destruction - 05.13.2008 - creation

*** 10:16 am ***

- pop culture destroys -

last night tgf showed me miley cyrus' vanity fair photo. i hadn't bothered much with it, but she'd mentioned something about it and wanted to show me. frankly, i don't see anything racy about it, or anything much the problem with it. she looks young and chubby (she is 15), and the photograph isn't very appealing (annie leibovitz says it's a classical pose, and it is, but the result simply doesn't appeal to me). i've been trying to find an article that takes tgf's position, but i haven't yet. i did find an interesting slate commentary that takes issue not with the image, or with images from a sleepover leaked to the press later, but with the way miley's life has been stage-managed literally from day one. she's not a real person pretending to be a pop star, she's always hannah montana.

the real outrage here is the way her father has used her to achieve this level of fame--enduring fame this time, not some cringing achey breakey fame--without any thought as to how this is going to stunt her growth and personal development. she will always be a product, always concerned with media perception. if michael jackson (and now britney spears) has taught us anything it's that treating your children as meal tickets screws them up beyond all belief. our outrage shouldn't be about the pictures, but how billy ray cyrus is destroying his daughter for his own enrichment.

*** 8:45 am ***

- his day story -

oh, right, history day.

it went well. boy didn't place, so he won't be going to nationals. that's ok, because we're returning from spain in the middle of nationals: even if he'd gotten there he might not have been able to go.

i got up saturday morning early, about 6:30. i was tired, but i had to get my car to the tire place so i could get the wheels balanced--i rotated the tires my previous trip and the steering wheel was vibrating at high speeds. we got there at 7:30 but it turned out they didn't open until 8. so we went to breakfast then got back just before they opened. we left the car and went home for an hour, where i forget what i did. we returned about 9 and the car was ready. i have a slightly bent rim, so they put it on the back and balanced the front. next time i need work i should warn them and they can find a replacement rim.

from the car shop i drove south through indy to the university of indianapolis. as in many cities, the south side of town is less well off than the north (a trend that has mostly to do with the flow of water and waste), and the neighborhood around u of indy is no exception. the campus, however, is pretty nice. i don't know whether it's safe, but i wasn't seeing a bunch of emergency phones scattered around either.

i found parking and walked to the building where boy was going to defend his paper. i wandered around until i found the room, then looked some more for boy’s mom and boy. no dice. i tried calling boy’s mom, but couldn't reach her. i thought her parents were joining us so i called her mom, but couldn't get an answer there either. i tried boy’s mom again with the same result, then decided to walk over to the building where boy told me they would go to sign in. while i found more people, students and adults, i didn't find the ones i wanted to find. i walked around a little without any success. by this time i'd been there about half an hour--it was almost ten--and i was kind of annoyed. i was glad the girlfriend wasn't with me, because she'd be really annoyed and bugging me to call boy’s mom, and we'd be on the verge of arguing about what to do next.

i turned around thinking i'd head back to the other building when i saw boy’s mom and boy leaving the stairwell--they'd been downstairs watching documentaries and her phone hadn't received my call. boy’s mom apologized but i said it was no problem. the three of us talked about what to do next, since we had a good 45 minutes before his judging. boy seemed anxious to get over there, so we walked over to the other building and found a place to sit where we could talk while we waited.

we talked about various things. boy's ipod and music. friends getting divorced (talked about dreamsongs, who boy’s mom's met). probably other things. boy kept checking the time--he was really eager not to be late. we went back to the room where they would interview him and stood until he went in. a group of people sitting in chairs there left about the same time, so boy’s mom and i sat to talk more. i don't remember the specifics. i know through the day we talked about various things. a friend of hers who dragged her down to a crap bar in that neighborhood. how boy’s mom's "not cool enough" for g to talk to her lately (two-face runs hot and cold with people, so boy’s mom's used to being included then being left out in phases). boy’s mom thinks the girlfriend's cool, and had a good conversation with her at boy's birthday party (when i relayed this to the girlfriend she was unimpressed, much to my disappointment). we talked about what her job is like, what being a surgeon is like, about two-face’s boyfriend. she told me about experimenting on animals and euthanizing them, and her thoughts on the ethics of such things. we talked about alternative medicine. she's atheist and doesn't care much for spiritualist or new age medicinal stuff: rubbing some gunk on your wounds to get the bad spirits out is primitive and dumb. she seems to lump homeopathy in with that, though when i mentioned the n’s father's cancer and their quest for homeopathic methods of keeping it in recession she talked about how the biggest determinant of recovery from cancer is attitude. if the patient stays positive he generally gets better, so whatever you do that makes you feel confident about improvement is good.

when boy's judging was over, we went back to the other building and sat around. oh, we found his friend w coming out of his documentary presentation in the basement, then went upstairs to wait for food. we sat with will and his mom and other parents and chatted. we talked about our children, though i think i had the least input in that situation. it was nice to listen, though. we had bad pizza to eat, but the brownies were ok. when we finished eating the boys ran off to look at the exhibition submissions, posters and stuff, then later went outside to play. boy’s mom wanted to get away--we still had another hour or two before the awards were handed out--so she and i went to starbucks. we drove around a little before we found it, but we talked the whole time and got along very well. at one intersection we looked ahead and saw these to guys with long bushy sideburns and what looked like white and gold jumpsuits driving an old compact car of some sort. she pointed it out and i cheered for elvis. she said i was the only person she knew who'd get excited about something like that. i think she meant it as a compliment; it didn't sound bitter or patronizing.

at starbucks i had my usual cafe latte double and we sat in leather seats and talked. around two we went back to campus and found boy. he was playing cards or something with his friends, so we sat in nearby chairs and talked more. we talked about death, and how sometimes there's nothing she can do, and how she deals with families--they perceive a doctor as having spent more time with them if she sits with them. boy went ahead, but soon we followed him over to the auditorium and the awards ceremony. they had many awards to give, not just those tho placed but also some special awards. boy didn't win anything, and after his category passed we started getting seriously bored. we tried to clap for everyone, though, since they would have clapped for boy if he'd won. after four the thing ended and we went outside, picking up boy's evaluation on the way. he looked over it briefly then his mom took it home with her and i took boy with me.

we would go to best buy and target before my parents', and we would talk about what next. next year they have to do science fair projects, and 8th grade they get to choose. boy thinks he'll do history again. i'm going to start getting him history-related gifts. books and dvds. he'll be a history buff until he gets bored and tells me to stop.

*** 6:51 am ***

- lavender skies -

lining closet shelves with scented paper

regret - 05.13.2008 - blame