Offensive art

The above commercial is one of the classic ads from the 1980s, perhaps up there with "Where's the Beef?" and Apple's 1984 Big Brother ad. "Do you like to draw, or paint. Or maybe just sketch or doodle?"

If you did, you might have had what it took to be in the Art Instruction Schools. The Art Instruction Schools sent out a free test for students to see if they qualified. By the looks of it painters, sketchers and doodlers had to draw things like a house, a dog and a pirate. As a kid I sort of wish I had called the toll free number to get my free test.

It would have been interesting to see if I would have been the first person to ever score a zero on their exam.

Thousands of students have walked through the halls of Janesville High School and Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton. There's a decent chance I'm the worst art student in the school's history, someone whose projects might still be mocked by the poor teachers who were forced to grade them. My incompetence is one reason I so admire anyone with any semblance of art skill, whether it's the troubled geniuses whose works hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the drawings of my cousin Matt or nephew Brock. My friend John always made funky little projects - they combined things like toilet paper and Coke cans - that I thought were art, though a good friend of ours occasionally disagreed. Louise paints really cool abstract work that hangs in our apartment and always catches the eye of visitors. These people have the imagination and skill to pull these things off. I couldn't think of the projects, and even if someone thought of them for me, I never would have been able to execute them.

How could my hands, which effortlessly picked up ground balls on a baseball diamond or masterfully handled a ping-pong paddle or easily dribbled a basketball behind my back, fail me so miserably when asked to draw nothing more complicated than a human face?

I knew from a young age I had no skills with a paint brush or charcoal pencils. As I made my way through school I regressed instead of progressed. Someone, perhaps the state, should have stepped in early in my school days when I struggled to cut out a snowflake. Things only got worse.

My parents' basement holds all the key evidence; the projects, or, "projects," rot away down there, tucked away in boxes, like long-forgotten murder trial files collecting dust in a county courthouse basement. Only a mother could love these works, but if mine ever said she did, it would have been one of the few lies she's ever told in her life. But if she lied, she lied out of love, because only the cruelest of parents would have ever delivered an honest assessment of the work.

A few years ago during a trip home, I stumbled upon a bowl that had my sister Lisa's name on it. Maybe that meant she made it. It didn't look good. That probably meant I made it. I asked mom and she said I crafted it and gave it to Lisa as a gift, which sounds cute but when you look at the damn thing for more than three seconds begins to seem cruel. On the bowl, I scratched a series of letters that appeared to form the name Lisa Fury. The confusion over the bowl's creation is probably why it resides in the bowels of my parents' basement and not on a mantle in my sister's home. At least, that's probably the publicly stated reason. Shame is probably more likely.

One of the sculptures, which I think came in 7th grade, was, in theory, a turtle. It's nothing more than a green blog with black spots. And maybe a head. When the teacher saw this she must have experienced rage at my inability to execute her lessons, pity over my incompetence, or heatrbreak at her choice of profession.

In ninth grade, I drew a large picture of Nolan Ryan in action. For years I had it hanging in my bedroom, though I don't know why. To punish myself? In the picture, the Express appears to weigh 485 pounds and it's all in his gut. He spills out of his Rangers uniform. He possessed tiny arms in the drawing that didn't fit his body, the type of appendages you might have seen on a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but not on a Hall of Fame pitcher. I do have him throwing right-handed, so I got that part right. It's the little details.

It'd be unfair to say I underachieved in art class. I simply didn't have the physical ability to do it, just as surely some people don't have the physical ability to hit a baseball.

I blame my genes. My parents gave me a lot of great things - art skills were not among them. My occasionally indecipherable handwriting looks just like my dad's; I'm assuming his clay sculptures from school probably looked like mine too.

I struggled with the fine arts. The industrial ones were even worse. At Janesville, we had to take Industrial Arts in seventh and eighth grade, two quarters each year, alternating with home economics. The teacher once told my parents that he feared allowing me near the bandsaw. An unnecessarily cruel statement, albeit accurate. While other students in class constructed bookshelves that belonged in the libraries of presidents, I plodded along, attempting to make a little key holder. My final quarter I built a functioning bird feeder - which, like all of my projects never appeared in public but was instead stashed in a closet - but I think the only reason the teacher ever passed me was because I was good at hoops and he was the former girls basketball coach.

The arts remain a mystery to me. I admire anyone who can paint or draw, sculpt or sing. I admire them because I know how difficult it is to do any of those things well. And if I ever doubt how tough it is, all I have to do is visit my parents, head down into the basement, pull out an old box, and wince.

The problem with marrying a foreign gal

At 10:40 this morning, Louise's flight took off for South Africa. Check-in went smoothly. So did the security line. And the pat-down was, as always, thorough. For Louise, too. Onboard she'll eat surprisingly decent food while crammed into a small seat at the rear of the aircraft. With any luck, this flight won't include a vomit-spewing neighbor, like her last trip across the ocean. And if it does, perhaps the flight crew will at least clean it before the smell overwhelms every man, woman and child within 25 feet.

I can track the flight online and watch a crudely rendered plane as it goes over a blue screen for hours and hours and hours. She'll arrive tomorrow, after nearly 24 hours of travel. She'll remain there for several weeks, basking in the African sun while I eat frozen pizzas and bowls of beef stew she made before her departure, meals she prepared with the discipline of a survivalist stocking up on canned goods in the underground shelter.

Getting married to a foreigner has had its benefits. For instance, Louise always brings back exotic spices that liven up every meal, especially dishes involving potatoes. Then there's the accent. And thanks to her I've enjoyed some world travels, twice venturing to Cape Town, one of the most beautiful cities in the word in one of the most fascinating countries in the world. Without her, I'd still consider a 1999 trip to Tijuana to be the highlight of my international travel experience. Being around her opens my eyes to other cultures and lands. I get to see America through someone else's eyes, someone who came to this country with no money but a lot of courage. I get to teach her about American history, the good and the bad, while she teaches me about South African history - the bad and the good. Marrying a foreigner: I recommend it to everyone, and not just those involved in green card scams.

But there's a downside. I'm forever grateful that Louise is now my family. But I'll always regret that our two families - the Fury clan of Minnesota and the Farias of Cape Town - are strangers to each other. My folks met Louise's mom at our wedding but none of the other family members on either side have ever mingled. Her brothers have never met my sister, her father-in-law has never met my dad. Louise gets to see my family once or twice a year, but I only get to see hers once every two years. If either of us disliked our in-laws, this might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately - er, fortunately - we do like our in-laws. We love them. If I had a brother, I couldn't imagine having any more fun with him than I do with Louise's brothers, Anthony and Daniel. In many ways they're complete opposites, but when it came to welcoming me into their family, they were exactly alike. They taught me about cricket, and rugby and showed me that I'm incapable of keeping up with them on the golf course or in a pub. Yet it's been a year since I visited them and will be another 15 months before I see them again. My liver is grateful, but I'm not.

My nephews and niece love when Louise visits with her magical nanny bag and she loves visiting Minnesota, even though she doesn't really function too well if the temperature there isn't between 66 and 68 degrees. She can sit for hours at the dining room table, talking with my mom about anything and everything. Yet it's been seven months since she was in Minnesota and might be six more before she returns.

We're our own family now. Shawn and Louise. But it's still tough knowing our respective families only know each other through old pictures and new anecdotes. Marrying a foreigner means that, for several weeks each year, I have to return to the life of a bachelor while the person I cherish more than any other in the world spends time with the family that misses her more than words can describe. Marrying a foreigner means spending the holidays apart, as she celebrates Christmas half a world away and welcomes the new year six hours earlier. I'm happy she gets to spend this time with her mom, stepdad, siblings, nieces, grandma and aunts and uncles. And I'm happy that I'll get to spend Christmas with my parents, sister, niece, nephews and aunts and uncles. But it's always difficult when being with our families means being apart from each other.

Marrying a foreigner has its benefits. It's just a bit more difficult to appreciate them when she's in her native land and I'm in mine.

