the boy

Five Things Make a Friday Post

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1) Quick question: Should I do another August book giveaway to promote Circle of Enemies? I’m not sure it did me any good last time, as far as drawing in new readers, but it was nice to give away cool stuff.

2) My wife and son are spending the day on their bikes, riding the Burke-Gilman trail as far as they can go. That means that, instead of spending the day writing at a Starbucks and the library, I’m going to work at home, sans interruptions. Kitchen floor: swept.

3) What have I been working on? I should be able to let you know very soon.

4) Taxes are nearly done. At this point it’s about printing them, e-filing and transferring the money to the correct account. Also, I was a complete idiot about them this year. Here’s why: I’d been stressing over the bill. Now, we had the money in savings, but I was stressing over it because it would cut quite deeply into our cushion. It was only last night, late, that I remembered that I had a CD with no early-withdrawal penalties set aside specifically for taxes–and it has triple what I need to cover the bill. Phew!

5) I’m not gluten-free anymore. I did lose a little weight, but it was mainly because we didn’t have food available when I was hungry. Me with low blood sugar? Not a good husband. Not a good parent. Besides, it’s unsustainable and unhealthy. Also, it didn’t stop the allergic reactions on my face. (This is an FYI: no diet advice, please.)

Conversations I have over and over

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Medical professional of any sort, while taking a history of my son: Do you take part in any after school activities?

Son: Actually, I’m homeschooled.

MPOASWTAHOMS: Oh? And do you have a circle of friends to play with?

Me: Yes. Yes, he does.

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Supermarket check out clerk: Paper or plastic?

Me: Actually, I have my own bags, and because I have to take them home in a wagon, I’ll need to pack them myself.

SCOC: Oh. Okay.

Me: It’s the only way they’ll all fit.

SCOC starts sending eggs, pears, and bread down the conveyor belt.

Me: Um, would you please take out the stuff at the front of the cart first? I put the heavy stuff there.

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Repairman: Your landlord told you I’d have to turn your water off for most of the day, didn’t he?

Me: …

Here I am

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It’s after 12 noon, PST, and my son is struggling to wake up on the couch. Thank you, clock change. As much as I appreciate the energy savings that comes from switching the times we get up during the long daylight hours of the year, we just spent a month trying to adjust my son’s sleep schedule so he can be awake in the morning and not sitting up, alone, in the dark of night trying to sleep. He’s described himself as “a kid with weird sleep problems,” and we were so friggin’ close to settling him in to his new schedule.

Can’t we just skip our “fall back” next November? Hell, half the time I wish we could just all switch over to GMT–do absolutely need to have my lunch at 12:30 pm rather than 8:30 pm? I don’t see why.

In other news, I’m sitting here in Seattle listening to my city officials hit the snooze button on earthquake preparedness yet again. Every time a big quake hits somewhere on the Ring of Fire (or a minor quake hits here, as it did in Feb of 2001) the news starts talking about “waking up” and “alarms” but of course nothing was done. There’s no prestige associated with seismic retrofitting–instead our local governments are fighting over a “deep bore tunnel” under downtown Seattle as a replacement for the elevated viaduct highway.

Meanwhile, I’m living in an apartment in a converted house–built with cinderblocks (and uninsulated, too, the bastards)–and I have no idea how well it would stand up to a real earthquake. Luckily, Admiralty Inlet would blunt the force of a tsunami before it reached Seattle itself, but the quake itself could be a nightmare.

And what the hell can I do about either of these things?

Writing tech, tax tech, belly tech

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The new iPad has had unexpected benefits: In landscape orientation, the keyboard is a good size for my son’s hands and he spent much of last night writing a story. The software eased some of his usual anxieties about writing anything–mainly spelling and penmanship–and he completed over a thousand words of an absurd story called “The Tooth Fairy.” It also helps me see what we need to work on in his schooling. I thought he had quotation marks down, but no.

