My daughter is seven years old today.
Wow. How time fucking slips between my fingers. I remember the first one, who's now eleven, being born only a couple years ago. This one can't possibly be this big, this old already.
Seven years can go by in a blink.
Happy Birthday, Ruby. I love you.
[made with ecto]
Last night I was downloading something or other, some sample of an artist I've now forgotten.
Olivia was in the office with me, I suspect up to her eyeballs in her playmobile obsession.
So I start up this sample in iTunes, and it plays, and isn't interesting in any way. And I turn to say something to olivia, and the next song in my iTunes library starts playing. I have this up pretty loud.
And this is the next song. (That link isn't work safe).
It's the dirty-words-only version of 'Fuck tha Police' from NWA's Straight Outta Compton.
I thought Olivia's head was gonna explode.
IS THAT FOR MY EARS? she demanded.
“No honey, that played by mistake.”
“Why would you have that,” she asked, sounding near panic.
I explained what it was a joke, everything but the bad words edited out. And I felt like that moment in Alice's Restaurant where he says “...and creatin' a nuisance, and they all moved back to me there on the group W bench...” when I told her it was to make of point about how much some bands use that sort of language. And that made it all ok, as if she was then able to say to herself oh, it's a lesson.
I don't know this kid sometimes. I asked her if she wanted to hear it again, and she paled and said NO! But someday she's gonna understand the power of that language.
How is it the same guy can make Desperado, Sin City, and Shark Boy and Lava Girl?
It's what you gotta do sometimes when you're a parent. You go to movies because this weekend, you need something to do with the kids, not because there's something brilliant playing that you gotta see. When this happens, you gotta choose from what's on.
Sometimes there's the unexpected winner. I mean, who'd have though the Wild Thornberries movie would be a charming little flick? Sometimes you get Madagascar, funny, but not something to seek out unless you need a kid flick.
And sometimes you get Shark Boy and Lava Girl.
Let's start with -- my god what a headache I have. Hasn't 3D gotten better? It took a can of PimpJuice (also known as PJ Tight, the #1 Hip Hop Energy Drink!) to get that under control.
I wanted to like this movie. I was willing to laugh with it when the jokes were terrible and the dialog sounded like written by Rodriguez seven-year-old son (Who's credited with 'story by'). I was even willing to find the low-grade CGI effects charming.
But god. It's boring. Boring, boring, boring. The kind of boring where you wait for a bad joke to groan at because it relives the boredom.
Ok, fine. The kids liked it. They're the target audience. But damn, you know, I want a director who's as talented as Rodriguez to have a little, just a little more judgement and self-restraint.
So what's good about it? Very little. There are some clever creatures, something Rodriguez has a gift for (plug dogs, or something like that, hell-hounds made of electrical wires with plugs for heads), funny casting (Kristin Davis of Sex and the City as Mom, and David Arquette as Dad, looking eerily like Rodriguez himself). But the the only thing that kept me entertained through it was the delightfully pink-haired Taylor Dooley as Lava Girl. She's cute as a button, and I'm setting my watch for how old she has be for, well, you know. Hell, 2011? Ah. Ok. I'm hoping she keeps the pink hair, I tell ya.
Sigh. When does Howl's Moving Castle open? There's one I'll line up for.
So I'm gonna be in beautiful Orlando, Florida sampling the exotic delights of Disney the latter half of this week, flying home Monday the 9th of May.
I'd like to say this will be a booze-and-narcotics driven adventure, a sort of Fear and Loathing vs The Mouse deal, but no, this is family. Kids. Grandparents. The Full Catastrophe.
I should have some blog entries from the trip, I'm takin' my laptop with me.
But you know, if I have any Florida-local readers who want to, um, get lost in the park with me, you know where to find me. I may also be open to post-park social invitations. Book early, and offer much.
Ruby, my six-year-old, reminded me of something today.
"Daddy", she said, "You promised we could see if my legs are long enough."
And of course I had. The rule has always been, when you can get both your feet securely on the rear pegs, you can ride on the back of my motorcycle.
Ok, so I got my bracelet. Here, modeled by Olivia, my eleven year old daughter, who sniped the fucking thing before I even had a chance to put it on.
You know, she's such a prim little goody two-shoes I expected this to offend her. In fact, I was counting on it. Instead, she wants to be the very first one in her class to sport, not the yellow livestrong or the pink breast cancer or the lame support our troops, but the black LIVEWRONG bracelet.
Maybe this is it. Maybe she's turned the corner and joined the family.
The thing is, we're proud as hell of her. She's kind, friendly, just made honor roll in her school.
But as we always say, we sort of planned on having Wednesday Addams. We wound up with Marilyn Munster.
But there's hope for for her yet, I think, to get in touch with her inner evil.
It's hard to have a pet die in your hands and remain unmoved.
