hits and misses

So many things I haven't been online to share:

[+] Back on Feb. 16, E and I went to New York for a modeling go-see. It was a pretty straightforward, if uneventful trip. We showed up, E read me a chapter of "The Courage of Sarah Noble" and then we went to get her picture taken. The photographer asked me if I would mind if she took my picture too. I figured, what the heck, and filled out the paperwork. Flash, click, we're done. Time to get back on the train and go home, stopping only for overpriced pizza at Penn Station New York. (E ate like a little lady, without even asking me to cut the pizza.)

Well, that Friday I got a call-back for an actual shoot on Tuesday, for Hewlett-Packard. Yes, I got a call-back, not my daughter. Not the cute little 5-year-old, but the hairy man nearing middle age. I joked with my wife and some friends that they figured, "Hey -- this guy looks like the sort of geek who uses our product, let's get him!", but it turns out the actual idea for the shoot was a family get-together, with a sort of "See how bright our printers make your treasured memories turn out" feel.

The actual shoot wasn't too bad, although it did take about six or seven hours. I tried on about five sets of clothes, including some that I was only too thankful not to be seen in by anyone who knew me. (The yellow pants were the worst.) I ended up wearing a light green shirt and a pair of tan Tommy Hilfiger pants. You won't be able to tell from the ad when it runs, but the stylist ripped the back seat out of the pants so they would fit -- an impromptu if expensive way to make alterations. So for most of the shoot, I was walking around with pants that had more rear ventilation than hospital gown. They gave me the shirt when it was over, and offered to let me take the pants home, but I declined. I'll never own a pair of Tommy Hilfiger's, needlessly expensive as they are, but it makes an amusing tale to share how I wore them one afternoon.

Total payment for the shoot is $800, less the 15 percent that goes to agent Lauren Green and the other 10 percent that goes to Elen's Kids. I think we're about breaking even now.

[+] We finally had some decent snow this week. On Tuesday the girls and I spent about an hour outside playing in the snow. We built a giant snowman in the front yard, along with two small snowgirls, and rode around on the sled in the back yard for about 20 minutes. The girls even got back on when they fell off, without complaint. (I guess I ran too fast.) And for the grand finale, before we went back inside, we had a massive snowball fight. Even R was into it, and was picking up clumps of snow to throw at me. One of the funniest moments was when I hit the front door a good two feet above their heads. E laughed at my bad aim, then gave a start when bits of the snowball fell onto her head. She thought it was pretty amusing.

[-] I really hate insomnia. I fell asleep tonight lying in bed with E, woke up just before midnight, did my business and got into bed, where I managed to go back to sleep. About 40 minutes later, my wife came in and unintentionally woke me up. At this point she reminded me I hadn't walked the dog, so I got dressed, went downstairs and trudged around in the cold with Sandy for 15 or 20 minutes so she could do her business. I got back into bed and found myself getting more and more awake. It's now 4:39 a.m., and I'm wide awake. Saturday is going to be hell.

[+/-] Mixed experience on homeschool this week. I had insomnia Tuesday night, and ended up getting about three hours' sleep. We had rented the BBC "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" from Blockbuster since E and her mother have been reading through "The Chronicles of Narnia" the last few weeks, and E wanted to watch it. I put it on, intending to watch only for a little, and fell asleep. (The movie is bad enough I might have done that even had I been less tired.) I woke up at one point, said I was going to turn it off in five minutes, and fell asleep again. And that was pretty much all we accomplished that day.

On the other hand, E has finished reading "The Courage of Sarah Noble," a true Colonial-era chapter book, all by herself. Today I started her on the first book in "The Magic Tree House" series, she still remembers the names and values of coins, and we created our own weather vane to put in the back yard.

To make history more accessible, we must continue to read true stories about America's past. To make science more accessible, we must do more hands-on projects to pique E's curiosity. To make school less onerous to E, we must do arts and crafts on a more regular basis. Today we made two sets of bunny ears -- one for her, and one for R -- after reading "The Tortoise and the Hare." It is the first real craft we have done in a while. I must plan these better.

I also must make more of an effort to include R, who too often is shunted to one side while E and I do school activities. I also need to be more flexible in how I do things, and insist less that E do things the way I had envisioned them. While she does need to follow directions, not everything should be a battle of wills. I never realized what an exacting control freak I could be until I started teaching her -- and I hate it when she asks me, "Daddy, can we please do it my way for a change?" because she's right -- I keep insisting on my way all the time, even on times when there's no big loss in doing it another way.

