If you don't know about this guy yet...

...your introduction is overdue. Enjoy. Thank me later.

and then there's this.

je suis enchanté.

Dad Troubles

The train home was set to depart in one minute when the other kid announced he needed to pee. The trip home was set to take well over an hour. The alert sounded, the doors closed, and we started the journey.

He said he could hold it.

The train has small signs pointing to a bathroom. I see people coming and going from what looks like one. I take the kid, we go down the steps, through the train car, to a door marked as a toilet. I try the door and it's locked. I ask the girl on the phone if it's occupied. "No, I don't think so." Does it work? "No, I don't think so." I try again to be sure with no luck.

I begin looking for rare corners where a bladder could be relieved with even less luck. I ask him if he wants a diaper. He reassures me he can hold it, but the small dance and look of discomfort on his face aren't terribly reassuring. He goes back to sit with mama while I sweat it out.

We could jump off the train at the next stop and find some place, but we don't have enough time to get back on and the next train wouldn't pass for a long time. As I'm trying to figure it all out, I watch a woman walk to the bathroom, pull out a tool for unlocking the door, and enter. The girl on the phone looks back at me with large puzzled eyes and shrugs; I see her recounting the story in disbelief to the person on the other end once the woman leaves.

I go back to the diaper plan. Erica and I have done some strange things on trains involving the needs of our children, but how do I discreetly remove the underwear of a three year old and replace it with a diaper among the other passengers? I set up a modesty booth using the reserved spot for a wheel chair, my coat, and our stroller, and I'm ready to do the job with confidence, but when I announce it to him he starts wailing. He's exhausted from our day, irritated from a bladder that's about to burst, and on the verge of falling asleep, peeing his pants, and throwing a temper tantrum all at once. He's yelling "I WANT TO GO TO THE TOOOIILLEEET" so loudly that I abandon the idea rather quickly and return him once again to his seat where it's even more visible that this thing is gonna blow sooner than later.

The woman across from us puts down her book to interject, saying there's a toilet on the train further back. I'm skeptical but we go immediately. We pass through at least two cars with no luck when we finally see an agent. The train comes to a stop and he says goodbye pleasantly to the descending passengers when I pull him aside to ask him if there are any working toilets on the train. No, sorry. So I ask: if I hop off to let my kid pee on the train platform can you hold the train? Yes, of course, but it'd be better at a platform that's less crowded. (The stations further out in the country are perfect places to pee, he's implying, and he's not wrong.) I understood and agreed. Can the little guy wait 10 or 15 minutes? With that I expressed my hesitation. Doubtful. Go ahead, and he waved me off.

We run to the nearest discreet corner and unload as quickly as possible. In my haste to get back to the train, I yank his underwear and pants up so hard that I lift him right off his feet into the air and he pitches forward, almost doing a face plant but catching himself on the wall next to him. The Agent's watching the whole thing and laughing at my misfortune. The kid cries, "I DON'T LIKE YOU WHEN YOU DO THAT!" I pick him up and we run back to the train, he's over it with a timid giggle of glee, the agent blows the whistle, the doors close behind us.

We hustle back toward our car and when he spots Mama on the other end he yells, announcing proudly and enthusiastically in front of all the other passengers, in English no less, "HEY! WE PEED OUT THERE!!!"

This is parenthood, and its absurdity never ceases to amaze me.

fitting music

it's a rare gift when you stumble upon some music that seems to catch the mood of life at the moment.
this is what life sounds like lately.

Finding Vivian Maier

She had an eye for the bizarre, the grotesque, the incongruous. She liked headlines that revealed the folly of individuals, where you could say 'I told you so.' Some man murders his wife then gets caught in cold blood. I told you so. The things that revealed the folly of humanity. If you look at her art, she sees the bizarreness of life, the incongruity of life, and the unappealingness of human beings.

This description of Maier and her work made me think that she's a kindred spirit to Flannery O'Connor, a woman only one year her elder. Certain aspects of their work make a lot of people flinch, but they'd most likely have left one another unfazed, and certainly could have produced some interesting, albeit dark, collaborations.

And while this edge to Maier's personality and body of work can't stay unacknowledged, it's an overstep to reduce her work to this single dimension. Like the self-employed journalist she pretended to be, she did an incredible job of capturing and reflecting the full spectrum of the human condition in its honest entirety, good, bad, and ugly, be it a moment of tenderness, beauty, absurdity, or darkness. The vast scope of her work is precisely the reason it resonates as it does. She had a curiosity for the details of who we are and what we do, and in my mind that's most often what makes a good artist.

There are moments where I like that cliché conversation starter: what will you ask God when you get to heaven? 

I imagine sitting down with Him for a long chat about mental illness. What is it? and Why? and Is it really illness? and Why do the mentally ill so often serve as artists, and as such, chosen as prophets? Why do the mentally ill seem to actually have a better grasp on some things than those of us who are "sane"? Who's really mentally ill here? What's the real delusion?

(cross reference to the lunatic in Revolutionary Road...or Sufjan Stevens' Age of Adz...)

Zoom out to the human condition in which Maier was trapped and tried so desperately to capture, perhaps in an effort to escape. God, what's really going on here? What are you up to? and Why?

Another question: why did we ever stop using Rolleiflex cameras?

All photos stolen from vivianmaier.com. Film website here.

Grieving with St Vincent

What's in the box?
My wife. 
She died? ... Sorry Vin, for your loss. 
I never understood why people say that.
They don't know what else to say. 
How about What was she like? Do you miss her? or What are you gonna do now?

This quote came back to me the other day when I learned a friend's dad died and I thoughtlessly fumbled an "I'm sorry" in his direction. But it took me a while to remember where the quote came from.

Saint Vincent attempts to pack a little too much sappy fluff into one movie, but its message carried by Murray's terrific performance remains a worthwhile one. Wisdom will always come from unexpected places to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. This scene was just one example, where Vin gives great advice on grieving with those who grieve, probably because in his own way that's what he's done most his life.