Don McLean invades my dreams

This weekend, New York's Q104.3 marked its 10th anniversary by breaking out its list of the top 1,043 classic rock songs of all time, a staple of all classic rock stations - with the actual number depending on the station's frequency. No big surprises with the Top 5:
5. "Let it Be"
4. "Layla"
3. "Born to Run"
2. "Hey Jude"
1. "Stairway to Heaven"

Fairly standard, though other stations toss in "Satisfaction" somewhere.

I only tuned in at about No. 20, so I'm not sure which songs came in at the bottom of the list. Was "Red Rubber Ball" No. 1,043 with a bullet?" Did "Revolution 9" snare the 1,033rd slot?

The songs came on as I settled in for a Sunday nap. I need silence at night to fall asleep, but for a nap it doesn't matter what's playing in the background, whether it's Seinfeld reruns or never-ending classic rock countdowns. Just as long as it's not car alarms or jackhammers out on Broadway. But there are side effects to having the TV or radio playing: the lyrics or characters enter my dreams.

Today I fell asleep just as "American Pie" started, and because it wasn't the shorter version, I had drifted off by the time the children screamed and the poets dreamed. Yet the song infected my sleeping thoughts. At one point I dreamed that I was falling out of a hot air balloon piloted by Ritchie Valens. Psychological meaning? Because I have lucid dreams, I told myself to wake up before I hit the ground, but that also meant I didn't get the chance to ask Ritchie why he was up in the air in a balloon, if, as everyone who's seen La Bamba knows, he was afraid of flying? And did he win another coin flip? Was the Big Bopper aboard?

This almost always happens if there's background entertainment when I fall asleep. A phone rings on the TV and it rings in my head. Dan Dierdorf offers nonsensical commentary on TV and he's doing the same thing in my dream, only instead of wondering about Eli Manning's ability to handle the blitz he's saying things like, "Boy, you wanna talk about some type of shot. Take a look at this shot by Shawn Fury with the shot clock winding down."

Also today, Billy Joel sang "Piano Man" - number... something on the list - and in my dream I was in a dark bar watching a sad middle-aged man at the piano. I have to believe this is fairly common, correct?

Still, always a bit strange.

The last time I wrote about dreams, I mentioned how I wished I could pull off the lucid dream more often during good dreams. Perhaps because I wrote that and it crept into my subconscious - or maybe because I saw Inception twice - I've been able to occasionally pull that off, but it remains frustrating. In the past few months there have been times when I've told myself in the dream, "This is a dream, and it's going well. Don't wake up." This gives me a few more seconds, but because I'm now thinking about this in the dream, it still leads to me inevitably waking up.

Fortunately, I've pulled off a new trick. Even if I wake up, if I can go back to sleep within, say, 30 seconds, I'll sometimes be able to pick up the dream where it left off.

As I get older I feel like I'm gaining more control of my dreams, though maybe that's impossible and I'm simply, well, imagining things. I still have nightmares nearly every night, but they're not as scary when you can tell yourself the monsters aren't real, even before you wake up with a pounding heart.

Most nights I don't know what causes the nightmares. Today, I blame Don McLean for tossing me out of that hot-air balloon. Him and his worries about widowed brides. So the key to avoiding nightmares during naps? Don't have any songs about death playing in the background. No "Tell Laura I Love Her," no "Leader of the Pack," no "Dead Man's Curve."

Basically, avoid any song from the 1950s and '60s that focused on teenagers and their tendency to love too much and drive too fast. They're still classic songs, but all they'll give you is restless nights.

Tales from the Universal Building, Part II

Part I of the award-winning series:

Someone discovered my blog by searching for Universal Building Fargo apartment.

I don't know who searched for this, whether it's a he or a she, a teen or a retiree. I don't know if they're looking for a place to live or a place to drop out of society. Maybe it's for a child, maybe for themselves. The Universal Building doesn't make the news much. I haven't been to Fargo in five years. I don't know if it's even an apartment building anymore, or even any kind of building at all. When it does make the news, it's for stories like "Biggest recent fires in Fargo," which ran in The Forum last month after a massive apartment fire, which recalled the horrific fire and murder in the UB in 1999.

I moved in about a week before Thanksgiving in 2000. It took several months before I moved out of the bedroom and took up permanent night-time residence on the already-furnished couch. The reason? My neighbor, Pappy. That wasn't his real name, I don't think. Probably a nickname from the second World War or something his fellow cell-block mates called him in the winter of '71. One morning someone pounded on my door for five minutes before I finally opened it. The elderly man standing there with his hat in his hands said he was looking for "Pappy." The blank look on my face didn't give him the answer he needed but as he started to ask again, the door to the apartment next to mine flew open and another elderly gentleman stuck his head out.

"Pappy, you son of a bitch!" the knocker yelled, before walking down and hugging his long-lost...brother? Platoon mate? Partner in crime? Pappy. So that was the man who moved in a week earlier.

I returned to bed but not for long. The thin walls refused to mute their conversation, which the men conducted at a decibel level most people use only when yelling at a speeding car that just ran over their left foot. Until that day, Pappy had lived a lonely life for a week, the type of monastic existence I think you were required to live the moment you signed a lease at the Universal Building. Very few couples lived in the building. Mostly single men, many likely hiding out from federal marshals, others plotting crime sprees that would almost certainly violate the conditions of their parole. A couple lived a few doors down for a brief time. Each afternoon when I left for work I heard the woman - a twentysomething gal - screaming at her no-good boyfriend. He was a jerk, a prick, inconsiderate, selfish and thoughtless. At night I'd return and as I exited the elevator it became clear she had forgiven the man's sins as her screams again filled the hall, though the words were - aside from an enthusiastic and possibly faked Yes! - mostly unintelligible.

But for the most part it was middle-aged men with thousand-yard stares and old guys who spent their money on Wonder Bread and lottery tickets. And Pappy. Over the next few months I greeted Pappy in the hall on several occasions and each encounter shortened my life by six months, thanks to the secondhand smoke that wafted from his jacket. At this stage in Pappy's life, his internal organs very likely resembled the inside of a cigarette. If you had cut him, smoke would have billowed out, followed by some leaking tar. It turned out he had a daughter, who visited about once a month and engaged in fights with her father that usually ended with her slamming the door while calling Pappy the same name his friend used the first time I saw him in the hall.

Pappy's domestic problems didn't run me out of my bedroom, though; his snoring and morning bathroom stops did. Remember the scene with Frank Drebin in the bathroom in The Naked Gun, after the press conference? That wasn't over-the-top; it was based on Pappy's morning ritual. That woke me up, after I'd spend each night struggling for sleep as Pappy's snoring threatened to set off car alarms in Grand Forks. It's a sound I'd never heard before, and one I hope to never hear again. If a doctor heard it they would have sent him to an emergency room and notified next of kin, but not before drawing up a three-page outline for an article in a medical journal.

Eventually I surrendered. I started sleeping on the couch, an uncomfortable piece of furniture that didn't contain my 6-3 frame but was at least in the living room, giving me some breathing room away from Pappy's abnormal breathing. The bedroom became a storage space, a cursed place to throw books and basketballs. One night, at the end of a blind date that the referee should have stopped in the first round, I took the couch while the lucky lady - who was stranded by a blizzard - took the bed. I felt bad, knowing she'd be haunted by internal regrets and Pappy's nightmarish sounds.

Still, she got a free dinner out of the deal and she got to flee the next morning. The next night, I'd still be in the Universal Building. And so would Pappy.

The man who didn't recognize his wife

Thanks to an article in the August 30 New Yorker, I might have finally discovered an explanation for one of the most baffling things I've ever seen.

