October 26: My Son, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Some of you may be wondering how my son is doing on his new medication.  He started taking it on Friday morning, so it's been three days.

I don't know if it's my imagination or wishful thinking or incredible guilt, but I really think I notice an improvement in his behavior.  This weekend, he didn't have a single violent outburst.  In fact, he handled every little disappointment or trouble with a maturity I've never seen before in him.  Tonight, when I told him it was time to leave grandma's house and go home, he didn't even complain.  He got his shoes on and walked out to the car.  Usually, Sundays nights are a battle, from bath time to bed time.  I think my mouth literally dropped to my chest.

Again, I'm not sure if it's the medication.  It could just be that he had a really good weekend.  I think the real test is going to come in the next couple of weeks on the school playground.  That's the place where he's been running into difficulties.  And when I say "running into difficulties," I mean his fist has been running into people's faces.  If he remains detention-free until mid-November, I may start to believe we made the right decision regarding this medicine.

Until then, I will continue to second guess myself.  I may even throw in a trip to the confessional and a few bad dreams.  Why not make use of the Catholic guilt?

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago, when Honey Boo Boo was a rising star and Ebola was a plot device not a news story.

October 26, 2012:  To His Father's Side, Loved the Child, School Visit

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool.  Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

Bob Cratchit loves Tiny Tim.  One of the most moving moments in A Christmas Carol is the deathbed scene of Tim.  We see Bob sitting by his son's bed, mourning.  When Dickens performed this scene at his public readings, the audience would weep.  There is something about Tiny Tim and Bob that touches a deep chord in the readers' minds and hearts.

I love my son.  I took the day off work to spend time with my son at his school.  I sat in chairs the size of mushrooms.  I ate cheese cubes and English muffin sandwiches.  I read books to a swarm of three- and four-year-olds.  My son took me by the hand and led me around the classroom, proudly showing me everything.  At the end of the morning, as my son was climbing on the bus, he looked at me and said, "You come to school tomorrow?"  "Tomorrow" for my son could mean in the afternoon, in a day, in a week, in a month, or in a year.  "Tomorrow" is the future, and my son wanted me to go to school with him tomorrow.

It made me feel great to know my son was excited to be with me, wanted to be with me.  He didn't want to let go of my hand.

And Saint Marty didn't want to let go of his son's hand.

My Tiny Tim

Confessions of Saint Marty

September 20: Ready for Bed

This post is my fourth of the day.  I'm pooped.  I will also finally  be caught up with my blogging after I publish this little meditation.

I'm tired.  It's been a really long day, and I'm ready for bed.  Really ready for bed.  I wasn't going to type a second post for tonight, but my good Catholic guilt kicked in.  I hate disappointing people, and I've convinced myself that there are people out there who really care about my blog.  Perhaps it's a false belief, but it keeps me going.

Except for now.  I have used up all my wit and sarcasm.  I'm a dry well.    I'm going to work on a new poem tomorrow.  No promises.

Good night, sweet saint.

I know how they feel

December 7: A Make-Up Blog

NOTE:  This post was written on December 7.

Yes, I am trying to make-up for the two posts I missed earlier this week.  It’s the Catholic schoolboy in me.  I’m sure nobody noticed that I missed blogging on Tuesday and Thursday, but I have this whole guilt thing working on my psyche.  I don’t like disappointing people, even if they’re imaginary readers of my mediocre blog.

I still don’t know whether my daughter’s friends are going to show up tonight for her sleepover.  At the moment, I’m in this limbo space.  I have a meeting this afternoon with my financial adviser over what to do with my meager retirement savings.  I’m awaiting a phone call from my daughter’s dance instructor; my daughter forgot her schoolbag at the dance studio, and I have to pick it up for her.  I’m also waiting to pick up my Christmas bonus from the health care system for which I work:  a turkey.  Actually, I have to pick up seven turkeys for various employees in my department.  I don’t know what I’m going to be doing this evening.  Either I’m escorting a group of twelve-year-old girls to a movie, or I’m comforting my daughter whose friends let her down.

I don’t like being in limbo.  I like my days to be very planned-out.

Remember, Marty is the patron saint of the anally retentive.

These girls look like they can limbo...

March 25: Book Club, Project Memoir Tomorrow, New Cartoon

Spent the day cleaning my house, cooking chicken drumsticks, and reading.  My book club met today.  We usually meet on the fourth Thursday of every month.  This month, however, we had the author of the month's book join us.  John Smolens is a friend and colleague of mine from the university.  He teaches on Thursday nights this semester.  Hence , the matinee performance today.

We read The Schoolmaster's Daughter, John's most recent novel.  It's set in Revolutionary War Boston, just before and after the Battle of Bunker Hill.  It has all of the ingredients that make his books so great:  strong characters and setting, violence, a little sex, betrayal, suspense.  John's stuff is just so friggin' readable and smart.  I love it.  He makes me want to write.  That's why he's such a great instructor, as well.

Well, I have a lot of leftover drumsticks, but the get-together was very pleasant, and John was as gracious and fun as ever.  I highly recommend The Schoolmaster's Daughter.  I'm not a big Revolutionary War fan, but this book kept my interest.  I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I have every intention of finishing it.  I have to see if the British or Americans win the war.

Obviously, I don't have a new installment of Project Memoir ready to go tonight.  I'm hoping to have the next section done tomorrow.  I'm a huge Lenten loser this year.  I should be punished.  I say that because I'm Catholic, and we're big on guilt.  I also say that because I like getting spanked.

Therefore, bear with me.  Project Memoir Part 4 is coming tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Wednesday or Thursday at the latest.  Hopefully that's specific enough for you.

Saint Marty is waiting for his punishment now.  He's been a bad boy.

Confessions of Saint Marty

October 7: More Daughter, New Poem, Guilt

This afternoon, I'm still experiencing a great deal of guilt over how I treated my daughter last night.  It's ridiculous.  I know she's forgiven me, probably hasn't thought about it all day.  I, being a good, upstanding, bottle-fed Catholic, hang on to guilt with the tenacity of a snapping turtle.  I will get over it, in a few years.

My poem this evening is inspired by this mixture of love and guilt.  It also has a little of the Greek mythology I've been teaching thrown in for good measure.

That's Saint Marty's recipe for this little hymn of father love.

In Praise of Daughters

Zeus gave birth to Athena himself, from a pain in his deathless temples, ten thousand Greeks pounding the walls of Troy.  She charged from his skull, full grown and armored, wailed a war cry louder than the cries of all the mothers who've lost sons in battle.  A sound that shook the dust of Olympus.  Zeus heard her, saw the bronze on her breasts, watched her flight, up and up, and knew his creation was good, the way Elohim knew light and dark, heaven and earth, sea and mud, man and woman were good on day six.

I saw my daughter charge into the world on a morning of wind and ice.  Heard her first sound, a call to battle.  For oxygen and milk.  Her frog body, slick and red, mapped the contours of my heart, its empty ventricles and auricles.  Flooded them.  The way the sea flooded the Titanic that April night.  I foundered, split, capsized, went under.  Swallowed whole by an ocean of daughter.  Now, almost eleven years later, I watch her this autumn day.  She stands in a cyclone of gold and red.  The leaves spin, rise around her, catch her hands and feet and hair, carry her up and up.  To the clouds.  To the moons.  Up and up.  To the constellations.  Up and up.  Cassiopeia.  Andromeda.  Up and up.  Cygnus.  Scutum.  And up.  Virgo.  And up.  To the arms of Zeus.  Of Elohim.  Up.  Where she sings and dances like an owl-eyed goddess.

My little Athena