Month: June 2015

The Toddler Wobbles (or, the Tripwire of Self-Doubt)

PavowskiLeave a comment

My daughter is this close to walking.

She’s been doing the “cruising” thing for about a month now, where she’ll grab the edge of a table, or the couch, or the leg of my shorts, and just sort of shimmy along, one shaky step after another; but of course, she can only go where whatever she’s clamped onto can take her. And she’s been walking assisted for several weeks beyond that, holding gleefully to the hands of whoever has the patience and the dorsal fortitude to bend over and escort her around the house. Again, of course, she can go only where her guide takes her.

There is an unmitigated joy about her as she does any of these things. Her little stumpy legs clomp along not unlike those of the imperial walkers in Star Wars, stable enough only if everything goes according to plan. She laughs, shrieks, smiles. Then tumbles.

But she won’t walk on her own.

And I know, I know. She’ll get it in time. But there’s something frustrating and heartbreaking in seeing her shuffling along, a wobbly snowman on stilts, and knowing that she could walk if she would only decide that she had the capability.

She’s done it before.

She’ll cruise along the table for a minute, then pick up a toy and turn and totter over to the sofa — a yawning gulf of two steps or so, but a moonshot in the scope of toddlers. I’ll stand her up in the floor across from her mother, and she’ll hold my hands until she’s within a step of her mother, then detach in time to fall forward into her mom’s loving embrace. She has the strength. She has the balance. What she doesn’t have is the knowledge that she’s perfectly capable.

Now, she can crawl with the best of them. In fact, she can muster so much speed on her hands and knees that it’s a little startling: she can cross a room in just a couple of seconds, and be sitting there angelic as ever when you come back in from getting a glass of water. This, paired with her propensity (and joy) for grabbing things and sticking them in her mouth is enough, almost, to keep you from leaving the room at all when she’s around (what if she pulls the TV over on herself, or what if she swallows the dog, or what if she goes into the garage, fires up the pneumatic hammer, and takes out the retaining wall?). An inability to walk isn’t, in other words, keeping her from getting around.

But when she starts walking, she’ll be so much better off — she’ll be faster, she’ll be able to take things with her, she’ll be able to reach her hands up and hug your knee when she walks by. She needs to walk. She just won’t.

I can’t say it’s fear, because she isn’t afraid of falling. She’ll gladly pitch herself sideways while my wife or I holds her, despite the five-foot drop to the ground that surely awaits if she manages to escape. It’s as if she simply doesn’t grasp the idea that walking instead of crawling might be a better way to do it. Like cave dwellers who won’t take the ipod that’s being proffered to them, believing instead that eating worms and running from daylight is better than the natural next phase in human evolution (selfies and social media, of course). She just doesn’t realize that she’s hamstringing herself by keeping to all fours, doesn’t understand that her muscles and her sense of balance are ready for her to walk, doesn’t get how much her world is going to open up for her when she begins to walk.

She’ll get it eventually. One day — maybe tomorrow, maybe next week — she’ll shuffle off on her own and then my wife and I will really be in trouble — but until then, she’s stuck crawling, cruising, and being escorted everywhere she goes. Which works, but when you consider the alternative, is a bit lousy.

But then it got me thinking. (As such things often do.)

If my baby has the capacity to walk, but lacks the knowledge of that capacity, what am I capable of that I just haven’t grasped yet? If she’s only holding off on taking her first steps because she doesn’t realize that she can, what am I keeping myself from just because I lack the belief in myself?

How much more could we be, if we could only believe we were capable?

Are you crawling, when you should be walking?

Father’s Day, and Social Media is Still Special

Pavowski9 Comments

Father’s Day is one of those weird times of year where weird things happen and I just roll with it. Okay, pretty much every day of the year is like that, but Father’s Day is more so. Because really, think about your father.

All he really wants is to be left alone to watch some football or read or play some video games, depending on how old he is. Give that to your dear ol’ dad, and he’ll be a happy camper. But here we have Father’s Day, wherein you’re supposed to buy ties and wallets and tools and goofy t-shirts and cards for the old man, and don’t get me wrong, he’ll appreciate the gesture, but he doesn’t need any of it. He gets the joy of watching you grow up and do silly things and take first steps and be decent human beings and make him laugh, and occasionally he’ll photobomb you or take you to school in his bathrobe, but you forgive him for that. Because it makes him happy.

That’s what Father’s Day is about. Make the old man happy. But don’t do anything for him that you wouldn’t do on any other day, because he probably doesn’t like being made a big deal over.