Oliver Sacks wrote a story for The New Yorker about his lifelong battle with prosopagnosia. Put simply, it's an inability to recognize faces. The 77-year-old Sacks is best known for his work with people suffering neurological disorders. His book Awakenings was turned into a movie with Robin Williams and Robert de Niro. In his article, Sacks writes about how his life is affected by his struggle to recognize faces, even the faces of his family and closest friends. He tells one story about attending a meeting with his assistant Kate, who had worked with him for six years. He sat down next to her and ignored her. Finally, after five minutes Kate said, "I was wondering how long it would take you to recognize me." Another time, he failed to recognize his psychiatrist, a few minutes after he'd just had a session with the doctor.

So, to the baffling scene. It happened in 2002, in the Mankato Barnes & Noble. I stood near the cafe in the rear of the store. I was about 10 feet away from a woman who looked to be in her fifties. She started falling backward and I thought she had just lost her balance. But she fell to the ground, hit a nearby table and went into convulsions. It was a scary scene, especially when you're utterly incapable of helping with the situation. The basic first aid skills I learned in seventh through 10th grade were useless that night, since there was obviously no need for a cravat bandage or a crude tourniquet. Two women who had been standing next to her crouched down to help. One held the woman's head, trying to keep it still. I told a cafe worker to call 911.

By that time a small crowd had gathered around the fallen woman. After about a minute, a middle-aged man approached and said he was a doctor. How comforting is it hearing those three words - "I'm a doctor" - during a moment like that? He started doing doctor-type things to the lady and told the other women who had been helping to look through her purse for any medications.

The convulsions continued. At one point the doctor felt her neck and announced, "She has a pulse and is breathing." This seemed a tad theatrical, but was reassuring. The woman who had been searching the victim's purse asked around, wondering if anyone had been with her before she fell. No one replied. Someone told the manager to announce the woman's name over the speaker system to see if she had a companion.

One of the helpers finally found her name and phone number in her checkbook. "It's Catherine," she said.

A second later, the doctor stopped working and loudly said, "Oh my god! It's my wife! Cathy, Cathy, Cathy! It's my wife!"

One of the women helping said, "Your wife," and everyone in the area thought the same thing: What? He had been working on the woman for about three minutes. He didn't recognize her? He kept repeating, "My wife, it's my wife." Finally an ambulance arrived. The workers loaded her onto a stretcher and took her away. Before he left, the man called his child on his cell.

"Hey, it's dad," he said. "Mom is sick, something's happened. We're at the bookstore." He then told us this had never happened before but she was on some blood-pressure medication. Obviously I felt terrible for the woman and the man, especially since it sounded like it wasn't the type of seizure that might be associated with epilepsy, which could provide an explanation for the frightening scene. But still...how did he not recognize his wife?

At the time I had some theories and I asked my friends for theirs. One speculated that the man had some mental issues and might have imposed on the scene, pretending to be a doctor and her wife. Seemed far-fetched, although maybe it would explain the dramatic announcements: I'm a doctor. She's breathing!

Another proposed a theory based on watching too many episodes of Dateline and 48 Hours Mystery. He speculated that, since the man was a doctor, he gave her medicine that made her collapse. Perhaps as part of insurance fraud or a murder plot. Then he could act concerned and say, hey, look, I tried to help. And he was so focused on helping, so involved with the work, he didn't recognize her. Seemed like a theory Jack McCoy might buy, but no one else.

My theories?

* They arrived at the store separately. If they went together, it seems even more unbelievable that he wouldn't have recognized her. She was wearing glasses, but they did come off when she fell. So, they arrive separately. Then, perhaps doctors get so involved with helping the "patient" they don't really see who it is, they just see a person in trouble. So only when he heard that her name was Catherine did it hit him that he was working on his own wife. Still seems hard to believe.

* It was a scene for a wacky prank show, or one of those 20/20 style shows where they set up unsuspecting people to see how they react in emergencies. As a social experiment. Like, will three strangers help a woman who collapses at a Barnes & Noble, or are people so concerned with their own lives they'll let her fall and convulse while reading Tom Clancy? Not my best theory.

* My most realistic scenario: They're divorced, have been for several years. He hadn't seen her in awhile. In that type of situation, once he did recognize her, he wouldn't shout, "Oh my god, my ex-wife!" You'd probably still shout, "my wife."

Still, it remained confounding. I wanted an explanation, but thought it might be in bad taste to chase after the ambulance. It's confused me for eight years.

But now, maybe there's an answer. Maybe the doctor suffered from prosopagnosia, face blindness. It seems plausible - but not as intriguing as a murder plot.

You are what you were as a first-grader. Act accordingly

Bad news for anyone older than 7.

Think back to first grade. Remember sitting passively in your desk as the bully who was held back a grade grabbed your hair and yanked while the teacher did nothing? You're probably sitting passively in your cubicle today - 20, 30, 40 years later - as the office moron bullies you into finishing a project he was supposed to complete two days ago.

Remember how shy you were in first grade when the new girl in school tried talking to you? Remember how she looked at you when you couldn't put two words together? Even then she knew you were something of a loser. She probably pegged you as a paste-eater. You're probably something of a shut-in today, afraid to meet new people. When a woman does talk to you while you guys stand in line at the grocery store, she's immediately turned off by your awkwardness. She assumes you still live in a dark basement in your parents' house and spend your time reading books about serial killers.

A new study came out that seems to show "personality traits observed in children as young as first graders are a strong predictor of adult behavior." The study's author, Christopher Nave, said, "This speaks to the importance of understanding personality because it does follow us wherever we go across time and contexts." And surely young Christopher was a blast to hang out with as a first-grader.

Many people ridicule these types of studies - "THIS IS WHAT OUR MONEY IS SPENT ON?? GODDAMN GOVERNMENT!" - but I love them. I also, for the most part, believe the findings. To be fair, this study - from the 1960s - studied children in Hawaii. Maybe the results would be different on the mainland, with kids who receive less sun.

It's odd reading some of the Yahoo! comments. Not any stranger than most Internet comments, except the posters are lacking in irony even more than normal. They ridicule the study and make bizarre political analogies while using racist language and bad spelling. They say there's no way the findings could be true, then add with pride that they've never been afraid to speak their mind, even as a kid, and that their temper always got them into trouble with teachers who didn't like to hear the truth. In other words, remember the jerk who tried beating up on the kid from Cambodia in first grade and always struggled to spell any word that had more than two letters? He's probably ranting today about Mexicans while posting poorly worded missives on message boards.

I remember a fair amount of things from first grade. Books we read, filmstrips we watched, field trips we took. I remember one of the kids slamming a door so hard it broke the glass in the window. He was always in trouble in first grade; shortly after I graduated from college, I read a story about him getting arrested for beating someone up. Probably broke a glass door during the brawl.

Back then my teacher and classmates thought I was pretty quiet but fairly witty. I loved reading. I loved basketball. I wanted my teacher to like me. Not much has changed. In first grade I longed for a girl named Leah who had moved away after Kindergarten. That's changed. I stopped thinking about her in 10th grade, 11th at the latest.

I liked making my friends laugh back then but didn't want to be the center of attention. Or, I didn't want to be the acknowledged center of attention. It's the same thing today. I'd rather throw in a comment at the end of someone's long-winded story than tell an amusing anecdote that takes five minutes.

I loathed the idea of getting in trouble with an authority figure, but always wanted to entertain my friends.

One day the whole class sat on the floor, listening to the teacher read us a story. I kept whispering wisecracks to two of my friends, Willie and Travis. Only they could hear me. I provided running commentary on the story and the teacher's reading performance; I was a 6-year-old precursor to Mystery Science Theater 3000. And god, was I funny! Or at least that's what I thought. Fortunately, so did my friends, who kept chuckling throughout the story. Finally the teacher stopped reading. She looked up and found the offenders. She chastised my friends. She disciplined them with the type of punishment that's probably not allowed these days, unless the teacher is eager to be the defendant in a lawsuit.

Travis and Willie had to sit underneath desks for an extended period. Odd. It was like putting them in a cage without bars. Like a pair of mob rats eager to sell out their boss, both Willie and Travis told the teacher I made the comments that made them laugh that made them interrupt her reading. I dreaded sitting under one of those desks. They looked so miserable, defeated. And they just took the punishment. Mrs. Matuska called me to her desk. Unsmiling, she asked me if the accusations were true. Had I made them laugh?

