fears of amputation and recommend solutions that should help this non-problem. The pain moves on, the workout commences, but I am now utterly aware that I’ve inflicted a level of stress on my psyche that will stick around a lot longer than the foot pain. What a treat as they say.
But this work out on Sunday was short and beautiful, ten minutes of running, three weight lifting exercises done 10-15 times per set, with three sets. Simple, awesome and the best thing is the way your legs feel the rest of the day. Exercise quiets your ambition in some of the same ways that marijuana can. Have you ever smoked something after 8:10pm and started putting off completely completable tasks until tomorrow just because? Exercise gives me maybe a slightly connected feeling to that. Whenever I’m struggling to complete something else for the rest of the day I can think: “well, you did squats that felt absolutely incredible this morning, you can feel the furnace of your body moving and you’re gonna do your best to complete this task but if not, it was still a magical day.” I believe that marijuana and exercise both offer me up a little bit of self-forgiveness and understanding. In both situations I give myself the benefit of the doubt in a significant way. I don’t believe I always got that out of every form of exercise, it has been more pronounced when there is weight lifting involved. What a treat, as they say.
A common theme of podcasts I’ve been listening to involve the impossibility of parenting in general and parenting in an atomic family for sure. I am lucky to feel in a more tight circle of parenting than just my atomic family. My brother and his family live in town. My in-laws live in town. On top of that, I feel a network with my neighbors. Not necessarily a “drop the kids off for hours” vibe but a lot of parenting across the yard, a lot of activities we all bring our kids too. So I believe comparatively, I’ve got it pretty good when it comes to parenting. But friends, I thought we were gonna hang out more even when we had kids. Pre-kids, I felt comfortable if I was out and about or with people at home 5-6 nights a week. I think everyday should have work and it should have fun and I really enjoy seeing people. And there is just no momentum in that direction as a young dad at all. I do see people, I do get out to events, but it’s a straight uphill battle. There’s just this magnetism to staying at home and this necessity to it. Someone needs to be at home with the children. If that someone ain’t you or your wife, you are frequently paying for it, and if you aren’t paying for it you are still inconveniencing someone in your circle. I have a lot of fun work, I’m at shows for my job, I play bass at shows for my job. BUT, I didn’t think it would be this big of a drought as far as social time goes. I wouldn’t change it, but my dear lord, I almost hate to get glimpses of it. I drive down Lake Street and there are at least 30% new businesses relative to the last time I drove down this stretch by Bde Maka Ska. I just don’t go there.
When the kids do get more manageable. . .what remains? What is available. Some friends will be starting their parenting journey. Some friends will be disinterested in going out for reasons independent of children. I had no idea how unique my access to free time would be in my 20s. I filled it up with activities, many of them really positive and career fortifying for later in my life, but they started off free. We’d add rehearsals, game nights, concerts to see, the pizza farm. I thought it was all great and I didn’t think it would stop. It has stopped. Does it come back a little and what does it look like. One of the lyrics my dad fixated most was from “You Never Give Me Your Money” by the Beatles, a band from England. McCartney sings “oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go”. At a couple times in my childhood my dad would highlight that lyric and say “I haven’t had that feeling in. . .____(blank) years” almost always carbon dating the loss of that feeling to the birth of my older brother Steve. Same as me, my dad wasn’t cursing the presence of his children in his life, but he was highlighting that they come with this absolute modification of what free time is and what it costs. And I believe that that grand compromise between the feeling of youthful free time and the presence of children is not 100% baked into the recipe of having children. It’s baked into the recipe of raising children in a primarily atomic family vacuum, it’s baked into the recipe of the helicopter parent who aim to maximize every moment of potential glory for our little ones. And I don’t know that it has to be that way. Quick Sidebar: maybe earlier generations had more people in touch with their free time because the woman involved in raising the kids had even less. Maybe my dad singing the “no free time blues” is a good thing relative to earlier generations of dads who didn’t get their hands dirty with parenting whatsoever. But, I honestly want to rebel against the absence of free time without leaving my wife holding the bag and I think it’s possible. I think it comes with adjusting expectations, ending helicopter parent aspirations and making sure to take advantage of the moments of freedom that one can conjure up in this period of life. What a treat, as I say.