Wow. So today I was scanning through the Huffington Post site, where I ran across a suggestion that everyone should have their own personal set of commandments to live by. I thought, "Aha! I already have one!" as I know that sometime after my divorce I came up with such a list (although it may have been more directed towards dating than towards life as a whole) and that I have indeed brought up that list at other times in my blog.
So I enthusiastically started mucking through two years of myspace blogs in search of my own personal commandments. I found a list of life goals and a few requirements for potential suitors, but my personal commandments were nowhere to be found. I began to feel disturbingly like they have been lost somewhere between my transition from the "Under 35 divorce support" web board on which they were originally posted, the "Graduates of said board who wanted to keep in touch" web board, and my myspace blog.
I then went to search my email archives, where I believed I stored an email from a friend that was my original inspiration. I discovered that the email was gone, and felt like a piece of my own personal history had somehow disappeared with it. It's an odd feeling to think that a few typed lines could hold such a close place in your heart, but I guess it makes sense when I consider how much of myself I tied up in them at the time. And of course everything in that period of my life felt so completely melodramatic that it probably just triggers a stir-up of a bunch of overly excitable crap from the furthest depths of my subconscious mind.
And so I now embark on the rather daunting task of defining what I want for myself, or where I'm going, or SOMETHING... how can I make the list if I don't even know what I'm listing? I guess I'll treat it like any good blog- you don't really know where it's going until you get there, you just have to take some vaguely-defined idea and hope it takes wing (just to warn you, it often doesn't!).
(And this first one is the hardest, it's always the "getting going" that comes with the most difficulty)
1. Be "me" at all times. This seems obvious, but for whatever reason there are always a few people in my life that seem to make me feel 5 inches tall, and in their presence I turn into a vacuous little blonde airhead who seems to be stuck about a year and a half out of high school. I'd like to stuff that annoying little chit into a meat grinder, but instead I'll just settle for pretending she doesn't exist and figure out a way to make her stay in her box where she belongs.
2. Listen, REALLY listen, when my friends give me advice. They sometimes see me more clearly than I do myself, and to a "one" they all tell me what I need to hear.
3. Put more value on where my life is going than where it is now. When things are going well it's easy to sometimes rest on my laurels and not keep on with the keeping on. Rest less, work more.
4. Get fit. Be fit. Stay fit. That may seem obvious, but if you've ever been UN-fit, you'll know this is harder than it sounds.
5. Stay funny, but be nice at the same time. I would like to keep the funny parts but eliminate those occasional rare "joking" comments that can come out the wrong way. It makes me wince just thinking about them.
6. Stay in touch. Don't ever again become the hermit of my early-mid-20's. Know that if I feel like I'm getting there, something is very, very wrong.
7. Moderation in love as in life. Embrace both sides of the equation: Be willing to put myself out there and take some chances while maintaining good judgement and trusting my gut. And no, that doesn't mean I'll start responding more favorably to booty texts. Sorry, guys.
8. Be reasonable. Have reasonable expectations of people, and of life. And perhaps more importantly, of myself.
9. Let go. Don't be afraid to let things happen. Don't be afraid to let things go. Get a little out of control sometimes.
10. Deliver what I promise. Don't pretend to offer something I'm not, don't pretend to be able to do things I can't (or won't) and just generally put on the table exactly what I'm offering.
11. Listen to my gut. Pretty much every personal "to-do" list I've ever written has this same advice. When I listen to it, it's right. When I don't, I pretty much always regret it.
I guess these commandments are things I try to do on a daily basis anyways, but maybe by defining them and putting them on paper I'll be able to keep them more in the forefront of my daily life.
What are your commandments?
Erica.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Stealing Someone Else's Words Again
This is a re-post from my prior blog, and actually isn't something I myself wrote. But from time to time I enjoy reading, so I thought you might as well. I apologize in advance for the egregious misuse of quotation marks. I cut and pasted. :)
Thanks to Jess for the following:
"Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'"
"I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.
"Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning."
"You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel."
"Love is not blind; it simply enables one to see things others fail to see."
"Love is one of the hardest words to say and one of the easiest to hear."
"Love is saying 'I feel differently' instead of 'You're wrong.'"