"No," I said.

"I didn't think so," she replied.

I was the good kid.

A few years ago I went to church back in Janesville with my parents. Louise came with. As we stood there, next to my forever-faithful folks and the other good Catholics of St. Ann's, I tried making comments that would make Louise giggle. I wanted to hear her snort while the priest recited Eucharistic Prayer Number...Three. I sort of succeeded, but not entirely. In a perfect world, I suppose the priest would have stopped the ceremony. In front of everyone, he would have told her to sit in the confessional to recite 100 Our Father's. He would have asked me if I made her laugh. And I would have said...

Whatever happened to Mildred, Ernest and Cyril?

Stumbled across this classic George Carlin bit, where the late genius comic ridicules names like Todd, Cody, Kyle and Tucker, while lamenting a world with fewer guys named Eddie, Vinnie and Tony.

Every year the Social Security Administration releases the list of the most popular baby names. On their website, you can analyze name data going back to 1880, a time when Harry, Walter and Minnie ruled. Spending time on there is like wandering around the Baseball or Basketball Reference sites. A quick 10-minute trip can turn into an hour-long journey.

Selfishly, I first wanted to know where Shawn ranked. I didn't want it to be too popular; I didn't want to be a commoner. In 2009, it was the 210th most popular name for boys, down from 195 in 2008. Shawn didn't appear in the Top 1,000 rankings until 1947, when it appeared at 922. In 1964, it finally broke into the Top 100, coming in at No. 88 (the audio version of this blog post will be read by Casey Kasem or, failing that, Rick Dees). Its best ranking ever came in 1973, when it was 27th. In 1975, the year I was born, it was 31st. The name has been dropping in popularity ever since. In 1975, Shawn was also the 254th most-popular name for a girl. In college a friend tried setting me up with a girl named Shawn. I begged off, fearing that an eventual marriage - if, you know, it reached that point after a few dates - would lead to a household with two people named Shawn Fury. This leads to ridicule, which I know because our school's old band instructor was named Kim Lau, as was his wife. Kids mocked this, though the reasons why this was so funny remain a bit unclear.

Sean is a more popular spelling than Shawn, as it was ranked 97 in 2009. I remain forever grateful that my parents chose the correct way to spell my name.

The first data comes from 1880, when John and Mary topped the charts. Today they are ranked 26 and 102, respectively. John held the top spot from 1880 through 1923, a dynastic run that dwarfs anything accomplished by Russell's Celtics or Wooden's Bruins. It didn't fall out of the Top 5 until 1973, a remarkable streak. It's never returned. Obviously, Baby Boomers fell slightly out of love with the name and it's never recovered.

My grandpa's name was Cyril, one of those old-sounding names that seems unimaginable for a kid today. Picture some 8-year-old named Cyril running around a youth soccer field today. Imagine his mom yelling, "Cyril, you're going home with the Johnsons, we'll pick you up later." Hard to do. If you know a Cyril today, chances are he was alive during the first World War.

Grandpa was born in 1913, when Cyril was ranked 302. Cyril never broke the Top 200 and since 1966 it's never even been in the Top 1,000. My mom's name is Cecelia, and she does spell it with the middle e (like her grandma did, whom she was named after), though everyone calls her Cees. Cecelia - with an e - is a pretty rare name, coming in at 738 in 2009. Cecilia - with an i - was at 265. I might be biased but I like it with an e, even though three generations of Simon and Garfunkel fans - and Saint Cecilia - are convinced it should be with an i. Great song, wrong spelling. And Cees - which, as I wrote, is what everyone calls my mom; most people probably don't even know it's short for Cecelia - has, according to the SSA website, not been "in the top 1000 names for any year of birth in the last 130 years." Now that's a name with a sense of uniqueness.

Know many Mildreds? Probably not. And if you do, it's likely because of visits to a nursing home or touching newspaper stories about a couple's 75th wedding anniversary. As recently as 1945, it was in the Top 100. She's been out of the Top 1,000 since 1984. Unless a retro-name craze hits the country, she will surely never return.

The months are interesting. Between 1976 and 1979, January cracked the Top 1,000 each year. But it never did before '76 and never since '79. This makes no sense to me. What occurred in 1976 that made people want to name their daughter January, and what happened to make that desire disappear after a four-year stretch? April's been around since 1939, peaking at 23 in 1979 (a big year for the months). But now it's down to 353. May, there's another old name, one you'll probably only see in Remember When columns that date back to the 19th century. May was the 95th most popular name in 1901 but hasn't been in the Top 1,000 since 1982.

A name to keep any eye on: June. As recently as 1941, June ranked 90th. Then it plummeted out of the Top 1,000 from 1987 through 2007. But June came back in 2008, placing 867. And in 2009, it was 662. So in two years, it inexplicably jumped at least 338 spots. It seems like it's a name that would appeal to people. Simple, conjures up images of warmth and sunshine. Could June break the Top 500 in 2010? The Romans were apparently more popular in the 19th century, as August was in the Top 100 for 12 years. It fell into the 900s in the 1980s, but has bumped up to 433.

Jayden ranked No. 8 in 2009, which can perhaps partially be blamed on Britney Spears giving her second child that name, inspiring others with her wise life choices. It didn't make the Top 1,000 until 1994 and even then it was 851. It took off in popularity at the same time as the Internet. Was there some type of online campaign to name children Jayden? Every year since it improved position. It seems inevitable that it will someday hold the top spot, a remarkable ascension for a somewhat ludicrous name.

The No. 2 name for boys - Ethan - has also had a startling rise. It was no higher than 263 until 1989. But it's now been in the Top 5 since 2004. That at least makes sense, I know an Ethan. I do not know any Jayden's or August's. Isabella reigns for the girls. In 1989, Isabella wasn't in the Top 1,000. Twenty years later, No. 1. I need a sociologist to comment on what all this means.

My wife likes to say she's a unique person and when it comes to her name, she's definitely correct. Louise hasn't been in the Top 1,000 since 1991. Like many names that are no longer as popular, Louise started falling in the 1940s - it ranked 99th in 1948. Even the Greatest Generation apparently thought their names sounded old - when they started naming their children, Cyril, Millie and Ernest began disappearing from birth certificates.

In the battle of seasons, Autumn rules, coming in at 81, well ahead of Summer at 175. As for Spring and Winter, they only made appearances in the 1970s. Spring cracked the Top 1,000 between 1975 and 1979, while Winter made it in 1978 and '79. Odd. Why those two years? Were fears about a nuclear winter so prevalent during the Cold War then that the word stuck in people's heads when naming their daughters?

And as for George Carlin and his dislike of Todds around th,e world, the late comic might have had an impact on some people. Todd was the 454th most popular boys name in 2001, when Carlin ranted about the name in his Complaints and Grievances concert. Today, just a decade later, it's at 892 and seems on its way out of the Top 1000. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but maybe not. Maybe Carlin bullied some people into forgoing Todd.

Carlin died in 2008. Too bad he's no longer around, because we need someone to take on Jayden.

Minnesota: Hamburger feeds and bird crap

On nearly every trip we take to Minnesota, something odd happens to Louise, as if the state senses that a woman not of this continent or hemisphere has invaded and needs to be dealt with. It's the same types of things that happen to natives of this fine land, but that's not surprising if they've lived here their whole life. But Louise can be here for 10 weeks - or 10 minutes - and something strange or horrifying will dampen her spirit, if just for a few moments. They're the types of things that usually end up as deleted scenes in a Renee Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon fish-out-of-water romantic comedy.

One year it was frostbite. Nothing severe, just a small case of it, in a circular form on her index finger. She'd had real frostbite before on a couple of fingers, an African native unfamiliar with the concept of freezing temperatures and gloves. I told her she'd be fine if she wore gloves in Minnesota. We stepped outside my parents' house one day and walked a single block. On our return, she took off her glove to reveal the frostbite on her finger. We inspected the glove and found a hole in the finger, the exact size as the frostbite. Minnesota didn't need much of an opening to leave a lasting impression.

