Today as I rode in my mind was awash in one of those Joycean stream of consciousness monologues (the one I'm thinking of is Molly Bloom's ending monologue from Ulysses) that find me contemplating everything from stink bugs to Quantum physics. I really did have so many things I was thinking about that I'm not sure I can do justice to all of them in a mere post but here goes - it's fun to try.
Today I started my day feeling incredibly guilty for yelling at my son James for not taking care of the stink bug in his room last night. I really shouldn't have yelled at him to "just take care of it yourself" just because I didn't feel like dealing with it. As Amy reminded me, she cooks, does the laundry and all sorts of things she doesn't necessarily want to deal with. On the tip of my tongue was the old tit-for-tat but I held myself and disposed of the stink bug. After all, I WAS seriously afraid of spiders until I became a father and had to deal with them so I guess I can't fault the little guy for being freaked out. Now if I could only get him to do the dishes!
Also going through my head was the thought of my bike ride with my other son William. For some reason I as I eased out through the early morning fog I could only think of how my son William looked flying along Laurel Avenue on Sunday enjoying the FREEEEEDOOOOOMMMMM of being on his bike. It took me back again to my own forays on my first geared bike and I decided today would be less about trying to reach a killer average mph and instead enjoy the feeling of just riding my bike. And so with William Wallace's speech ringing through my ears;
Of course, like the real William Wallace I don't shoot firebolts from my arse - if I did, I could ride much faster. Awfully hard on the bib shorts though.
The next thing running through my head was the word opprobrium. It was mainly in my head because I had to delete a Facebook post I had recently put up in which I was showing support for all the people I know who are involved with law enforcement. My nephew is a State Trooper in Louisiana, many of the people I work with at Northport Fire Department are in law enforcement and my sister works for the INS - she has a badge and enforces immigration law so I guess technically she's in law enforcement. Anyway, I had posted in support of them against the statement Donald Trump made that our law enforcement people are too afraid to make arrests because of "political correctness" and basically, there is not one law enforcement person I know who would hesitate because of that. And then the comments started in. People started polarizing and politicizing my statement of support and it became a "us" against "them" debate. It seems as I nothing can be said or expressed without it becoming a political event. I then thought about how our government has become like the situation in Northern France during World War I. We have two camps, two political ideologies if you would, that have entrenched themselves for the last six years or so. Both are dug in and are dedicated to protecting their own point of view and will do so doggedly. They're so entrenched they can't move forward and they refuse to take a step back to better evaluate the situation. They're afraid if they give an inch the enemy will take it over and they will lose their tenuous grip on the power they have. So they continue to lob invectives and to do nothing but block the progress of the other side no matter what - even if secretly they agree with it - out of principle and stubbornness. And you can't sway them from their post no matter what.
So I deleted my post. I then posted again saying I'm not going to put another pseudo-even-remotely-political post up and I used the words opprobrious, vituperation and disparage all in the same post. I received a lot of good natured ribbing about the words but they're just words I use all the time. So I spent part of my ride time thinking about how, even though I'm a drama teacher, I try to incorporate vocabulary into my daily lessons to make the kids think and to encourage them to expand their vocabulary. Just because we're actors, we don't need to be stupid, doltish, vacuous, vapid, or obtuse!
Then I thought of Quantum physics. I admit I don't really understand it but I'm fairly certain James understands some of it. It's frightening the things he can easily grasp. It might even make him as happy as Sheldon Cooper:
And by that time I was at school and it was time to start thinking of something else entirely - how to bring the passion for what I love doing to the acting students of SHS and at the same time try to encourage the administration what we do is important. It may not be as important as the new Virtual Enterprises classes (they just had a new facility built for them with computers, carpeting, a huge space) but to the theatre kids it is and despite the fact we're still operating in substandard (at least compared to VE) facilities, we have a program and the kids are amazing. So I headed in, got ready to make coffee and began my quest to seize the day. FREEEEEDOOOOOMMMMM!
Since I know you're all wondering;
FFR -- One squirrel and something that looked like it might have once been a blue jay.
RRL -- A FILA baseball cap, a shower cap, two gloves.
Stay well and I'll see you on the road!
