A strange little story for the morning: a friend from Moscow posted a link to a gallery of frankly pretty amazing infant pictures taken by a mom in Finland named Adele Enersen. Clicking again on the link this morning, I found the gallery gone and nothing but the main site, which is some kind of web design that claims it is “powered by Jesus” (we need to upgrade our servers, I guess).
I finally tracked down the original content, only to find that 1) these pictures aren’t new—they are from the summer at least, and 2) this poor mom has been pretty distressed about all the insane copyright violations and pictures of her child popping up in ads, private blogs, whatever, around the world: not quite the meme-ification of Stephen Rout, but close.
So she’s taken most of the photos down. They were, like the one I’m posting here, a pretty amazing collection of dress-up scenarios done to her baby while the kid was sleeping. The inspired minor abuse behind the pictures is what I dug: the most I could think to do while my kids were sleeping infants was to draw mustaches on them or prop a beer next to their little hands. That is because I am a guy and a dumbass. But these pictures are fantastic, and actually, the blog she started instead of taking those photos is pretty good, too. Check it out.
The final silver lining: it appears she got a book deal at least. It should be out next year, and the working title is “When my Baby Dreams.” Buy it.
I returned home from Israel this past Saturday, but I wanted to file one last post regarding my trip. As I’ve already written, the presence of armed soldiers is but one discomfiting aspect of the greater picture of unrest to be found in Israel.
On the parenting level, though, when I wasn’t looking at soldiers or being frisked by soldiers or answering questions from soldiers, I was watching Israeli children playing in the streets and parks, and thinking: some day that kid is going to be a soldier, and he or she could be killed because people kill each other here.
I’ve often thought that my generation in the United States lost out in some way because we weren’t asked to perform compulsory military service. I’m by no means a pro-Army sort—my father missed the Vietnam War as a college student, and I’m fine with that—but I suspect that the discipline and character development that comes from being in the services can’t help but benefit young people.
Everyone serves in Israel, which, given what I’ve written above, I should view as a good thing—a nationwide exercise in character development, right? Only I didn’t feel that way. I reacted to the thought of young people being asked to carry guns not as someone viewing their own potential involvement in it, but as a parent imagining his son or daughter being taken off to war.
It’s enough to make you a pacifist, I tell ya.
Note: to those kind souls who shared their best wishes on my leaving Harper’s Magazine, I just wanted to pass along my gratitude. It was swell to see so many friends, people I’ve worked with and for, and yes, a fair number of total strangers, taking an interest in my life. It’s great to be supported in tough times, I’m humbled by the expressions of solidarity and condolences, and I’m glad you’re all out there. Cheers, Theodore.
Just over six years ago, I decided I’d had enough of work. I saved some money, quit my job at New York Magazine, and decided to go traveling for a while. Then I got lucky—I made a contact at the New York Times travel section, and quickly found myself in freelance heaven. In the time since, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t had an assignment or deadline—and therefore an impending paycheck. I also haven’t needed to get out of bed, shower, or put on proper clothing unless I wanted to. Life has been good.
Now our dear friend Theodore is about to learn what this is like: As he wrote yesterday, he’s been laid off from Harper’s Magazine—freed from the corporate shackles of… Oh, wait, it’s Harper’s. Freed from the strident paleoliberal bonds of the nonprofit publishing world?
Well, whatever. He’s also worried about how his kids will view him. As a cool writer dad who’s always available for a midday trip to the ice cream shop? Or as a pajama-clad layabout—a bum?
Frankly, I don’t have an answer for him. Because after all these years in the wilderness, I’m starting to feel ambivalent about my own work status.
For me, though, it has little to do with how Sasha might view me. And it has nothing to do with how I viewed my father, a history professor whose daily schedule was only a thin degree more constrained than a freelance writer’s.
No, this has more to do with me—and with Jean. For me, the years of freelancing have gotten a bit, well, lonely. I’ve mitigated that somewhat by renting an office (which I now share with the estimable Mr. Ross), so that I get a little bit of that camaraderie without being required to show up or participate in company activities.
But beyond that, while freelancing has been fun, it’s hardly been lucrative. After roughly 15 years in the publishing industry, I’m making about what I did a decade ago, give or take. I’m enjoying myself much more, and I appreciate the freedom, but it’s also wearying.
At the same time, Jean has been advancing in her career. She’s the breadwinner in our family—the provider of cash, health insurance, stability. (As far as I can tell, this is the only requirement to join DadWagon: have an Asian wife with a better job than your own.) But Jean, too, is feeling what I felt years ago—the desire to break free of the corporate world and do her own thing. Neither of us, however, wants to sacrifice our stability for some risky shot at creative fulfillment.
But if Jean and I switched places… This might happen, actually. I’ve got a couple of potentially revenue-generating projects in the pipeline (book, TV, Web). If they succeed, we’ll be okay. And if they fail, well, then I might be looking at getting what the kids these days call a “real job.”
Yes, a job. I’m not sure they still exist anymore, but I hear occasional rumors from friends and friend of friends that publications, both print and online, are hiring people from time to time. (Apparently, Internet content is not yet entirely computer-generated.) And god dammit, if I have to—if I really, really have to—I guess I’ll lobby for one of those jobs.
This picture is of our cupboard’s cereal section, which is large enough to fit a mid-size military commissary. But it’s all just for us–two adults and two small kids. Refilling all these bins yesterday made me realize: we might have a cereal problem.
I have written before about my anger at the corporate grainpimps of America, who try to shill their sugar-cereals directly to my preschoolers. But I’m deeply ambivalent about even “healthy” cereals. The question is, is daily cereal for breakfast really a good idea at all?
Part of my angst dates back twenty years, to my days as was naive young cereal-eating American going to high school in Europe. The northern German breakfast, I learned, is a fastidious little spread with several dry flatbreads, maybe a slice of buttered toast, thin slices of cured meats and mild cheeses, a soft-boiled egg, and, as often as not, candles and linen. Seriously. Even in my loucher living situations there—sharing a ramshackle apartment with the bass player from my band—breakfast still seemed to be a near-ritual. We could have been up all night drinking, smoking and rocking or whatever the hell I did as a teenager, and still: Eggs. Prosciutto. Doilies.
Contrast that with the cereal routine. Find a big bowl or small basin. Pour in processed grains. Add dairy. Lower face to bowl. Shovel. Refill.
Not all that different from trough-feeding hogs in a factory farm, and now my kids are into it, too. So much so that to inspire them to drag their asses out of the bed in the morning, I try to get them to focus on what combination of cereal they’d like in their trough/bowl: rice krispies? kashi? A mix?
On the weekend, we’ll feed them, without irony, bacon from pigs who were fattened on the same cereal-diet. Sometimes the kids get pancakes. Or an egg. Since we got the one-pot, like Ebert, we’ve taken to porridge from time to time. But is that any healthier? Short of the German breakfast banquet (which I am just too lazy/tired/pressed for time to do every morning), what should we be feeding them for breakfast? An egg every day seems a little hard on the arteries, but who knows.
Calling all you amateur nutritionists out there: what should be for Frühstück?
A strange little story for the morning: a friend from Moscow posted a link to a gallery of frankly pretty amazing infant pictures taken by a mom in Finland named Adele Enersen. Clicking again on the link this morning, I found the gallery gone and nothing but the main site, which is some kind of web design that claims it is “powered by Jesus” (we need to upgrade our servers, I guess).