"When you smiled you had my undivided attention. When you laughed you had my urge to laugh with you. When you cried you had my urge to hold you. When you said you loved me, you had my heart forever."
"I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you."
"It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let the person know how you feel."
Thanks to Jess for the following:
"Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'"
"I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.
"Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning."
"You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel."
"Love is not blind; it simply enables one to see things others fail to see."
"Love is one of the hardest words to say and one of the easiest to hear."
"Love is saying 'I feel differently' instead of 'You're wrong.'"
"When you smiled you had my undivided attention. When you laughed you had my urge to laugh with you. When you cried you had my urge to hold you. When you said you loved me, you had my heart forever."
"I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you."
"It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let the person know how you feel."
Thursday, December 25, 2008
"You'd have to know her." Or, "The whole fam damnly."
So, it isn't completely unheard of for me to review something I wrote in a previous blog and edit out a part that I belatedly realized might not sit well with some people.
In chatting with a friend the other day, I was informed that one line from my last blog could be viewed as being extremely conceited and self-absorbed. The line, which I have since changed, was related to my father writing a memo to potential suitors that I had "won the genetic lottery," and was followed by a comment about how I am willing to provide references on how terrific my sense of humor is (insert tongue in cheek here).
When my friend told me this, I was rather at a loss. It of course struck me immediately that he was right, but since the entire comment was supposed to be a combined statement on how fathers always think their daughters are anybody's best catch, combined with some wry sarcasm on the benefits of receiving my dad's genetics, it hadn't really occurred to me what the more obvious interpretation of that statement would be.
It provoked some thought on my part, which inevitably led me to the following problem: how do you blog about something funny when your audience ranges from people who know you extremely well and can finish half your sentences for you, to people who have met you once at a cocktail party, to people who you were passingly friendly with in high school? The issue there being that people who know me well read the exact same line mentioned above and busted a gut, and some others were apparently EXTREMELY turned off by it, thinking that I'm this horribly stuck up person who thinks overhighly of myself... which I can assure you is most certainly not the case.
For example, my sister had read the blog. I asked if she'd read it prior to my edit, and she had. I told her of the reason for the edit, and she snorted, laughed and said, "Yes, but who in their right mind would EVER want to win that lottery?!" THANK YOU, Jen, my point exactly. But if you don't know my dad, you don't know me quite well (well enough to know I in no way think I am a genetic masterpiece, LOL) and don't know the multitude of downsides to receiving the Sivertson genes... well, yes, you get the point. However you can't write to everyone's benefit, but you edit the text, shrug and move on.
So, now that I've gotten that off my chest, on to the "real" blog.
******************************************************************************
Christmas in the Sivertson household is always quite a riot. There are generally at least 4 dogs in my parents' small house, 3 of which are approx. 100 lbs. The fourth is a wired-up dalmation cross who is forever darting about and tripping people (those who aren't tripped are sometimes knocked down by the other three). My dwarf aunt (from my mom's side) adds to the mix by randomly throwing food to the dogs and exclaiming, "Who wants to play FRISBEE??" at odd moments, which is a guaranteed method of getting my huge German Shepherd, Dante, leaping up and howling like Chewbacca to anyone who will listen. The term that comes to mind is "dogemonium." As in, a pandemonium of dogs.
Next on the list is my father and my sister's fiance of 7 years loudly discussing passenger boats over the tops of everyone else's heads (they're substantially taller than the rest of us) and increasing volume as needed so that they can hear each other from exact opposite sides of the room. The dogs at this point lie down and resign themselves to boredom for a brief time.
Meanwhile my mother is futilely attempting to put together an elegant family function, while trying to juggle my sister and I, who alternate in assisting and/or managing said function and injecting completely inelegant humorous comments while laughing like hyenas. When my oldest sister (who is 14 years older) is present, the effect is multiplied by three and frequently includes totally random quotes from "Raising Arizona." When it's just Jen and I, the comments tend to include quite a bit of David Sedaris and Eddie Izzard (look them up, they rock). You'd be shocked at how often the quotes of a transvestite British comedian can be applied to your average family gathering. "You want a rack of babies? We've got babies on racks!" "Sometimes I'd go up in that tree and the squirrel would be just COVERED in makeup!" "You can't kill the rooster!"
