Four days

Four days without writing anything.  Sheesh.  Well, the advice always seems to be, Never mind that you fell off -- just dust yourself off and get back on.  Right?

Where have I been the last four days?

For one things, my evenings have been busy.  Friday at lunchtime I figured I could wait till evening to write because I'd posted two pieces the day before; then Friday evening, kind of on impulse, I went to the opera.  It was a modern opera (well, 20th century) and in English, and in retrospect none of the tunes was all that catchy.  But hey -- it was something different, so why not?

Saturday and the first half of Sunday was a big parents-and-alumni event at Durmstrang, Son 2's high school.  So I drove to that (an hour each way): attended some of Son 2's classes, watched a sports event in the afternoon, and saw the school play that night.  The play was John Cariani's "Almost, Maine."  The show is really a string of independent scenes one after the other, all on the subject of romantic love: falling in, falling out, and some of the bumps in between.  Son 2 had two parts: as he never tired of telling me, one of his characters was gay and the other (while straight) was in the scene with the most kissing of the whole play.  He seemed to have fun, and he did a fine job.  That is to say, it was a high school play which means the bar is set pretty low to begin with; with few exceptions, teenagers are notoriously bad actors.  But Son 2's performance was enthusiastic, he stayed in character, and you could hear him ... all positives.  It seems like everyone in the school came up after to congratulate him.  Naturally that warmed my heart as a proud papa, but it may also have confirmed that the bar is set pretty low for high school drama.  Anyway ....

The first half of Sunday I spent back at Durmstrang.  Then I came home, paid some bills, and spent an hour on the phone with Son 1 talking over his college choices.  He's been admitted to five schools, but he has scarcely looked at three of them.  In his eyes they must all have been backups, though none of them is shabby.  Of the two that he is taking seriously, he is leaning towards one and (predictably I suppose) I am leaning towards the other.  Not that it's my decision, of course.  Yes, I'll be paying for most of it, but after financial aid the schools are only about $2000 a year apart ... it's scary to think that when I went to college, that was a lot.  Anyway, one of them has a much sexier program -- this is the one Son 1 likes better -- but it's also a lot narrower.  The other has a basic liberal arts program, which doesn't look as exciting to Son 1 but which I like because I figure in the long run it's more marketable.  Plus, if Son 1 ever changes his mind about what he wants to do in life, a basic liberal arts background is a sturdier place to fall back on.

So we talked.  In many ways it was a very refreshing conversation.  Son 1 understood all the points I wanted to make and -- more importantly -- had anticipated them and thought them over already.  His responses were reasoned and reasonable.  To the extent that our opinions differ (and I think they still do), they differ by judgement calls of how this or that is likely to play out in the long run.  And nobody sees the long run very clearly ... I've learned that by now, if nothing else.  My biggest fear is that he will spend four years in an expensive but sexy program and then not find a job, and he agreed to haunt the career office starting in the fall of his freshman year so that he can get summer jobs or internships in his field ... thus building up a background of work experience and contacts.  So I told him that, based on that agreement, I could accept either decision.  He's still got one day to decide for sure, but I'm pretty sure I know which way he'll go.  (Of course, upsets are possible. When I applied to college, both my parents were certain I was going to go to Harvard, and then I didn't. But I also hadn't talked to them at all about my thinking as it matured.)

I said my evenings have been busy.  Sunday evening I decided to go out to the movies.

Last night I stayed late at work and then dropped in on a meditation group I normally don't join and found myself nearly dozing off a dozen times during a forty-five minute sit.  By the time I got home I was wiped out.

Lunch is over and I have to take a leak, so I think I'll quit here for now.  I could probably think of more to say with a couple minutes thought -- the more you look, the more you see -- but maybe I'll do that later.