It’s (past) time to do our taxes and this year I got a recommendation from a successful local writer for an accountant she uses. There are three main problems: One is that it looks like I’d be filling out forms for him that are like Turbo Tax forms which he, presumably, will then enter into his own version of tax software. Assuming we’ve been doing our taxes correctly (more on that later) this seems like paying for data entry–is there any real benefit to using a professional? Two is that they don’t quote a specific rate. This is what they say:

Tax return preparation fees are based on a per form fee or an hourly rate schedule; whichever is most appropriate, on a client by client basis. Hourly rates vary depending on the staff member performing the work and the complexity of the work itself. In addition, direct expenses may be charged when applicable.

That’s as specific as it gets. We didn’t earn all that much last year, so I have no idea what they’ll actually charge us, but it’s likely that we can’t afford it. Third is that my wife thinks problems one and two are bullshit and we might as well Turbo Tax again this year.

Me, I’d hoped to uncover some extra deductions and go over quarterly taxes with him. See, I don’t do quarterly taxes, preferring to take the relatively minor penalty (about a hundred bucks) to avoid all that estimating and paying early. That should probably change, though. Does Turbo Tax even do that for me? It’s not like I have a lot of money coming to me this year beyond the on-publication payment for Circle of Enemies–I need to sell another book or two, and I have no idea if that’s even going to happen.

Sigh. It looks like another year of Turbo Taxing, unless someone has better advice

Exactly one week ago I had an egg sandwich for breakfast… and I immediately started sneezing and my nose started running like crazy. When I told my wife, she gave me a finger-wagging and blamed it on wheat gluten.

She’d seen a nutritionist two weeks earlier and came home to tell me we were going to be giving up wheat flour. She’s done it, too. Her body shed ten pounds very quickly and the weird red, rough skin… thing that’s been troubling both our faces for a long while immediately cleared up for her. Now she’s making scary noises about giving up wheat for good.

The sketchy thing is that her nutritionist has told her that the gluten clogs the spaces between the villi in your intestine. Me, I’m doubtful about that, but the results are there even if I’m doubtful about the mechanism.

I couldn’t join in right away, because I’d just gone grocery shopping and I wasn’t about to throw out all that damn bread. Still, the last shop was pretty much wheat-free and it’s time for me to join in. And I will. With luck, my face won’t be red and inflamed, and I’ll drop some of this extra weight. Weighing less will hopefully mean less pain and therefore more exercise. Current goal: live long enough to see my son graduate from college.

Anyway, the iPad is going to be recruited to this effort–I just need to find a good calorie counter/wellness app to download. (Suggestions more than welcome–accuracy and ease of use are my top considerations). The thing about giving up wheat is that I’m hungry all the time. I can eat a big bowl of curried rice, veg, and chicken but it will never be as satisfying at the same amount of pasta. I don’t mind being hungry–I’ve done some pretty severe fasts in my time–but it’s important for my wife to know she’s getting all the calories she needs, even if they’re more complex than they used to be.

So… any thoughts on going gluten-free? Any iPad wellness apps to recommend? What about those writerly tax problems? (No advice on the boy and his story, please; it’s still too new.)

Thanks.

I feel dumb posting about my own life…

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When things are so awful in Japan. There’s not much I have to say on the subject, since I’ve had Mac Freedom on most of the day and have missed much of the news. Still, if you want to do something to help, check this out.

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Is anyone even remotely surprised that James O’Keefe’s gotcha video that caused the firing of an NPR fundraiser and the forced resignation of their CEO was in fact dishonestly edited to be a hit piece? No? Of course not. That’s what this guy does.

Credit where it’s due: it was Glenn Beck’s people who did the investigating. Good work, folks.

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Finally, personal stuff. Guess who just failed her saving throw against The Shiny? My wife. We bought an iPad for her yesterday.

Most of the people reading this won’t know her and won’t know how honestly astounding this is. She has no patience or interest in online digital culture (beyond a few basic things like TED Talks and emails from friends). She doesn’t like the way computers operate–she’s always asking where is this and where is that, how do you…Nothing is ever straightforward enough for her.