My sister (three years my elder, btw) also tends oddly towards imitating a small child at times... I guess that since she doesn't want kids she has decided to substitute occasionally acting like one in order to make the rest of us crazy. Example... picking some random term out of the conversation and repeating it to me 5 times until she manages to intrude on my concentration and tell her to shut it. "Steak seasoning? STEAK SEASONING. Steak Seasoning? STEAK SEASONING. Steak Seasoning?" "You! SHUT UP." Then she giggles like a five year old and goes back to sipping her Tom and Jerry.
Truth be told, however, my sister and I are two sides of the same coin. There are multiple documented cases of one of us leaving the room and both of us going on to say the *exact* same thing to someone 30 seconds later. And we frequently startle people at the horse shows we manage together by glancing at each other and bursting into laughter from nothing more than a shared glance. There is some level of shared thought going on there which lends itself to complex lines of reasoning that somehow end in the same place. We've long since stopped asking each other if we're both laughing about the same thing, because we pretty much always are.
If the holidays include a date, I generally tend to warn people in advance. Between my aunt (see above), who is definitely her own brand of interesting, my parents and the general state of crazy humor, it can be a bit bizarre for the uninitiated. However it's relatively tame compared to how it used to be. In years past the holidays would have also included my two grandmothers, who are polar opposites of one another.
My Danish grandmother from my father's side was a demure woman of excellent manners who wore the same outfit for virtually every Christmas I can remember (a dark aqua ruffled blouse with one of several necklaces received from her granddaughters, and black slacks). My mother's mother, on the other hand.... she was a German grandmother to the very definition, who was quite fond of her cocktails and reminding each family member of each and every one of his/her respective shortcomings ("Erica, I'm so proud of you for graduating from college. I never thought you'd get that far, you know." "Thanks, grandma, that's lovely."). It was probably revenge for our behavior as children, when all of us cousins would sit outside during the summer and giggle like chipmunks as we took turns imitating her inebriated behavior while shouting at each other, "God damn it Fritz, help me up!" and pretending to fall down on the lawn. Weren't we just peaches? That's okay, she only got meaner as the years went by. The truth is, she was equally mean to her own kids when they were growing up, so I can take no credit whatsoever for her vitriolic sense of family affection.
Perhaps she was just an outlandish example of the dry humor the rest of us have heartily embraced. My 5 year old 2nd cousin asked me last night, "Where is the Christmas tree?" When I pointed out the 3-ft tree sitting on a coffee table, she looked puzzled and wondered why we didn't have a bigger one. My mom then grumpily explained that my father doesn't like Christmas (total crap, btw) and decorating is too much work. After that comment my father seemed out to prove her right, and I caught him later telling my little cousin that "Sometimes we give the presents back to Santa and he gives them to other little kids next year." Fortunately my dad is a total cream puff with kids and she was smart enough to catch the twinkle in his eye and make a saucy comment back. Just what we need, a traumatized year old who thinks she isn't getting any presents!
If you embrace the fam, it's a wild and lovely ride. Traditions pass from grandparents on down, and the Tom and Jerry's and Norwegian fish cakes generally make their welcome appearance. (don't ask for the recipe, I won't give it to you, LOL). Tomorrow Christmas will be over and this year will be relegated to memory, the year when dad tried to tell Clara we give back the Christmas presents and I lined up the Tom and Jerry mugs for a photo shoot. The year Kitty gave me a hand-painted portrait of Diva and Dante drove everyone crazy on Christmas Eve because his frisbee was forgotten at home. The year when my mom bought my dad the "ShamWow" as a massive family joke, and my sisters took pity on me and bought me gift cards for a new washer and dryer. And the year Don drove all the way back from Wyoming in a day so he could spend Christmas day with us and discuss cleaning guns with my father for hours on end while the rest of us sprawled in front of the fireplace with Weez, Tuck-tuck, Big Digs and Kent (sorry, dalmations don't get cute nick-names).
On that image, I wish you all a very happy holiday season and I hope that you're enjoying your family time as much as I am. Love you, guys!
-Erica.