Today, after a delightful family picnic in the park, we capped off the night with a walk up to the bustling Dairy Queen. A hundred feet from our house, I turned around after hearing Louise squeal. She stood motionless, her arms outstretched. She said nothing for a second. Then, in a South African accent, "I got bird shit on me!"

A Minnesota bird, probably a robin, maybe one of the two bluejays we've seen around the house, had indeed left a disgusting deposit on her face. I'm sure it wasn't aiming for her. Right?

It somehow managed to avoid her curly mass of hair. Instead it hit her hand and near her eye, like it was shot out of a cannon from 50 feet away. My nephews and sister helped out by laughing uncontrollably. I felt terrible, of course, but a bird shitting on someone's head is funny anywhere, in every language, on every continent. It's the equivalent of football in the groin. I escorted her back to the house to get washed up. Minnesota struck again. It gets her during the winter and during the 90-degree spring days. She's not safe here. But, fortunately, she still loves visiting here. Living here, on the other hand...

On Friday, our first night in Janesville, we went uptown for a hamburger feed, which supported youth baseball in the town. Louise acted the way most people do when they learn they've won an all-expenses-paid trip to London. She'd never been to a "hamburger fry." She was like a sociologist, eager to see how us small town folk constructed hamburgers with all the fixins. As hamburger feeds go it was standard stuff. Throw the meat on a bun, top it with some condiments, add a few fries, grab some pickles, sit down on a long table and talk with your neighbors. I looked back in line and saw Louise taking pictures, documenting every drop of ketchup and capturing the atmosphere.

"I've never seen such a thing," she said excitedly. She was more excited than Jane Goodall the first time she went to Tanzania.

New York City people are tough to impress? They've seen it all? I suppose. Until you take them to a hamburger feed in a town of 2,000.

The trip's been everything I want when we return home. Relaxing, but we've also had the chance to already see numerous family members and friends we hadn't seen in way too long. Today we had a picnic in the park and invited everyone from both sides of the family. I got to see people I might not have been able to visit during our 10-day stay. It's great seeing them and it's days like this when I realize how much I do miss them and my friends and my tiny hometown and my home state. But I'm also grateful, and lucky, that I have a great life I love in New York City. Minnesota will always be home, but how many people are fortunate enough to have two places that feel like home?

The night ended with me in the basement watching the Lakers in the playoffs. It was a scene out of 1985 or 1991. My folks and sister upstairs, me in the basement screaming at the latest reffing atrocity or three-point brick from Odom or Artest. At one point my nephew Bronson visited me downstairs to watch a few minutes. I think he might have studied me the same way Louise analyzed the hamburger feed. He must have wondered, how can a calm, mild-mannered easygoing person transform into this grotesque creature? Earlier in the game, when I was still upstairs, I looked around for something to fire across the living room. My dad handed me an old pair of socks, figuring they'd do the least damage. I threw them and added some newspaper flyers for good measure. Out of respect for everyone else in the house, and because I do like to set an example for the younger kids, I refrained from swearing (although it's difficult when watching Robin Lopez play).

It's what I also do in New York City. I'm not proud of the behavior. God no. But it's what I do in our one-bedroom apartment, in the comfort of my home. And it's what I do in my parents' house, in the comfort of my other home.

Anniversaries and memories

In a few weeks we're going to Minnesota for a 10-day stay. It'll have been a year since I was last home, the longest time I've ever been away from the Midwest. Wonder if I lost my accent. Will I remember how to say ya? Will I still appreciate the taste of a well-done hotdish?

For the first time in 34 years, I didn't experience a single month of Minnesota winter. Can't say I missed that part. But I am looking forward to going home, to see my folks and sister and my niece and four nephews and my aunts and uncles.

Since 2004, whenever we went back to Minnesota, we always made plans to "get to Fulda" so we could see my grandma. This will also be the first year our trip doesn't involve a trip to see her. She died last May 19, at the age of 91. A stroke. We flew back on May 21 last year for her funeral. This year, we're flying to Minnesota on May 21. It's purely a coincidence, not a plan. At the same time, May 21, 2009 has become one of those days where I'll always remember what I did, the same way I'll always remember hearing about grandma's stroke and death two days before.

Two days ago was another one of those anniversaries. On April 30, 1999, my grandpa died at the age of 86. He had been sick for a year. He died in a hospice. That was a day of double heartbreak. One of my uncle's best friends, my former basketball coach Mike Augustine, lost his father on the same day, just hours after my grandpa died. My uncle coached the women's basketball team at Minnesota West, Augie the men. On the same morning, both lost their fathers.

April 30, 1999 was a sad, devastating day, but it's not a sad, devastating anniversary. The same will be true for May 19. I thought about grandpa quite a bit on Friday, but even though it was the anniversary of the day he died, I thought about his life. But then, I think about him often, every day of the year, not just on April 30.

I think about him when I read a story about a veteran. Grandpa won a Silver Star in World War II. Growing up, I never heard him talk much about his service. I'd hear from my parents that grandpa suffered nightmares, ones where German soldiers came up from the lake at the farm. But like so many veterans, particularly of that war, he didn't talk a lot about his service or his heroics, only to say he never got mad after the war - a somewhat dubious claim. I only heard about the specifics of his service two months before he died, when I interviewed him for a newspaper story related to the Silver Star and some other medals, including the Purple Heart, he received in a ceremony while he lived in the hospice. I spent two days at his bedside, listening to him talk and replay those years. He talked about the men he served with, ones who died and those who made it back with him. He talked about his training. He talked about Patton. He talked about the incident that led to the Purple Heart.

The only thing he didn't talk about in depth was the event that led to his Silver Star, when he took out a German machine gun nest.

He kept those details to himself for more than 50 years of his life and held them close two months before his death. Those nightmares he suffered proved the memories of those German soldiers who had been in that nest never left him.

After Germany's surrender, grandpa volunteered to serve in Japan for the expected invasion, saying the sooner the war ended, the quicker he'd get home. The atomic bomb kept him from the Pacific.

I often think about grandpa when watching baseball, his favorite sport. He was a standout player, but that, of course, was way before my time. He still played with us in the large open area at the farm, where family games often broke out. One year, when I was maybe seven or eight, grandpa patrolled the outfield while I played short. A hit got through him and grandpa, in his 70s, took chase. A bit too slowly for my taste.

"Come on old man, go get the ball," I yelled. Grandpa finally picked it up and fired it back to me. Most of the family laughed while others were probably a bit horrified at my demands on the ol' ballplayer. But grandpa just laughed. He wasn't offended by my...uh, youthful exuberance. Besides, he knew better than anyone the importance of getting the ball to the cutoff man.

I think about him when watching basketball. I can picture him sitting in the top row of whatever gym I played in, watching quietly from above, the same scene he repeated while watching my cousins and my uncle's college team.

I remember his days in the hospice, the months he spent there, dying, surrounded by caring workers and other dying residents. But when I picture him, and when I dream about him, he's not in the hospice bed. He's wearing his ever-present bib overalls, sitting at the the kitchen table at the farm or in his chair in the living room.

I think about all of those things throughout the year. I don't need an anniversary to remember him, but each year April 30 does remind me of what we lost, while also making me appreciate what we had.

I'm sure the same feelings will come on May 19. Just like with grandpa, I think about grandma all the time. Being home for the first time since her death will be strange, possibly a bit upsetting. But the memories of the life she led overwhelm the memories of hearing she died.

My maternal grandpa died when I was 9. My memories of him are limited, fleeting visions that become harder to remember with every passing year. My paternal grandma died nearly eight years before I was born. I also think about both of them often, but with them it is more about their deaths, only because I didn't have the chance to enjoy their lives.