Maybe I just speak for myself. But my Father’s Day consisted of staying home with the kids, taking them for a walk in the park, the 1-year-old having a screaming fit for about an hour before she passed out for a nap on my chest while I watched some Football (that’s proper football: the Women’s World Cup is on — and the Americans play tonight — you know), then wrestling with the kids, going out to the grocery store when the wife got in from work, cooking some hamburgers for the family’s dinner (yeah, I cooked, and I chose it!), and having a refreshing adult beverage before bed.

Not pictured: the screaming fit that made me want to die.
Not pictured: the screaming fit that made me want to die.

In other words, a day more or less like any other day. And you know what? It was pretty sweet.

But a weird thing happened this Father’s Day. I’ve been a dad for three years, and this hasn’t happened before. Strangers were saying “Happy Father’s Day” to me. In the park, pushing the sprouts in the double stroller: “Good job, dad! Happy Father’s Day.” Chasing the sprouts around on the playground: “Oh, I know you’re having a Happy Father’s Day.” In the grocery store, carting the sprouts around: “Why are you shopping on Father’s Day?” And it’s not like I crave or even want recognition for doing dad things — that’s just what you do — but I can’t lie, it perked me up and made me walk a little taller. I dunno if there’s something different about this year or different about me or the kids, but those little moments of recognition kinda made my day. (My wife pretty much wrangling 100% of the kids’ nonsense when she got in from work was awesome, too.)

So, there are good things in the world for dads.

But then, there are dumb things, too.

This is Matt McGorry:

He’s an actor on Orange is the New Black (among other things) whose character has done some unsavory things in the wake of fathering a child on a prison inmate (no spoilers beyond that, okay? sheesh.) His character has left a bad taste in the mouth of lots of fans, to the extent that real life fans started harassing the real life actor in real life about things his character did on the show.

He fired back on Father’s Day with a pretty hilarious tongue-in-cheek response on his Instagram (seriously, he and I seem to come from the same school of dubious wit), but it really makes you stop and think. There are people out there watching this show who think that attacking Matt McGorry is the way to resolve their feelings about what his character has done on the show.

As if McGorry has anything to do with what the character does. (Sorry, that would be the writers and the producers.)

As if McGorry would do anything like what his character does in real life. (That’s what “acting” means, boys and girls.)

And as if an irate tweet from @JoeBobDerpSalad266 would have an impact on what McGorry is going to do in his real life, regardless of whether he’s behaving like his character or not.

Similar things happened to Sarah Wayne Callies, of The Walking Dead fame:

Her character was so hated, people would come up to her on the streets to tell her “I [fargoing] hate you.” Because actors actually become their characters when they act.

The people who can’t make this distinction are probably pretty normal people. They have jobs. They have friends and families. They probably look exactly like normal people, except that they lack the ability to distinguish between what’s real and imaginary.

But they have access to social media, which allows them to bring their special variety of crazy into the rest of our lives at any time, without warning, and without remorse. I have a twitter where I tweet intermittently, but this kind of crazy makes me think everyday about just deleting it, and leaving Twitter to burn interminably in the smoldering dumpster fire it is.

Where was I?

Oh, right. Happy Father’s Day.

Not a Creative Bone in Your Body…

Pavowski4 Comments

Creativity is innate.

Some of us, some lucky few, are chosen by whatever gods may be to be the storytellers, the artists, the performers… and those few are born with the talent and creativity that will last the rest of their lives. And they won’t have to work at it nearly as hard as the rest of us, and they’ll infuriate the rest of us while we silently bash our heads against the glass ceiling we’ll never crash through. We are born with creativity as much as we’re born with the bones in our bodies.

Right?

Well… that may be a little bit true. Just like some of us are born taller or cleverer or more musically inclined, there is probably something to the supposition that creativity is innate, that it’s luck of the draw, and that some people have an easier road to walk in creative endeavors. But you can’t change your bones, you can’t change the fact that you’re colorblind, you can’t change a sweet tooth. You can, however, change your creativity.

Creativity is a muscle, not a bone. It strengthens and tightens with use, atrophies and withers when neglected. Lots of creative types don’t bother creating because they aren’t properly motivated to do so. And, of course, lots of people who aren’t naturally creative become very creative indeed by virtue of the fact that they went out and created anyway, cultivating creative muscle through sheer force of will and sheer tenacity of repetition.

Here’s the thing: just like virtually anything in life, creativity is there for the taking if you’re willing to work at it. Creative genetics are great if you’ve got them, but if you don’t, you’re not blacklisted from the club. We have a saying in coaching: hard work beats talent when talent won’t work hard. So many people sit back and say I wish I could write stories, or I’d love to write a screenplay, or I’m going to write a song one day, but then they just sit back and wait for that day to roll around. Naturally creative types do the same thing, of course; they take for granted their ability to put stories together or craft brilliant sentences or whatever, and they don’t practice their craft — or worse, they just don’t follow through and never finish anything. So, if you can finish what you start, and you have a desire to be creative, you just have to jump in and do it.