In chatting with a friend the other day, I was informed that one line from my last blog could be viewed as being extremely conceited and self-absorbed. The line, which I have since changed, was related to my father writing a memo to potential suitors that I had "won the genetic lottery," and was followed by a comment about how I am willing to provide references on how terrific my sense of humor is (insert tongue in cheek here).
When my friend told me this, I was rather at a loss. It of course struck me immediately that he was right, but since the entire comment was supposed to be a combined statement on how fathers always think their daughters are anybody's best catch, combined with some wry sarcasm on the benefits of receiving my dad's genetics, it hadn't really occurred to me what the more obvious interpretation of that statement would be.
It provoked some thought on my part, which inevitably led me to the following problem: how do you blog about something funny when your audience ranges from people who know you extremely well and can finish half your sentences for you, to people who have met you once at a cocktail party, to people who you were passingly friendly with in high school? The issue there being that people who know me well read the exact same line mentioned above and busted a gut, and some others were apparently EXTREMELY turned off by it, thinking that I'm this horribly stuck up person who thinks overhighly of myself... which I can assure you is most certainly not the case.
For example, my sister had read the blog. I asked if she'd read it prior to my edit, and she had. I told her of the reason for the edit, and she snorted, laughed and said, "Yes, but who in their right mind would EVER want to win that lottery?!" THANK YOU, Jen, my point exactly. But if you don't know my dad, you don't know me quite well (well enough to know I in no way think I am a genetic masterpiece, LOL) and don't know the multitude of downsides to receiving the Sivertson genes... well, yes, you get the point. However you can't write to everyone's benefit, but you edit the text, shrug and move on.
So, now that I've gotten that off my chest, on to the "real" blog.
******************************************************************************
Christmas in the Sivertson household is always quite a riot. There are generally at least 4 dogs in my parents' small house, 3 of which are approx. 100 lbs. The fourth is a wired-up dalmation cross who is forever darting about and tripping people (those who aren't tripped are sometimes knocked down by the other three). My dwarf aunt (from my mom's side) adds to the mix by randomly throwing food to the dogs and exclaiming, "Who wants to play FRISBEE??" at odd moments, which is a guaranteed method of getting my huge German Shepherd, Dante, leaping up and howling like Chewbacca to anyone who will listen. The term that comes to mind is "dogemonium." As in, a pandemonium of dogs.
Next on the list is my father and my sister's fiance of 7 years loudly discussing passenger boats over the tops of everyone else's heads (they're substantially taller than the rest of us) and increasing volume as needed so that they can hear each other from exact opposite sides of the room. The dogs at this point lie down and resign themselves to boredom for a brief time.
Meanwhile my mother is futilely attempting to put together an elegant family function, while trying to juggle my sister and I, who alternate in assisting and/or managing said function and injecting completely inelegant humorous comments while laughing like hyenas. When my oldest sister (who is 14 years older) is present, the effect is multiplied by three and frequently includes totally random quotes from "Raising Arizona." When it's just Jen and I, the comments tend to include quite a bit of David Sedaris and Eddie Izzard (look them up, they rock). You'd be shocked at how often the quotes of a transvestite British comedian can be applied to your average family gathering. "You want a rack of babies? We've got babies on racks!" "Sometimes I'd go up in that tree and the squirrel would be just COVERED in makeup!" "You can't kill the rooster!"
My sister (three years my elder, btw) also tends oddly towards imitating a small child at times... I guess that since she doesn't want kids she has decided to substitute occasionally acting like one in order to make the rest of us crazy. Example... picking some random term out of the conversation and repeating it to me 5 times until she manages to intrude on my concentration and tell her to shut it. "Steak seasoning? STEAK SEASONING. Steak Seasoning? STEAK SEASONING. Steak Seasoning?" "You! SHUT UP." Then she giggles like a five year old and goes back to sipping her Tom and Jerry.
Truth be told, however, my sister and I are two sides of the same coin. There are multiple documented cases of one of us leaving the room and both of us going on to say the *exact* same thing to someone 30 seconds later. And we frequently startle people at the horse shows we manage together by glancing at each other and bursting into laughter from nothing more than a shared glance. There is some level of shared thought going on there which lends itself to complex lines of reasoning that somehow end in the same place. We've long since stopped asking each other if we're both laughing about the same thing, because we pretty much always are.