Everyone deals with these types of things differently. Some people remember the exact time their loved one died, others might not even recall the day. In the end, it's ultimately not that important what you do or how you remember the anniversaries. There's no right way. But it's not surprising that for many people those are difficult days to get through - it's the day the person stopped providing memories and instead became one.

But for me, last Friday wasn't a sad day. This May 19 won't be, either. Those days remind me of their deaths, but more importantly, they make me think about grandpa and grandma's lives. And those memories don't make me sad. They make me grateful.

Some dorks hang out with Mos(t) Def

I was talking with a friend about personal celebrity sightings. Mine are mundane, at best. At lunch a few years ago, while sitting at an outdoor cafe, John O'Hurley, J. Peterman on Seinfeld, strolled by our table. A lot of people wouldn't have noticed, but this was at the height of his Dancing With the Stars domination. Still, most people did not look up from their overpriced salad for more than two seconds as the nice-looking celebrity walked past on a sunny day. In the Seinfeld universe, it was more thrilling than seeing the guy who played Babu Bat, but not as exciting as spotting Newman.

I brushed shoulders with Colin Farrell about four blocks from our apartment. As I walked to work, I saw a man who looked a lot like Farrell crossing the street, after he emerged from an Irish bar in the neighborhood. The production trucks nearby let everyone know a movie was filming. It was for a scene in the cop movie Pride and Glory. He exchanged a handshake and hug with a worker on the film while Inwood residents stared and snapped pictures.

There have been others, of course, but nothing real exciting. Saw Fabio in our work cafeteria. He had the same hair, but was wearing a shirt, buttoned to the top.

Last summer, I thought I had a really cool celebrity sighting. Not just a sighting, an encounter. A night of pictures and drinks. The celeb: Mos Def, the famed actor/rapper.

I met some friends on a Friday night at a bar near the Empire State Building. One girl arrived from Connecticut. Her twentysomething brother was in the city with her, visiting New York for the first time. He was a nice Southern kid and planned on meeting us at the bar around 10. At some point during the festivities, he called his sister to let her know he wouldn't be around for awhile. He'd been sidetracked. At that moment, he was walking around the city. His tour guide? Mos Def.

The kid showed up to the bar about two and a half hours later, calling it the best night of his life. Whatever second-place was on that list was a distant runner-up. The sweat rolled off his face but the grin never left it. He had the look of wonder that graced the faces of the girls of Fatima.

He slowly told the story, as the group leaned in. Seasoned journalists, we peppered him with crucial questions here and there but otherwise we all stayed silent. According to his tale, Mos - it took about two minutes for all of us to feel comfortable calling him Mos - ran into the kid down in Chinatown. Mos rescued the wide-eyed youngster, preventing him from buying a fake Rolex. Mos showed him his real Rolex. After a few seconds, the kid asked, "Are you...Mos?"

Mos said yes, but wanted his new friend to keep it quiet, lest the crowds swarm the pair. Mos told him, "I don't want my shit getting blown up."

It's a phrase with a hundred different interpretations, but the point was obvious: shhhhhhhh. You're with a celebrity now. Be cool. Just, be cool. And if you are cool, the night will include drinking and girls, preferably more of the latter than the former. Mos took his protege around the town. They rode in a limo to some hotspots, and walked to others. They hit the clubs. Mos tossed around hundreds of dollars on drinks, buying for everyone in the joint. Hot babes gathered around both of them.

At one point Mos said he wanted to take his new buddy to Atlantic City for the night, in the limo. As much as he wanted to, the kid turned him down. Instead he walked down to our bar to tell us his story.

We were all a bit skeptical. Why would Mos Def kidnap this stranger, show him the sights like some type of bejeweled fairy godfather and then offer to take him to Atlantic City? Were they filming a reality show, something produced by Oprah or another big-hearted celebrity with too much time and money? Celebs rescue small-town rubes from the tedium that is their life for one night of fun, before throwing them back to their one-stoplight village? Two of the people at the table, including his sister, were huge Mos Def fans. They told the rest of us all about his career - his movies, songs, and genius. They wanted to believe. Eventually, we all believed. It's the power of celebrity, even though I had only a vague idea who the celebrity was.

About 30 minutes later, Mos walked into the bar. At least, it was the man identifying himself as Mos. I didn't know what he looked like. Everyone else thought it was him, so I agreed: we were in the presence of a celebrity. Maybe he'd buy us drinks. Maybe he'd cast us in a future movie, perhaps as extras in a saloon scene. He'd set up the single fellas with ladies and offer insightful advice to the married folks. He'd open his celebrity arms to us and by simply being in his presence, we would become greater people. We wouldn't exchange cell phone numbers, but maybe e-mails?

He wore shades (at night, indoors - so Nicholson-like!), a fancy suit and a porkpie hat that looks ridiculous on 97 percent of the population but looked just right on him. Mos gave us all fist bumps and high fives, while telling each of us to, "Keep it low. Don't blow my shit up." Everyone agreed with this. No, we would not blow his shit up. Christ, no.

We talked with him, man-to-man, instead of celebrity-to-civilian. He was easygoing and friendly. Like Bill Clinton, he had the ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the room. Maybe it was the alcohol.

All the while, we kept whispering to each other, "Is it him? Is it really him?" But it wouldn't make any sense for him to be an impostor. The guy wasn't just calling himself Mos Def. He threw around thousands of dollars in a single night, entertaining a young kid from Kentucky. Who would do that? What kind of pathology would be involved, unless he really was Mos Def? He wasn't stealing anything from the kid or asking him to help dispose of a body. There was the Atlantic City thing. That still seemed a bit suspicious.

Eventually Mos announced he had to leave. He posed for pictures with the poise of a seasoned politician and signed napkins for everyone, personalizing each one. After some goodbye fist bumps, he went out the door, holding a woman in each arm. After Mos exited, one of the girls in our group took a closer look at her napkin. She squinted, fighting the poor lighting and the effects of the beer. She finally asked, "Why would Mos Def sign his name Most Def?" And then our eyes were opened to the reality after being blinded by his supposed celebrity. On each one, he'd signed it Most Def, adding an extra T to the name. Seemed like an odd thing to do. How many people, past the age of 6, misspell their own name? How many people who sign hundreds of autographs a year misspell their own name? Especially one with just a single syllable?

One read, "To Shawn, Jill and Andrew. Stay strong, stay sweet & wise. From Most Def."

That did clinch it for us. This wasn't Mos. We went our separate ways, slightly drunk, completely confused.

A member of our group ended up on the subway with Most that night, heading uptown. Def got off the subway at 125th Street, just a normal guy going home after a long night of partying.

Later we discovered the real Mos was on tour that night in Atlanta, at the same time he was supposedly traipsing around New York City. Eight months later the confusion remains. Who was he, and why did he do what he did? What was the end game? A kidnapping in Atlantic City, which ends in removal of a kidney that gets sold on the black market? If it was a con, what was the end game? Was it some type of long con, the type of scheme only Paul Newman's character in The Sting could comprehend? Did he toss around counterfeit money, in addition to a fake persona?

We still don't have any answers. Just beware. Next time you're in the city, if Mos Def asks if you want to go to Atlantic City, demand some identification. Better yet, make him sign an autograph.

A new cell phone, but not for me

Today we spent 45 minutes in a Radio Shack on the Upper West Side, trying to upgrade Louise's cell phone. The phone stopped being useful about a year ago, but we kept it alive while barely keeping it breathing. We used duct tape to piece it together about six months ago, after it split in two. For awhile that worked. Most phone calls proceeded without issue.

Eventually people on the other end of the conversation couldn't hear us. Then we couldn't hear them. Often both parties only heard soft rustling. In the last two months, we could only talk on it while simultaneously pressing hard on the top of the phone, keeping it sealed together with the bottom half. Otherwise conversations dropped off. By the end of a 20-minute talk, my hand would be cramping and it'd take another half hour to feel right.

So it was time for a new phone. The young salesman spoke to us like a teacher helping an immigrant learn English. He spoke slowly, laughed occasionally at our perplexed faces and gently encouraged us. "That's a really good choice for a case. No, really good. Good job."

