Posts by Dan Szczesny
Finally, as she always does, my wife became the voice of reason, pointing out that based on some old pictures of me as a kid on Halloween, I wasn’t exactly putting on a trick-or-treating Masterclass. There are pictures of me as a magician. As Daniel Boone, of course. As Casper the Friendly Ghost. As Batman, of course.
As I write this, on September 22, we’re about 10 hours away from autumn, and that means the old man
But we do what we must as parents, so when the ladies of the house insisted we go to the ocean over Labor Day weekend, I packed the sunblock, water bottles, change of clothes and blanket and off we went.
My daughter has always leaned more toward outdoorsy pursuits, getting her hair muddy as she studies tadpoles for example. But Theatre Camp has provided a new and surprising sort of challenge. Words, and song. The fact that it’s the Little Mermaid helps, but memorization is a different sort of pursuit than, say, fishing or hiking. Putting on a half-hour theatrical show with a dozen second- and third-graders, and doing it in one week, seems to me, to be far more challenging.
He could choose, for example, to simply show us that he found a dead chipmunk. Instead, he chooses to eat it, damn the resulting upchucking that comes later. Then, once he’s realized that eating a dead chipmunk makes him sick, he could choose – based on past experience – to not eat that new dead chipmunk he found. But again, that’s asking too much. He will likely eat ALL the dead chipmunks regardless of the outcome.
That afternoon, we don’t walk into the Disco Dance, we strut in like we’re John F-ing Travolta powering down 86th Street. I toss a couple finger guns at some admiring dads who somehow, foolishly, are wearing regular clothes. Little Bean checks in with her peeps and I see her pointing in my direction, obviously showing her friends how Disco awesome her old man is. No one looks as good as us with the possible exception of Mr. O, the school gym instructor who is also subbing as the dance DJ.
It occurred to me during one of these sessions recently – me there with a nice cup of steaming coffee, dog at my feet, half a dozen kids screaming their lungs out in my backyard – that we’ve become that house.Â
Right, I understood what she was asking. I understood because I too, at her age, hung this stuff on my wall. She’s been devouring Amulet, a graphic novel series by Kazu Kibuishi that follows the adventures of Emily, a young girl who discovers a sentient amulet in her grandmother’s house.
We’ve reached that place in her life where Little Bean has begun to, maybe not wrestle with, but comprehend a bigger picture; a sort of foggy realization that – how do I put this diplomatically – life and humans can be unpleasant.Â
My daughter’s school has started a new club: cup stacking. Every week, a bunch of kids get together after school