If the holidays include a date, I generally tend to warn people in advance. Between my aunt (see above), who is definitely her own brand of interesting, my parents and the general state of crazy humor, it can be a bit bizarre for the uninitiated. However it's relatively tame compared to how it used to be. In years past the holidays would have also included my two grandmothers, who are polar opposites of one another.
My Danish grandmother from my father's side was a demure woman of excellent manners who wore the same outfit for virtually every Christmas I can remember (a dark aqua ruffled blouse with one of several necklaces received from her granddaughters, and black slacks). My mother's mother, on the other hand.... she was a German grandmother to the very definition, who was quite fond of her cocktails and reminding each family member of each and every one of his/her respective shortcomings ("Erica, I'm so proud of you for graduating from college. I never thought you'd get that far, you know." "Thanks, grandma, that's lovely."). It was probably revenge for our behavior as children, when all of us cousins would sit outside during the summer and giggle like chipmunks as we took turns imitating her inebriated behavior while shouting at each other, "God damn it Fritz, help me up!" and pretending to fall down on the lawn. Weren't we just peaches? That's okay, she only got meaner as the years went by. The truth is, she was equally mean to her own kids when they were growing up, so I can take no credit whatsoever for her vitriolic sense of family affection.
Perhaps she was just an outlandish example of the dry humor the rest of us have heartily embraced. My 5 year old 2nd cousin asked me last night, "Where is the Christmas tree?" When I pointed out the 3-ft tree sitting on a coffee table, she looked puzzled and wondered why we didn't have a bigger one. My mom then grumpily explained that my father doesn't like Christmas (total crap, btw) and decorating is too much work. After that comment my father seemed out to prove her right, and I caught him later telling my little cousin that "Sometimes we give the presents back to Santa and he gives them to other little kids next year." Fortunately my dad is a total cream puff with kids and she was smart enough to catch the twinkle in his eye and make a saucy comment back. Just what we need, a traumatized year old who thinks she isn't getting any presents!
If you embrace the fam, it's a wild and lovely ride. Traditions pass from grandparents on down, and the Tom and Jerry's and Norwegian fish cakes generally make their welcome appearance. (don't ask for the recipe, I won't give it to you, LOL). Tomorrow Christmas will be over and this year will be relegated to memory, the year when dad tried to tell Clara we give back the Christmas presents and I lined up the Tom and Jerry mugs for a photo shoot. The year Kitty gave me a hand-painted portrait of Diva and Dante drove everyone crazy on Christmas Eve because his frisbee was forgotten at home. The year when my mom bought my dad the "ShamWow" as a massive family joke, and my sisters took pity on me and bought me gift cards for a new washer and dryer. And the year Don drove all the way back from Wyoming in a day so he could spend Christmas day with us and discuss cleaning guns with my father for hours on end while the rest of us sprawled in front of the fireplace with Weez, Tuck-tuck, Big Digs and Kent (sorry, dalmations don't get cute nick-names).
On that image, I wish you all a very happy holiday season and I hope that you're enjoying your family time as much as I am. Love you, guys!
-Erica.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Class President, turned Mad Scientist
I'm not sure exactly when I realized that my father wasn't like everyone else's. After all, when you're 5 years old you hardly realize that it isn't normal for your dad to have a basement computer lab (in the early 1980's when computers cost about $200k apiece) and hand-assemble CPUs with a soldering iron and chunks of lead wire.
My dad is somewhat of an anomaly in that unlike most mad geniuses, he was high school class president, a bit of a "ladies' man" and can generally interact with people as well as anyone. It's just that instead of the normal high school mischief, his idea of fun was to set off a thermite reaction that melted through a concrete sink and several inches into the concrete floor.
Add into that the fact that he managed to accomplish all of this while missing the first and last 6 weeks of school every year and living for 5-6 months per year on Isle Royale on Lake Superior as part of a commercial fishing family, and you can get a pretty good idea of exactly how smart my father is. He went on to finish double-majors in physics and industrial engineering from MIT while continuing his habitual mischief as a frat boy.