Also, she’s severely dyslexic and dysgraphic–reading is a slow process and writing legibly can be very stressful. This means that, except for a couple areas of personal expertise, she has a way of talking around the things she wants done and can be vague at times, relying on the listener to interpret what she wants. Computers don’t do that, of course. You can’t tell it to put the thing away and you can’t mix up one word for another. You have to accommodate it, not the other way around. And her eyesight, never very good (like you’re surprised?), is getting worse.

But she liked the iPad. It’s portable for in the home, the fonts can be set quite large and the screen can be made white text on black. Also, it turns out the ereader features were less interesting to her than the idea that she could take all of her addresses and phone numbers off the random scraps of paper they’re on and save them for herself.

What’s more, some of the apps are tempting as hell. I’m buying Sketchbook Pro for her soon and Animation Creator HD, too. The hard thing will be to keep the boy from loading it up with games he wants to play. He’s already pressing me to buy Fruit Ninjas or whatever that is (and I confess that I spent much of the time in the store playing Angry Birds and Cut The Rope).

Anyway, this will give me a reason to use iTunes now, which I’ve been avoiding like crazy, since the iPad has no file structure. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m not going to be around much today

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The family is heading out to the Apple store and Barnes & Noble so my technophobic wife can test drive some ereaders. She won’t like them, I already know it, but what the hell, right? I get to check them out, too. What I really suspect will happen is that my son will fall in love the the iPad and want one for himself, and that’ll get him off my damn computer every day.

Frankly, we’re more likely to come home with a bag of books than a gadget.

(And yeah, I though the iPad 2 was going to drop yesterday, not tomorrow. My wife doesn’t care about size, cameras or gyroscopes, though–she plans to be disappointed by it no matter what.)

Update: My son tells us that we will also be visiting The Gap so he can buy some new Tshirts.

Me: “All right, son. If you want to, we’ll take a look. Is this about a girl? It’s totally cool if it is.”

Son: “No. I just don’t want to look ramshackle.”

Me: “God dammit! If you’re going to be a member of this family, you’re going to look ramshackle!”

Followed by much laughing. Considering the glasses frames he chose (kinda fancy), the shoes he likes and the pants he asks his mom to make, it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be a dress-up person. It’s like Alex Keaton being born to hippie parents.

No cell phone

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I often talk about how I don’t have a cell phone, and this morning demonstrates why. My son had a problem with a piece of software I bought for him, and damn if he didn’t throw a fit at me like I’m his personal tech support. When I had an office job I routinely got personal tech support calls from home–long, involved conversations in which I had to say things like “What do you see in the upper left corner of the screen?” and “Don’t pound the keyboard!” while sitting at my desk.

This is why I don’t have a cell phone; if my family wants to struggle with the computer, let them. Either they’ll learn on their own or they’ll do something else with their time. But constantly calling me to explain the same things over and over? No.

It might be different if there were other people who called me occasionally, but there aren’t. And I’m okay with that.

Game night

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Inspired by James Nicoll’s regular D&D posts, I thought I’d write up the session of Truth & Justice I just GM’ed. I’m doing it now because it’s late and I’ll forget if I wait until tomorrow.

Truth & Justice is a superhero paper-and-dice rpg. The heroes were:

  • Pressure, a gadgeteering scientist with the ability to control air pressure. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • The Black Monkey, a primate scientist, engineer, window-washer who was bitten by a monkey that he himself irradiated and who can now transform himself into a big, bulky human with a monkey tail, except that his eyes are glowing green and his body is a silhouette. Powers: Super-strength, -agility, -speed. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • Shait, a 12-year old daughter of archaeologists who is possessed by the spirit of the goddess of the Nile/flooding season/all water everwhere (courtesy of a shabbily-researched web site. If the GM had known they were looking up mythological figures, he would have advised them not to rely on a site with green text on a black background). Powers: Super-armor, Immortality, Water Control. The player is a middle-aged woman and non-gamer.

The player running The Black Monkey had never played any kind of rpg before, which put him one session behind Shait’s player and two behind Pressure’s. The session started where the previous had left off: Pressure had slipped out of his university lab and Shait had climbed out the window of a fleeing school bus and had defeated a villain called Nemesis. They were standing over the unconscious body when Black Monkey ran up, too late to join the fight.

