Rock against Restraint

in case anything happens

What a lovely day! We got a TON of snow, which is not/neither surprising nor enduringly enjoyable, but the sunlight is acutely exquisite.
I had a poem to post here, but I left the power supply to my old computer in Virginia, and I don't have access to any documents. (Plus, this new keyboard is quite an adjustment; typos abound accordingly.) So, I'm gonna give you an old and prized (but oft-neglected) post and go outside.

[This post dates originally from January 14, 2011 11:31 AM]

Rock against Restraint

Car seats. (What do cars eat?)

It has been suggested that one of the reasons for surging rates of childhood obesity is that parents wish to hasten the process of their child's reaching the weight requirements to sit in their OWN seats (without penalty to the parents), finally permitting them to discard their awful, monstrous, plastic carseat contraptions.

In Maine, the threshold for freedom is 80 pounds—upon hearing that, Molly said to me, "I weighed 80 pounds as a sophomore."

Funny that people get so uptight about all this, and no one should ever endanger their children if it is at all avoidable. Then explain school buses—thin metal, no seat belts or temperature control, variously enfeebled operators... but at home, they have to sit in a five-point harness when they go anywhere.

So, we strap 'em in, but what happens if we drive into a pond or lake? There's no emergency release button. Or if there's some kind of danger of explosion? These are the kinds of catastrophic happenings that we're being trained capitally to FEAR, but hyperdriven protective mechanisms of our own device jeopardize as much as they control. That is just like humans.

Anywise, Desmond is a slender chap, and I think about all of the expense (time, money, frustration) that we could spare if we put rolls of quarters into his pockets. But we don't have that kind of money.

Blame Me

When our Desmond, who is soon to be 4, was soon to be 2, he began composing and producing the pithy aphorisms that proliferate to this day. Often, they reflect to us the turns of phrase that have come to substitute for precise language, to particularly incisive effect. 

An early example of this was seen in my declaiming having to do some-or-other pishy task that I had appointed myself to do (I think that it was donating blood). I said something mildly petulant about this to Molly (“I don’t wanna give blood today; it’s so nice out.”). Molly responded by saying, “I don’t blame you.” Almost immediately, young Desmond interjected: “Blame me!”

It snowed nearly a foot today. Everyone’s in hiding. Anyway, I am an extrovert, and am in need of human interface to an extent that is challenging to keep from sounding hyperbolic. Because all that I feel like saying is that my insides are withering, when that’s got to be an overstatement.