Sometime during my parents' temporary separation period, I called him while on vacation in Hilton Head, SC to visit my sister. According to her, my side of the conversation went something like this: "Hi Dad, what are you up to?..... Really. You're building a cold fusion cell..... Huh. Where?....The kitchen counter? Mom's going to love that. Well... Does it work?" to which he replied in a thoughtful tone, "Rather inconsistently, I'm afraid."
He went on to explain in painful detail what he had assembled and how, and what his latest results had been. I didn't listen too closely, as this is par for the course with my dad- he has a different world-altering project every week, most of which (shockingly) actually work but get shelved when he gets bored of fiddling with them.... a reason for a slight amount of bitterness on my part every time I have to make my student loan payment.
I later found out that the reason he shelved the cold fusion cell is that he left it unattended one afternoon and returned to find that it had started reacting in his absence, boiled off most of the water and wouldn't stop reacting. After several water refills he dumped it on the lawn in a fit of desperation and hosed it until it was completely destroyed. He kept that little incident a secret for several years until some time ago my sister asked him, "Say, whatever DID happen with that cold fusion cell?" and he apparently felt enough time had passed that he was no longer embarrassed he almost burned down his house with a glass of water, an easily-obtained innocuous chemical and a few pieces of wire. Speaking of which, I need to throw away that bag of chemicals in the basement.... Note to self.
Skip forward 10 years, and my father has settled down to more tame pursuits. He's been working on-and-off for the last 20 years on a stock-picking program that has made millions of dollars on paper. However, true to his Norwegian commercial fishing roots, he has a strong aversion to making money and avoids it at all costs, while insisting that he "just needs to tweak it a little bit more." He's also designed computer models to predict fish populations on the Great Lakes (which he presented last year in Boston at the International Systems' Dynamics Conference), models to predict the profitability of storage units in a large residential market, and has recently started teaching grad-level seminar courses on systems' dynamics at UMD (after which he goes to Sir Ben's with the students and drinks with them).
Oddly, however, he is completely unable to hook up anything related to a tv set that isn't actually part of the tv. He can disassemble a television and fix it, but he can't hook up a DVD player to save his life. Nor can he switch the tv source from "cable" to "av1." Additionally, he can text message but is completely unable to access or navigate his own voice mail. These are just some of life's little mysteries that shall forever go unanswered.
My dad's other favorite past-time has now become getting his youngest daughter re-hitched in time to produce some diabolically intelligent grandkids. It becomes frightening when your dad starts telling you "tongue in cheek" that he wouldn't entirely protest if you weren't even married yet when the grandkids started appearing. Needless to say, I no longer bring my dates home to meet mom and dad for fear of what he might blurt out in a fit of fatherly enthusiasm. When I was engaged the first time around my then-fiance finally had to shut my father up by saying, "Stuart, are you aware of exactly what we'd need to be doing in order to produce grandchildren?" Even in his scotch-induced state my father was horrified enough to drop the subject, but not so horrified that he didn't bring it up about 5 minutes after my divorce was final and he had a friend's son he wanted me to meet.
Of course, there is one other reason I usually don't bring my dates home to meet mom and dad. Believe it or not, the mad scientist seems to heartily intimidate most men. I have to admit from my end that after growing up with my dad it seems hard to find "just the right guy." After all, there aren't too many guys floating around who have qualities on par with "class president/mad scientist." There also seems to be some kind of information gap on the guy side of things- apparently they haven't gotten my father's memo- he thinks every guy should want to date me.
All in all, I have to love my dad. It kind of rocks having someone in your family who is constantly surprising you with his weird ideas and simultaneously putting your dates to sleep with in-depth explanations of the predator-prey relationships of fish in Lake Superior. And you just never know what you're going to get when he says, "Hey, I just did the NEATEST thing down in the basement. Come take a look!"
Erica.
My dad is somewhat of an anomaly in that unlike most mad geniuses, he was high school class president, a bit of a "ladies' man" and can generally interact with people as well as anyone. It's just that instead of the normal high school mischief, his idea of fun was to set off a thermite reaction that melted through a concrete sink and several inches into the concrete floor.