Introductions were made, and Shait informed the other two that she was a goddess searching for lost relics. She also informed them that they would be helping her in this task. Despite their inexperience with gaming, I thought the expressions on their faces pretty closely matched the expressions the adult male characters they were playing would have. Sirens approached and all three left the scene, confident the police would be able to contain the villain.

Shait, of course, discovered that her school bus was long gone, having fled the appearance of a super-villain. She rolled well, found a discarded transfer and took a city bus back to her school. Her parents were called and she was grounded. The life of a pre-teen superhero is never easy, and it was going to get worse. Continue reading

“He couldn’t take the PRESSURE!”

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So! Chad Underkoffler read my books, liked them and contacted me through Twitter to ask if I wanted a free copy of an rpg he designed: Truth & Justice.

Now, while I am usually too uncomfortable to accept free things from people, this is a superhero game we were talking about, so I bucked up, said “Yes,” and dl’ed my copy.

I should mention that I used to game all the time. Back in Philly and when I lived in L.A., I gamed pretty much once a week, like any self-respecting gamer. Personally, I like horror and superhero games, but maybe you already guessed that about me.

In Seattle, not so much. My wife is not interested in gaming at all and I just didn’t have the time to find/make friends to create a new group. (I still don’t, really). But that’s why we have kids.

My son, looking over my shoulder as I downloaded the files, started to become a tad excited. We had tried gaming once before: When he was about…6? 7? and really into Scooby Doo, I designed a kid-friendly Chill adventure for him. It was basically a haunted house without a lot of actual danger.

He loved it. His favorite part was at the end, where I showed him the drawn-out house with the key numbers written inside, and the second page with the description of each room. He looked up at me with eyes as big as golf balls, and he said the 11 words I’d been dreading: “Dad, now I’m going to make up an adventure for YOU!”

What followed was two and a half hours of the most random, incomprehensible adventure I’ve ever played. Continue reading

Movie and book

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Last… spring, I guess? my wife, son, and I went to the movies and, before the film, saw a preview for Harry Potter 7, part one. My son turned to me and said “I want to see that.”

“You can’t. You haven’t read the book yet.”

He hadn’t been interested at all in Harry Potter until then, but that was all the urging he needed. Later that week we pulled book 1 down off the shelf and read them aloud in the evenings. Most evenings, anyway.

I’d forgotten how funny those early books were. Sometimes we were laughing so hard that the reader had to put the book down until we’d composed ourselves. And, somewhere in book 4, he became sick of it and we had to drag him back in.

We finished the last book today. My wife cried during several of the final chapters, especially “The Prince’s Tale,” “The Forest Again,” and “King’s Cross.” I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but whatever Rowling’s other faults, she wrote the hell out of “The Forest Again”. That chapter is one serious kick in the ass.

SPOILERS for the series.

I can’t help but wonder how much behind the scenes information the filmmakers had from Rowling. There’s a scene near the end of movie 3 in which Lupin transforms into a werewolf and Snape steps in front of the three kids. It’s clearly a brave, heroic move, and nothing at all what you’d expect from a true Death Eater.

The situation doesn’t even come up in the book; Snape is still unconscious when Lupin changes (the whole werewolf scene is quite different). They also telegraph the romantic relationship between Ron and Hermione much earlier.

Anyway, the books were terrific this second time around–very satisfying. I know a lot of people hated Harry around book 5, but I couldn’t help but see him as suffering the after-effects of Cedric Diggory’s murder. My wife, who never reads fiction (except mine), really loved the books, too.

As for the new movie, the animated story of the three brothers was the best part, but the movie wasn’t terribly by any means. The three leads have matured nicely as actors, and they managed to introduce several necessary but film-neglected characters smoothly. None of it had the thrills or the hopelessness of the books, but it worked on its own.

This whole series deserves a more in-depth post, but it’s late and I’m sleepy. Considering everything that’s been going on, I’m not seeing myself putting together an real analysis of the books, the films, or the changes that happened in adaptation.