You may be crap when you start out. But who picks up a guitar and immediately starts cranking out “Freebird”? Who picks up a paintbrush and tosses off a Van Gogh at one pass? Remember, if you’re trying, and if you’re being consistent and finishing what you start, you are ahead of the vast majority of people out there, because most people will never bother undertaking a creative endeavor in their life. They’ll sit back and consume and read and watch and dream, but they won’t work for it. They could have all the creative bones in the world making up their skeleton, but they won’t take the time to cultivate the muscle needed to make the machine work.

So the next time somebody tells you that you’re not creative enough — even if that somebody is you — remember that you don’t have to be born creative. You can become creative.

If it matters to you.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

The Problem With Stella

PavowskiLeave a comment

Spoiler Alert. Okay? My wife and I are finishing up Orange is the New Black. So I’m here to talk about it. Which means if you’re the kind of person who gets uptight about shows getting spoiled for you, you may want to stop yourself right there. The bridge is out. KNOWLEDGE AHEAD.

So.

Orange is the New Black is doing a lot of interesting things and has a lot of people talking about it. One of those things in particular is the introduction of a new character this season, Stella. (STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Okay, it’s out of my system.) She’s a sort-of-spunky, sort-of-aloof androgynous type with a Bieber haircut and enough ink on her to keep HP in business for a few years, at least. And there’s a lot of buzz about this character, particularly by way of the actor portraying said character, one Ruby Rose.

What’s got people talking about her is the fact that, apparently (and I heard this only secondhand from my wife… research is not really my thing around here, and I trust her sources because she’s a lot smarter than me) miss Rose identifies as female some days and male on others. And yeah, okay, it’s the new hotness to identify as this or that. (Personally, I’m a thirty-something white dude who identifies as that piece of gum you stepped in and tracked all over the floorboards of your car. That’s just how I feel.) But the show has always been pretty stern about its characters being who they are regardless of what you or anybody thinks about it (and especially if you happen to be a dude). The show works because of the personalities represented in it; they’re off-the-wall but somehow believable within the literal four walls the characters are stuck in. So, you know, kudos to the show for including an actor who plays, in real life, by the rules that the show plays by in our heads.

But I’m not here to talk about her identity or her sexuality or her gender-bending or any of that. I’ll leave that to Buzzfeed. (Seriously, they have something like a dozen “articles” about her in the past week.)

What’s bugging me about her is her character’s narrative drift.

See, if OITNB teaches us anything, it’s that you don’t have to like characters in order to care about them. Hell, some of the show’s most memorable, quotable characters are the least likable. A mother who emotionally blackmails another woman over the adoption of her own grandchild? A former socialite who takes to bilking the system and profiting off the perversion of the underbelly of the internet? A prison social worker who’s sometimes got a heart of gold and is sometimes a racist, sexist, insecure piece of sharknado? They all do terrible things, but we care about them because, as twisted as the things they do may be, we understand on some level why they’re doing those things. Daya’s mother knows how hard mothering can be OUTSIDE of prison so she conspires to get her daughter to give up her baby, and hey, why not make a little scratch in the mix? Piper feels betrayed by the world she thought she knew; her values are shattered, so why not embrace her criminal side and profit at the expense of people who are worse off than her? Healey, for all the good he tries to do, is married to a loveless transplant from Russia who emasculates him every chance she gets, so to remind himself he’s a man, sometimes he has to swing his man-parts around and show everybody what a big jerk he can be.

We don’t like them. But we understand them, and that makes us care, even if we’re not necessarily rooting for them. (On that note, does the show even have a protagonist at this point? Maybe it’s Caputo, but it’s hard to tell. Not that that’s stopping anybody from watching.) All these characters, for better or worse, want things, and because we care about the characters, we either want them to get those things in sympathy, or we want them not to get those things out of schadenfreude.

Which brings me to Stella. (STELLAAAAAAAAAA. Okay, last time.) I don’t care about her. At all. She’s been on the show for half a season, and I don’t give one randy sharknado about her. Why?

Because she’s a husk.

A pretty husk. A wrench-in-the-works husk. A will-she-or-won’t-she distraction and world-turner-upside-downer hurricane kind of husk. But she’s like a tree that’s rotted from the inside out, or a wax figure dressed in a thousand-dollar suit. Looks nice on the outside, but looks kinda disgusting or even creepy up close.