Add into that the fact that he managed to accomplish all of this while missing the first and last 6 weeks of school every year and living for 5-6 months per year on Isle Royale on Lake Superior as part of a commercial fishing family, and you can get a pretty good idea of exactly how smart my father is. He went on to finish double-majors in physics and industrial engineering from MIT while continuing his habitual mischief as a frat boy.
Sometime during my parents' temporary separation period, I called him while on vacation in Hilton Head, SC to visit my sister. According to her, my side of the conversation went something like this: "Hi Dad, what are you up to?..... Really. You're building a cold fusion cell..... Huh. Where?....The kitchen counter? Mom's going to love that. Well... Does it work?" to which he replied in a thoughtful tone, "Rather inconsistently, I'm afraid."
He went on to explain in painful detail what he had assembled and how, and what his latest results had been. I didn't listen too closely, as this is par for the course with my dad- he has a different world-altering project every week, most of which (shockingly) actually work but get shelved when he gets bored of fiddling with them.... a reason for a slight amount of bitterness on my part every time I have to make my student loan payment.
I later found out that the reason he shelved the cold fusion cell is that he left it unattended one afternoon and returned to find that it had started reacting in his absence, boiled off most of the water and wouldn't stop reacting. After several water refills he dumped it on the lawn in a fit of desperation and hosed it until it was completely destroyed. He kept that little incident a secret for several years until some time ago my sister asked him, "Say, whatever DID happen with that cold fusion cell?" and he apparently felt enough time had passed that he was no longer embarrassed he almost burned down his house with a glass of water, an easily-obtained innocuous chemical and a few pieces of wire. Speaking of which, I need to throw away that bag of chemicals in the basement.... Note to self.
Skip forward 10 years, and my father has settled down to more tame pursuits. He's been working on-and-off for the last 20 years on a stock-picking program that has made millions of dollars on paper. However, true to his Norwegian commercial fishing roots, he has a strong aversion to making money and avoids it at all costs, while insisting that he "just needs to tweak it a little bit more." He's also designed computer models to predict fish populations on the Great Lakes (which he presented last year in Boston at the International Systems' Dynamics Conference), models to predict the profitability of storage units in a large residential market, and has recently started teaching grad-level seminar courses on systems' dynamics at UMD (after which he goes to Sir Ben's with the students and drinks with them).
Oddly, however, he is completely unable to hook up anything related to a tv set that isn't actually part of the tv. He can disassemble a television and fix it, but he can't hook up a DVD player to save his life. Nor can he switch the tv source from "cable" to "av1." Additionally, he can text message but is completely unable to access or navigate his own voice mail. These are just some of life's little mysteries that shall forever go unanswered.
My dad's other favorite past-time has now become getting his youngest daughter re-hitched in time to produce some diabolically intelligent grandkids. It becomes frightening when your dad starts telling you "tongue in cheek" that he wouldn't entirely protest if you weren't even married yet when the grandkids started appearing. Needless to say, I no longer bring my dates home to meet mom and dad for fear of what he might blurt out in a fit of fatherly enthusiasm. When I was engaged the first time around my then-fiance finally had to shut my father up by saying, "Stuart, are you aware of exactly what we'd need to be doing in order to produce grandchildren?" Even in his scotch-induced state my father was horrified enough to drop the subject, but not so horrified that he didn't bring it up about 5 minutes after my divorce was final and he had a friend's son he wanted me to meet.
Of course, there is one other reason I usually don't bring my dates home to meet mom and dad. Believe it or not, the mad scientist seems to heartily intimidate most men. I have to admit from my end that after growing up with my dad it seems hard to find "just the right guy." After all, there aren't too many guys floating around who have qualities on par with "class president/mad scientist." There also seems to be some kind of information gap on the guy side of things- apparently they haven't gotten my father's memo- he thinks every guy should want to date me.
All in all, I have to love my dad. It kind of rocks having someone in your family who is constantly surprising you with his weird ideas and simultaneously putting your dates to sleep with in-depth explanations of the predator-prey relationships of fish in Lake Superior. And you just never know what you're going to get when he says, "Hey, I just did the NEATEST thing down in the basement. Come take a look!"
Erica.
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