Monday, July 14, 2003

Style and Grace and Flamingos I wish I had a digital camera.  I say this nearly every day.  If I had a digital camera, there are so many things I would love to show you.  Big things.  Little things.  Amazing things, and just plain old things. Today, I would have shown you a picture of the party I went to Saturday night.  We know it as the Flamingo Party.  It's the kind of party that puts the "Special" in Special Occasion. It's special because of a little girl who is no longer with us, named Leah.  Leah was the first daughter of our friends Rhonda and Chai.  They got about a week of joy with their young baby before a different reality started to set in.  Leah had been born with a chromosonal disorder known as Trisomy 18.  It didn't take long to figure out that Leah's life wasn't going to match the dreams all parents have for their kids.  Trisomy kids usually don't live past one year, and the the overall list of maladies for these kids is depressing. We all knew Leah's time was going to be short.  And yet, with the help and care of her parents and a lot of other special people, she just kept plugging away.  She lived well past her clinical expectations.  We are all born with certain limitations and ceilings and potentials.  I don't know that many of us can say that we fulfilled our own potentials or had as much love surround us as Leah did in her short two-plus years. But that didn't make Leah's diagnosis or eventual passing any easier for her parents to deal with.  They gave her everything they had, and even though they knew it could happen, would happen, it was still a shock when it finally did.  I was in the room when Leah was passed to the cremation chamber.  I have never witnessed such heartbreak.  I still think about it to this day, how much it must hurt to lose a child.  It scares me.  And yet, after the cremation, we all met, family and friends of Rhonda, Chai and Leah.  We cried a bit.  But more than anything, we laughed.  We talked about Leah.  We talked about the day.  There was a sadness there, obviously, but there was more than that.  At some level, there was a kind of relief.  More than anything, there was a grace I didn't know could exist. That grace exists now in the form of a party every July, right around Leah's birthday.  It's called the Flamingo Party.  Why Flamingos?  Turns out that Rhonda and Leah had a bit of a connection with those pink birds; they would see them at the zoo or in other places.  You know how sometimes a kid or person just ends up being associated with an animal?  That was Leah and Flamingos.  It started as a couple of Beanie Babies or something, and then another person hears that "Leah likes Flamingos", and it just takes a life of it's own.  Of course, after she died, Rhonda got about a zillion different Flamingo-related items.  Well, what to do with a neon pink Flamingo light?  Display it at a party, of course.  We meet in their quirky gardens, surrounded by votive candles and music, and we mingle.  We laugh, and drink, and eat Poppycock.  Maybe one year they have a guitar player, another, a palm-reader.  And we tell stories about all of our kids; Rhonda and Chai have two now, a little boy named Simon and a girl named Lila. And we remember why we are there.  To celebrate a life, and to celebrate Life.  We don't forget Leah, and the way she changed the people around her.  Her parents honor her memory with style and grace, and they let us all share in the memory and fun.  I would have liked to show you a picture of that. 3:04:10 PM    Say what?[]

Arcades and Videogames I was 8 or 9 when Space Invaders came out.  I was 10 when Asteroids hit the scene.  As video games came of age, so did I. It was perfect. I loved the arcade.  There were so many elements to it.  All the kids were there, the bad ones, the good ones, the smart ones, the popular ones...and me.  The arcade had a way of crossing the boundaries and structures of youth culture that existed in the "real" world.  The arcade was almost a kind of meritocracy, where it didn't matter whether anybody liked you or not; if you were good at a game, you were going to draw a crowd.  People were going to watch you. Remember that?  When people would actually crowd around a video game to try and watch somebody great play?  I lament the passing of the arcade as a mecca for teen culture.  We have turned our living rooms into the arcade now; no question, the gaming has never been better.  But the social aspect of the arcade is unfortunately lost today. I wonder about kids today, and the games they play.  Not so much about the realism or violence, though I do also wonder about that.  I just figure that your average 8 or 9 year old today, if they have experience with any of the premier gaming systems, is just an amazing gaming machine.  If you take one of these kids today, who are used to working with a joystick (or two) and up to 8 buttons at one time, and you put them on a game like Moon Patrol or Galaga or Zaxxon, and they're just going to blow away anything that we were able to do back in the day.  I really believe that. Just the problem-solving skills required today are amazing.  Some people might remember one of the first "narrative" games to hit the arcades in '83 or so, Dragon's Lair.  Dragon's Lair was like a movie, but you had to do certain things in a certain way in order for the movie to continue to it's conclusion.  How did you know what to do?  Well, there would be a large flash of yellow light in a doorway, or by a sword, that would tell you where to go.  It was really a pretty easy and dumb game once you got past the novelty of it. Compare that to what kids have to do today in a game like Grand Theft Auto.  Forget about the violence and the sex.  I'm talking about how they simply figure out what the hell to do.  Believe me, there is no yellow flash.  Yeah, a lot of kids use the web to find out how to do these things, but many don't.  They just figure it out for themselves.  It's a quantum leap. Dig Dug-A Personal Favorite Ah, well.  It makes one realize that the games we grew up with and loved are really just relics to kids today.  Why would they care about a game like Centipede, or Dig Dug, or Asteroids?  They shouldn't.  They would all be laughably crude, like trying to sit around and play Pong would be for us today. I Sucked At Joust The beauty of it, of course, is that one day these same smart-ass kids are going to feel just like I do.  Their Madden football and Grand Theft Auto will feel primitive to the next generations, who grew up on better graphics, more processing power, more creative and realistic games.  For that matter, more networking, more ability to play anyone at any time, anywhere in the world.  That's starting to happen now, but it will be commonplace in 15 years. I just want Linus and Lily to know that if they ever need a person to play with, I'm always there for them, like a good parent should be.  Their mom will disavow their interest, mock them for it, even while Lily shatters her myth about it being a "boy thing".  But I won't.  I'll support you all the way, even while you're kicking my ass. 12:35:41 PM    Say what?[]