Got a good suggestion on writing. I will try it this next week. Having some problems with the math drills -- she knows the idea, but doesn't have the addition table memorized. Must content myself with her knowing how to get the answer, and let the memorization come to her in due time. She did it with reading, and she'll do it with numbers too, I have no doubt.

[-] No writing done on big projects. I'm a rotten collaborator on the webcomic and the novel, as my two partners will attest.

snowmen

As a nice bonus for me, now that mommy has to spend time with Rachel, Evangeline has decided that daddy is pretty cool too. We spent about an hour Sunday evening making snowmen in the front yard. (We're the only house on the block with them.) First we made Frosty, then we made Evangeline, then we made Isaac, then we made a second Frosty, and then we made Rachel twice. I haven't had so much fun in ages.

an ill wind blows snow good

After trying for several hours, I am convinced there is nothing profound to say about the first major blizzard of the 21st century, and I should have stuck with what I had written before Old Man Winter struck, about Charlotte Bronte and her boring books.

When I began to write this, it was just past 2 a.m. Wednesday, and I was sitting at my desk in front of the computer. It is now nearing 10 a.m., and I'm still here. I was stranded at the office by a storm that dropped about 8 inches of snow in less than 24 hours.

All told, it hasn't been as bad as it sounds. The heat and the power worked all night, the phone and e-mail kept me in touch with the outside world, and my collection of cool toys -- including a three-eyed alien from "Toy Story 2," a talking "Batman Beyond" figurine and Cookie Monster -- have kept me occupied.

Old Man Winter and I have never gotten on especially well. We did reach a mutal understanding of a sorts for about two years: I moved to the tropics, and he never lowered the temperature below the 70s. When I returned to the United States, though, it was back to our old love-hate relationship.

When I was a child, there was a certain zing in the brisk winter air when the mercury dipped low, especially when there was snow. I loved to go tobogganing, and I shared with every other child the thrill of creating a snowman and waiting for it to burst into hideous life in a twisted version of "Frankenstein" meets "Winter Wonder Land."

But winter had a dark side too. It was wet, and that gave the cold temperatures a sinister gloss I never quite overcame. I still remember making a snow angel when I was 6 years old. The snow went down the back of my blue coat, where it became trapped and melted, leaving me shaking and shivering in the cold for however long it took me to risk my brothers' ridicule and go inside.

It's been about 23 years, and the world is still awaiting my second snow angel.

Then there were the snowball fights. Everyone loves snowball fights, it's true, and I suppose I've thrown my share of those missiles too. But with three brothers, it wasn't hard to discover that snowballs also could be unpleasant when they hit me.

In the political alliances of the four Learn boys, two parties usually surfaced: Herbert and Ward, and Brian and me. Free-for-all snowball fights were the exception. In these as with nothing else, I tried to assert a neutrality that would keep me safe from all harm, and billed myself as the "snow fort repairman."

I thought it was a good arrangement. I got to enjoy seeing all three of my brothers get pounded with snow balls at one point or another, while I stayed safe from aggression (so I thought) because, after all, you need a fort to protect yourself from the snowballs.

Herb's fort especially took a beating, not because the snowballs were made of ice -- although that was known to happen - but because he used to stand on top of it and sing "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner" and try to provoke Brian into hitting him.

The taunting invariably angered Brian -- we all were good at provoking him -- and he would step out from behind his protective wall, straight into one of Brian's piledrivers.

The combined toll of Brian's high-powered vengeance and Bill's own impromptu song-and-dance routines took their toll on his forts. They usually began the day as 4 feet high and ended as 2-foot walls of solid ice. I kept myself busy packing more and more snow on top of them, and screaming loudly whenever a snowball came too close.

As I recall, my neutral repairman strategy worked exactly once. The second time I tried it, I became the universally accepted target, and was sent screaming back inside, followed by a steady barrage of snowballs.

(Don't feel too bad for me. I eventually came out on top, since I landed a job at a newspaper that lets me make fun of them in print whenever I want.)

More than 20 years have passed since my job as a snow-fort repairman, and things have not changed much for me as far as the snow goes. I still enjoy the nip of the cold air, I still enjoy building snowmen and throwing snowballs, and I still hate being hit with them.

After sleeping at my desk Tuesday night - a novel experience in that I wasn't supposed to be working this time - I stepped outside to warm up the car and go find some breakfast. For the fourth time in two days, I retrieved my ice scraper and set to clearing the windows, keeping my hands well inside my sleeves.

One of the men who was clearing the parking lot of our office complex saw me scraping away and came to offer his assistance. Apparently, I still cut a pathetic figure in the snowy weather.