My ten year old daughter keeps pet rats, as I did when I was a kid. And if you have never had pet rats, you have entirely the wrong impression of rats. They're excellent pets. Affectionate, tame, intelligent. Easy to care for and not particularly stinky as small caged rodents go.
I had a lot of rats when I was growing up. One that would ride in the pocket of my army field jacket all day. I had a number of them when I was in my twenties as well, one or two at a time. My daughter got her first rat a few years ago and we've had several since. She adores them.
Rats don't live very long though. Two or three years, tops. Most are lucky to see two years. I recall them living longer when I was a kid, maybe they were less prone to infections, maybe they were raised differently, or maybe I just remember it through the blurred lens of memory.
Given how many rats I've owned, it takes a lot for one to stand out. Most rats are pretty much just rats; all about the same. The odds ones are memorable; one who had some sort of neurological disorder and would sway, and the sometimes leap at you and strike when startled. She was a beautiful tawny ray with deep red eyes, but not at all right in the head. The one I had when I was a kid who loved in my coat pocket. A couple of others that I particularly remember.
Sunday, we lost possibly the best pet rat we've ever had.
Addison.
"Ah, I'm not sure what you mean."
"I think it might be a... a..."
"Mmm-hmm?"
(Whispered) "...a sex thing..."
Long, long pause.
"Honey, do you mean sixty-nine?"
"Oh, yeah, that's it."
"Where did you hear about that?"
"Some kids at school..."
This is the kind of conversation one has when one has children on the verge of teenager-hood. The kind of conversation that's easy if you're up-tight and prudish, because you can just wash a kid's mouth with soap or spank them or pretend you don't understand. But when you actually talk to your kids and tell them the truth, it can be a little but complicated.
The truth. That's the tricky part. What truth? How much?
I'm a dirty bastard. I write erotica. I know sexuality. But putting things like this into a context so it's both understandable and appropriate; that's difficult.
How do you explain sexuality, sensuality, to a ten year old?
Honestly though, here's what happens when you don't.
I had a co-worker named Suzy, long long ago when I worked at a poster store and head shop, a place connected to Tower Records. We sold bongs and rolling papers, pipes and coke mirrors. Plants and incense.
So Suzy was the honey of the crew. A little older than most of us, I was maybe 20, she was 23 or so. A suntanned California babe. A little dim, but not as dim as she acted. Not really as cute as we all thought she was, but you know, the cutest girl we actually had there with us every day. I wanted to fuck her desperately. So did most of the rest of us. And I realize now, I could have but I didn't think to just ask.
So I wore a shirt back then, a kelly-green football jersey with a big number 69 on the back. People would comment on it, and I'd say "It was the position I played in high-school." Some got it, some didn't.
I used this joke on Suzy one day and got a blank stare. The sort of an embarrassed grin. She moved in close, all intimate-like, and whispered to me.
"I don't know what that means," she said.
"What?"
"Sixty-nine. I don't -- uh..."
She paused and looked around.
"I don't know what it means!" she finished, lamely.
I could have said a lot of things. Now, obviously, I'd suggest that I show her. And it might have worked, for all I know. She might have let me take her in the back room and demonstrate. I certainly would have gone if it'd played that way. But then, twenty years old, I had no idea what I might have gotten away with.
So I decided to go for the prank.
"Ask your mother," I said.
It was a couple of days later when I saw her again; one or the other of us was off shift. But her face was red when she saw me, her body language all embarrassment and irritation.
She planted a punch in my shoulder, and then started poking me.
"You! You! Y-y-y-y-y-y - YOU!" she sputtered at me.
"What?"
"You told me to ask her!"
"Ask who? What?" I'd forgotten all about it.
"You told me to ask my mother, what 69 is!"
"Ooooooohhhh yeahhhhh...."
"And I did!"
Her face was getting redder.
"And. She. Told me!"
Poor Suzy. I doubt that's the last sexual lesson she had to learn the hard way.
It's very important to me that my children grow up never having to say "Oh, wow, I didn't know that." It's so easy to teach them, and costs so little. I want them to be the ones who can tell their peers the truth when teen-age conversation turns to adult matters. I want them to be the ones who know what STDs are, who know how you can and can't get pregnant. I want them to know they can come to us and ask about birth control someday.
BUt still. How do you explain sixty-nine to a ten year old?
I didn't have to, this time. The conversation above was between mother and daughter, and handled incredibly well; matter-of-factly with enough but not too much detail.
That conversation concluded, after a couple of ten-year old Eeeewwwws and Ughs, with this:
"...And I give you full permission, now that you know this, to forget it completely and pretend we didn't have this conversation."
Which my ten-year-old did, and went back to her homework. But now she knows she can ask a question like that and get a real answer.
I must say though, I'm waiting for the day she asks about why daddy is always kissing people who aren't mommy. That will be an interesting conversation.