The Pixie Lies The weatherpixie is telling us that it is now 73 degrees and sunny.  Not a cloud in the sky.  This is the radar view from 13 minutes ago: To translate that in real terms, we've been getting killed with rain the last 30 minutes.  I'm talking torrential downpour, a day so dark the cars all have their headlights on.  The pixie's usually pretty good, but today the information is completely false.  I blame the CIA. 11:58:41 AM    Say what?[]

Memories of Bedtime When I was a kid, I really struggled with going to bed.  I just didn't want to do it.  I fought it every inch.  If I wasn't coming up with lame-brained excuses for why I shouldn't go to bed in the first place, I was getting up because I was thirsty, or hungry, or "scared" or whatever.  Of course, considering I was a ingesting huge amounts of Pepsi from the time I was four, caffeine might have had something to do with why I couldn't sleep, but that's a discussion for another day... Linus has started to struggle with bedtime.  Every night, for about the last month or two, we've been fighting to get him into bed (and keep him there).  His best excuse, one which in his mind requires no further explanation and should simply be accepted at face value as prima facie evidence that he should not have to go to bed, is: "But I can't close my eyes."  Then he'll take his fingers and act like he's trying to close them, only to have them (pop!) open back up again.  You see, he's really quite unable to sleep now, because he simply cannot force his eyes to close. And so, I tell him all the reasons he has to go to bed, most of which end up being bullshit.  The only real reason he has to go to bed is because if he doesn't, he'll be tired in the morning and at school, and then he won't learn.  Try selling that to a kid Linus' age.  Oh, and the other real reason is that adults like to have time when kids aren't around.  That one doesn't sell, either. A part of me feels guilty for having to play the role of Dad, because I so very clearly remember when I was a kid, feeling the way he's feeling: left out of the family goings-on at night, or maybe just plain bored and restless.  I want to tell him I've been there, that I understand, and that he's just going to have to trust me that I know what I'm talking about...like that's going to sell. Being a parent makes you think about what it was like for your parents.  You walk in their shoes.  You feel their joy, their frustrations.  You see yourself in a new way, even, because you now know how much they really loved you.  And as you get older and travel the same roads as your parents did, you realize they knew a lot more than you gave them credit for (and vice-versa, always).  You begin to see your parents more as people and less as the authority figures you grew up wanting to prove things to or challenge.  Life is humanizing that way. And then I wonder: What are the things my parents are telling me about now that I just won't understand till I'm there?  The joy of grandchildren?  The charms of a night spent on the reservation in the company of the one-armed bandit?  The fears and uncertainties of living on a fixed income?  The frustrations and pains of being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis? All of that, and more.  I may not know what it is like to go through those things yet, but I'm listening more carefully than I did before.  You don't have to listen when you're a kid.  You've got your own world to live in; you're sure you're going to be different than your parents. Part of growing up, for me, was realizing that I wasn't that different at all. 11:42:50 AM    Say what?[]

Where Is Hyperbole? I know that there are many people who view Pipeline and Hyperbole as two parts of a whole, based on the referrer patterns.  After all, this makes sense since most of the people who read the sites know both Jim and me.  And, Hyperbole and Pipeline initially started as one combined site, known as Hootenanny!  I still like that name... Anyway, many of you have probably noticed that Hyperbole has been silent of late.  Jim is having some software issues with RadioUserland, and thus far he has been unable to get the necessary stuff reloaded onto his machine.  I know he's working hard at it; he mentioned he had already sent an email to the CEO of Radio.  I'm sure that probably won't help, but it undoubtedly made Jim feel better.  What a strange world Jim Haefele is living in right now.  He goes to Tunisia, gets acclimated there, and starts a blog.  The blog becomes a lifeline of sorts, allowing him to communicate to his friends and the world as he goes through living in a new land, having another daughter, and beginning hormone treatment for his sex change operation. (You didn't buy that stuff about the State Department, did you?) Then, once he gets all settled, they come stateside.  He goes through a whirlwind tour in about 6 weeks, seeing all manner of family and friends (I roll in on Wendesday).  He barely has time to do anything, has no routine, and generally feels discombobulated while he's here.  He finds himself longing to get back to a routine in the United Arab Emirates, where his sex change will be complemented with two years-worth of high-fashion shopping, and breast and butt augmentation surgery. And to top all of that off, while he's here, he loses the lifeline of the blog, his muse, his creative outlet and conversational roundtable. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but that's how it is.  These blogs are loves of labor for us; we have both been stunned at how much we enjoy them, and how they have helped us feel so much closer to old and new friends alike.  To lose that for an extended period of time is like losing a friend.  It's like losing a lot of friends.  Not to say that these blogs are going to be receiving any literary awards or anything; we know they're just crappy little blips on the self-publishing radar.  But they feel big to us, and to think that it is really all just a glitch or a bad download away from becoming an inaccessable relic is troubling to me as an abstract thought.  For Jim, it's much more real right now. Get back soon, Hyperbole. 10:00:05 AM    Say what?[]

© Copyright 2003 Doug Hennessee. Last update: 8/1/2003; 1:13:19 PM.