Louise is now the confused owner of an iPhone. As we sit in a restaurant, she's looking at her new toy with a furrowed brow, determined to figure out how to use it to make an actual call. She checked her email. Checked the weather report. Now, how to dial? An outsider looking at this scene would conclude that we're both 95 years old and stopped following technology about the time movies became talkies. Earlier we both held it aloft with wide-eyed wonder, the same look that graced the faces of the first people to start a fire. We need like a 12-hour, hardcore tutorial, preferably run by Steve Jobs himself. Or a fourth-grader, who would have more knowledge on the subject than us. Actually, can someone just email and tell us how to use it as a phone?

That's Louise's cell phone, which I use a couple of times a month, earning it the title "our" phone. But I still don't own a cell phone of my own and there are still no plans to get one. Maybe down the line, if some writing deals work out, it will be a necessity. In the meantime, I remain a land line guy, a dying breed. My parents only got a touch-tone home phone like 10 years ago. When we visit them, at least once during our stay I'll have to fix their TV because they've hit the TV/Cable button and can't get the channels back and are convinced they'll have to call a repairman to the house and, Jesus, think how much that's going to cost! Even these two people have had cell phones for five years.

People get a hold of me at home and I sort of like that when I'm out and about in the world I'm free. If there's an emergency, I'll hear about it soon enough. When I need to call Louise to tell her where I am, I use a pay phone, praying that I don't contract a communicable disease from touching the numbers or the phone itself. You can smell the breath of the last seven people who used the phone. Still prefer it over a cell.

I'm still not on Facebook. I can't see that changing anytime soon, despite the peer pressure. I'm not anti-technology or anti-advancement or a Kaczynski acolyte, even if my facial hair is occasionally similar. I have a personal website and a blog, so it's not like I'm allergic to self-revelation or fearful of the online world. But I still have no desire to be on Facebook, primarily because I don't think I would ever update anything on it and it would just be another thing that I regret not following through on. I already feel bad about not calling old friends or family. I feel bad about not responding to emails from old classmates. On Facebook I'd feel bad for not putting up pictures of a picnic in Central Park. And it's not like I'm avoiding it because I don't want to hear from people who I played battled ball against in third grade. For God's sake, no one's as obsessed with the past as I am and no one remembers ridiculous details or wants to talk about old times as much as I do (so, please, email me).

No Facebook, no MySpace, no Twitter, no social networking of any sort (note, I am on Twitter, or at least signed up for it. Louise started an account for me and I think it would be valuable in the future if I start publishing some things again, but right now it just sits there, vacant).

It's all part of my lifestyle that's set in about 1990. I still prefer my VCR to our DVD player. The sound of a tape rewinding is reassuring. I tape instead of TiVoing. Our music plays on a CD player I bought in the mid 1990s. We have an iPod but in three years have probably listened to it 10 times. When we listen to a shuffle, it's a a real shuffle, with the CDs noisily rearranging themselves inside the player. It's a comforting sound, the sound of the world passing us by.

Louise talks about buying a Kindle someday but I then talk her out of it and we simply purchase a dozen more books. I read numerous newspapers online but still buy three or four each day, paging through them, the ink staining my hands.

I don't fear technology. There's no phobia. I appreciate everything it does for me and the world. It's just that, in many aspects of modern life, the technology I enjoy most was created in the last century. Time to go now. Something exciting just happened. Seems like Louise just figured out how to dial a number. Next step: finding the send button.

Integrating my immigrant wife

A few weeks ago some German papers wrote about a proposal in Berlin that would create "integration contracts" for immigrants, which would help them become "contributing members of the country's society." It would detail what Germany expected from immigrants. It included this quote from someone holding the actual title of integration commissioner, which sounds more like a job given to someone's idiot nephew than a real position.

"All who want to live and work here for the long run must say yes to our country. To this belongs proficiency in the German language, but also a readiness to take part in society."

The story's here.

I never would have seen this story except someone on a journalism board I visit posted it, along with the thought that it'd be a good thing for America, too, because what's good for Germany is...good for America? The person thought a signed contract affirming the immigrant's belief in the country's "core values" would be a very good thing. Values like knowing what the death penalty rules are in every state(?), agreeing that putting the hand on a Bible in a courtroom is a great thing, agreeing to speak English. Some of the old standbys, with a few twists - seriously, learning death penalty law in every state?

The poster agreed that immigrants to America should say yes to the country. Germany's immigration policies are of no concern to me and I don't know enough about the country's dynamics and demographics to have much of an opinion. But the poster's line about wanting something similar for the United States did make me think. And stew.

Immigrants who become American citizens already have to pass a naturalization test. They answer questions - "Who's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?" "In what year was the U.S. Constitution written?" - that would flummox probably half of all adult Americans, regardless of how many civics classes they slept through in school. But for some, like the person who advocated importing the German contract plan, that's not enough. We need a contract. Binding, I suppose.

I'm trying to picture Louise signing this contract, perhaps while stomping on her South African passport.

Her penmanship on the document would be superb, befitting someone who didn't grow up in this country. But then how does she become integrated into core American values? For one, she has to at least pick up the rudimentary rules in the Big Three Sports: Football, baseball and basketball. She doesn't have to necessarily disavow rugby and cricket in a public forum, but it'd be a start. No longer will it be acceptable to ask, as she recently did during a basketball game, "It's a good thing when the ball goes through the net, right?" She'll be tested, on the length of a football field, the amount of time on an NBA shot clock, and who the all-time RBI leader is in Major League Baseball. Failure on any of the answers? I don't know, deportation? We're talking core American values here.

And the accent has to go. If she's going to say "yes" to this country, then it's time to say no to pronouncing the t's in butter. She'll drop the South African/British sound for one more befitting her integration into this country. Midwestern is fine and close to my heart, ya know. Stereotypical Brooklynite would be acceptable and a little humorous. Texas-style? Sure. Hell, Valley Girl would even be better, anything that's American. Because if there's one thing this country values, it's sameness. Everyone should sound the same, think the same, speak the same. That's what makes a good country great. Immigrants should embrace that.

Louise already knows how to make a great apple pie, but maybe a contract will force her to understand why the dessert is so crucial to this country (note: why is it?).

What else will the contract have? For those who become citizens, will it require them to vote? A noble commitment, even if millions of eligible voters who have forever been Americans never do it, yet still spend countless hours complaining about elected officials. Taxation-and-whining-without-voting-for-representation is a core American value, one immigrants should have no trouble picking up.

The immigration process also cries out for more paperwork, so a 50-page contract - minimum - would be a welcome feature. In our overstuffed filing cabinet, we have about four folders overflowing with hundreds of pages, the result of the multi-year legal process we went through as Louise became a permanent resident. Birth records, immigration papers, passports, proof of income, proof of residence, proof of life, proof of love, lawyer's office documents...what's one more document - no matter how vague and ludicrous - going to hurt, beside the manila folder?

Thankfully, of course, no one in any position of power has suggested having an integration contract in this country, even if nameless message board folk think it's a swell idea. And I understand that when many people rail about "immigration," they're not talking about countries such as South Africa or England or Spain, but that just makes the idea even more offensive (or are they advocating different contracts for Europeans and those who come from, oh, I don't know, Mexico?).

The guy who wants immigrants to this country to say yes to America is missing the point: those people already said yes to the United States. They said it when they left their homelands, their families and everything they've known for a new land. Maybe they did it for adventure, for a job, for studies or for love. Regardless, they gave up what they knew for the great unknown. And when they arrived here, most of them became valued members of whatever community they now call home. They work just as hard, contribute just as much and often have a deeper appreciation of all this country offers than those who have been here all their lives. Perhaps they speak funny or make strange foods or have disagreements with the American government. All that means is that they've already integrated themselves perfectly.

Making them sign a contract? Maybe it'll work in Germany. Maybe it's needed there, for whatever reason. But in this country, it wouldn't be worth the imported paper it was printed on.