As far as I can tell, Stella was drawn up to provide a fork-in-the-road for Piper. She was designed to be pretty and devil-may-care to show the polar (and scornful) opposite of Alex, who has grown haggard and consumed with worry and fear. Where Alex is driven slowly mad by the confines of the prison and the perceived inevitability of her situation (she’s stuck exactly where a man who will in all likelihood kill her knows exactly where she is), Stella is so indifferent to her situation that she’s almost literally untouched and unfazed by it (see the scene where she dries naked in the communal bathroom because the prison’s “harsh towels” are too much for her “sensitive skin”, for example). Stella is a bird on the wind, whereas Alex feels like a sinking stone.

And that’s fine. That’s even great. A nicely-turned dichotomy, a troubling love triangle for Piper, stuck between Alex, with whom she has history and allegiance and yeah, they do it a lot in the showers and stuff; and Stella (STELLAAAAAAAAAA. Sorry), who is mysterious and intriguing and probably does the weird stuff. In bed. That conflict works, and it’s even making people mad. (Which, again, just shows that we care.)

Here’s where it breaks down for me. Alex is a little old and busted this season, but we know why. Piper ratted her out. Got her sent back to prison after she thought she was out. Alex fears that her former boss will have her killed for implicating him when she got sent in. She’s tired. She’s hurt. She’s afraid for her life. Again, we don’t have to like her, but we understand.

But what’s Stella’s story? What makes her so light and carefree? The show doesn’t tell us. Why is she interested in Piper? We don’t know, outside of perhaps a raw physical want-to-bone feeling (which doesn’t necessarily come across, I humbly offer). What is she even in prison for in the first place? These are things the show doesn’t bother to share with us.

All we know about her is that Piper wants to do her, and that’s making problems for her relationship with Alex.

We don’t know what she wants. We don’t know why she does the things she does. So we (or, at least, I) don’t care.

It’s not a deal breaker for the show. It doesn’t make me not want to watch. But for a show that does so many things right with its characters, it feels like a pretty glaring misstep.

Maybe my feelings will change when I see the last episode tonight. But I maintain that, if you’re going to have a character appear for half of season, and that character is going to play a major role in the show, I should at least care about that character a little bit by the end.

Am I overthinking this? Am I wrong? Let me hear it.

Frickin’ Laser Beams, pt. 2

Pavowski2 Comments

I really had lofty goals of making the inaugural post on the new website something of substance. Some proud proclamation of who and what I am, a redefinition of my goals, a promise to consume a live squid upon the sale of my first book, that kind of thing. But then I was listening to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe today, and I heard about a story that totally sucked me in.

I actually wrote about this technology a while ago, but the technology has moved on and improved, as technology does, and it bears consideration again. Here’s an article from Nature.com. It’s worth a browse. Embedded in the article is a video. It’s worth a watch.

Look, lasers are awesome, let’s just get that clear. I’ve loved the idea of lasers since watching Star Wars and Star Trek as a kid (and, who am I kidding, as a grownup as well), and it tickles my past self giddy to know that the military is actually developing actual laser weapons for actual use in actual military operations. Let’s not kid ourselves, practical usage of lasers in standard military operations is probably still a ways away, but the technology is there and it’s being heavily researched and developed by the people who are qualified for this stuff (this is where I would name-drop my brother-in-law, if he were allowed to discuss these sorts of things, which he isn’t, why would you even think that, let’s just talk about something else okay??).

There are a few awesome takeaways from the article.

Number one, okay, I already covered it, but the military is making lasers for use on the battlefield, and that’s freaking awesome.

Number two, when they’re combat-ready, they are going to be insanely advantageous. A takeaway from the article says that to fire the laser long enough to disable “many” targets takes about two cups of fuel — or about $10. Compare that to upwards of $100,00 for a “cheap” missile.

Number three, things start getting fun in addition to being awesome. The laser is controlled basically by a video game controller, because why wouldn’t it be? If there’s one thing military recruits know these days, it’s shoot-’em-up video games.

But Number four is where my inner geek starts dancing an Ewok jig. Here’s a quote from the article:

The weapon’s laser beam is silent and invisible, and not all targets explode as they are destroyed, so an automated battle can be over before operators have noticed anything. “The engagements happen quickly, and unless you’re staring at a screen 24–7 you’ll never see them,” Blount says. “So we’ve built sound in for whenever we fire the laser. We plan on taking advantage of lots of Star Trek and Star Wars sound bites.”

In other words, when the actual, for real military fires this actual, for real laser, it will make PEW PEW sounds just like in the science fiction movies of my youth.

TBD is whether you’ll have to dress in white plastic as a prerequisite to firing the thing, or whether you’ll be able to hit the broad side of a star cruiser with it.

Science is fargoing awesome.

Image taken from bbs.stardestroyer.net.