Good morning? No, not really

The last job I had that required me to wake up before 7 a.m. on a daily basis for more than a month was a factory job back in college, and that was a summer gig.

Since entering the real world and being confronted with the surreal salaries of young journalists - "Twenty thousand a year? Great! I can start tomorrow!" - I've never had to wake up early every day. My first job had me at work from about 2 in the afternoon to midnight. After that it was a job that ran from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m.

Today, like nearly every Monday, I'll be in the office from 4 p.m. until about 3 a.m. Even on the days I get up early - and I really should put air quotes around the word early there - it only means waking up at 9 for a 10 a.m. start. Twice a month I do have to live the life of millions. The alarm sounds at 5:30 a.m. It seems unreal that anyone else is up at this hour. But the subway's always jammed two stops down, and I assume those people are getting up that early every day.

Not a morning person.

The phrase implies a lot about someone. It means you probably stay up late, past midnight, past 1 a.m. It means you are a morning person, as long as those morning hours are between 12 and 3. It means those who talk to you early in the day do so at their own risk. It's a phrase that almost forgives bad behavior between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Say you snap at a parent or a spouse because they used up the last of the milk.

They look at you as if the person who went to sleep last night is not the same monster confronting them now. Instead of apologizing, simply shrug your shoulders, give a gee-whiz smile and say, "Sorry, not a morning person."

It's like the friend who offends everyone but gets excused with, "Well, he's a good guy but you know what he's like when he gets a few drinks in him."

"He's a good guy but you know what he's like if he's awake for the start of the Today show."

I've always wanted to stay up late, and like many things in my life, the blame - or credit - goes to the Lakers. As a kid I engaged in high-level negotiations with my parents whenever the Lakers had a late game on television. They started at 9:30 Central time and invariably lasted until midnight. To get permission to stay up for it, I had to convince my mom that it was an especially big game (and, yes, my homework was already done). Sure, it was a January game in a neverending regular season, "But, mom, this could determine homecourt advantage for the playoffs."

She'd give me half the game, especially if I gave an assurance that it would be a blowout by halftime and I wouldn't even have to watch the last two quarters. Around 10 my dad headed off to bed. When halftime finally arrived and the Lakers only had a one-point lead, there was no way I was turning the TV off. Back then, I might have to wait two days to find out the result of the game, as the morning newspaper never had the late West Coast games. Mom would give a skeptical look.

"But it's a big game," I'd remind her.

Grudgingly, she relented.

I stayed up. Watched the Lakers win. Went to bed. And cursed when the morning arrived and school beckoned. Not a morning person. It was then I started realizing that life is so much more interesting after midnight, and so meaningless nearly anytime before noon.

Today, 12 years into my full-time embrace of jobs that always include at least one late night and only rarely an early morning, it might be too late for me to ever change. There are better TV shows on late at night. Scarier movies, more entertaining and bizarre infomercials. More heartbreaking Cold Case episodes on TNT. It's quieter, more peaceful. I think better after midnight, I write better. Creativity flows easier. Or, more likely, I've simply conditioned myself to believe that, and the clock serves as an electric placebo.

Kids would certainly change my sleeping habits, if not my waking preferences. Maybe they'll learn to hate the morning, too. Maybe we can share that.

Louise is the rare creature who's a night owl and a morning person. In her ideal world, she'd stay up until 1 a.m. and wake up at 5 a.m. And the earlier she wakes up, the happier she is, the more chipper her personality. It's some type of defect.

I have it lucky. I fit into the not-a-morning-person category but my job and lifestyle caters perfectly to me. The people I feel the worst for are those who aren't morning people yet find themselves waking up early every day, month after month, year after year. My mom is one of those unfortunate souls. For 40 years she's woken up at 6:30, often 5 a.m. or even earlier. You'd think by now she'd be a morning person, that it would have been ingrained in her. But she's not.

So perhaps it's not just the Lakers that started me on this path, maybe it's genetics.

Regardless, I embrace it. Last night I stayed up until 3, reading, writing, and watching a V marathon on cable. Tonight I'll be up awake past four, winding down from work. I'll sleep until noon and half the day will be gone before I wake up. But if I miss the morning, I'll know I haven't really missed a thing.

Joy of microwave cooking

This weekend, I have to fend for myself when it comes to making meals. No Louise. Meaning, no home-cooked chicken with South African potatoes. No hamburgers made better than any restaurant or any backyard grill master. No steaks. No salmon. No pasta. 

No vegetables (it's not all bad).

In these situations, I'm almost like a feral child, only a literate one. If a social services worker wandered through our apartment and saw me eating three more chicken burgers on top of two from the previous night, they might haul me away, either immediately or after a brief court hearing. In my single days I ate fast-food at least once a day, and by once I mean twice. That all changed with marriage, thankfully. My taste buds and internal organs have benefited equally.

When I'm on my own now, I stick to what I know: the aforementioned chicken burgers, French fries, nuggets, cereal (can be a dinner in addition to a breakfast and snack). 

And the microwave. Louise cooks up pounds of barbecue before leaving, assuring sloppy joe's for as long as I can handle them. She'll make chili. Taco meat. She leaves me with a freezer and fridge so stocked that they'd be the envy of any Y2K survivalist nut.

All I have to do is heat the items up.

I don't pretend to be a cook. In fact, I can't even fake being a good cook. Some elementary knowledge would be required to pull off any charade. I did bake a cake for our anniversary a few years ago. It turned out surprisingly well. Haven't made one since. Figured I should retire on top.

But I know how to make certain things, items even a master chef like Louise struggles with. TV dinners, for example. There's an art to knowing just how long the Swanson's chicken meal should be in the oven. How long do you leave it in to get the brownie just right? No one wants a blown-up treat covering the potatoes. What's the exact right temperature for getting that corn to taste so delicious? And when do you take it out to assure that the two pieces of chicken - white, always white pieces with Swanson's - do somewhat resemble chicken? A person who deals with real meals their whole life struggles. A master of these foods owns perfect timing.

But the best weapon in my arsenal is the reliable, forever-present, what-was-life-like-for-bachelors-and-people-who-can't-cook-before-this-was-invented microwave. The small pizzas, two in a box, are my favored pieces, presented with a side of chips and a glass of 2009 Dr. Pepper, lightly chilled. It's a balancing act, knowing just when the cheese has melted enough but not too much. Leave it in for 2 minutes and 30 seconds and you have a perfect meal. Leave it five seconds too long and it can all be ruined. Then the only alternative for dinner is Cap'n Crunch. 

Easy Macs are anything but for those who know their way around a kitchen. But for someone with just a rudimentary understanding of cooking, Easy Macs are a reliable source of...not nutrition. Vitamins, no. I guess they are a source of food, in the strictest sense of the word. But it takes skill and experience to know just how much water to put in the plastic container. It takes a watchful eye to know when the noodles can be removed so they're perfectly prepared and not overdone.

Some people grill hot dogs. Others use the dirty-water technique. I've always nuked 'em. People say they don't want to know what's actually in the hot dogs? I say I don't want to know how much radiation I've consumed over the years with my hot dogs. But with our beast - a red machine affectionately called Lola - you have to know when to hit the stop button. Otherwise an exploded hot dog makes a mess of the insides. Then you see what's inside a hot dog, even if you still won't know what it is.

For a snack I might throw in some microwavable popcorn. Louise has attempted to microwave popcorn on four or five occasions. Not one of those bags survived. The smell of burnt kernels permeates the apartment every time she makes another attempt, choking us. We toss the blackened popcorn into a plastic bag. The charred remains sit there, taunting Louise and her real cooking skills. I've got it down to a science, listening for the famous few seconds before pops, which indicates it's time to pull the bag out. Throw on some butter and it's just like movie popcorn.

I'm going to miss Louise's cooking the next few days, but I'll survive without having to invade McDonald's more than two times. But if the microwave ever dies? If the microwave ever dies?

No, it's a future too terrible to contemplate.