Soup's On

Broasted chicken and cheesy beef soup.

Ugh.

I've Gone To Look For America

I've stayed in some interesting places as I've made my way across rural America. Interesting as in deeply disturbing.

One motel had little signs on the nightstands asking guests not to clean wild game in the room and warning of a $100 fine for blood in the bathtub. That explained the stains.

Another had a manager who was bizarrely proud of the lobby coffeepot. "You've got to have some," he insisted when we checked in. "I make some great coffee." When we arrived in the afternoon, when we left for dinner, when we returned from dinner, when we left in the morning, he was polishing the glass on the front door. At check-out, a colleague complained that the shower in his room, one of the four occupied rooms in an otherwise empty motel, only had hot water. "Oh yeah," the manager giggled, "I've been meaning to fix that. I haven't had any help here in a long time. I don't sleep much now." I came through the area the following year but had to stay somewhere else while authorities cleaned the residue from the drug lab he'd been running in the office.

Tonight there's not even an interesting story to kill the time, just the whir of the cheap, in-room heating unit, loud enough to make watching television impossible. There's a mark on the carpet that looks as though someone once tried to iron the floor. The view is of the parking lot and the state highway beyond. Someone's been smoking in this "nonsmoking room" and I'd be willing to bet it's one of the meth head maids. There's high speed internet, of course, but nowadays you get that when you rent a yurt. It gives me something to do, at least.

Tomorrow's a better room, nicer meals, more to do. It's also one night closer to home, where even my kids wouldn't gut an animal indoors.

Alone In A Hotel Bar

I'm out of town so I called home to see how things are going.

"Our youngest has a homework assignment," my Lovely Bride said.

"Yeah, what's that?"

"He's supposed to write an essay on what his father means to him."

"Oh. How's it going?"

"I told him it's not polite to talk about how much you make, so he's struggling. He wrote that you coach his team, he doesn't like your music, and you hate dogs."

Looks like another visit to the counselor's office.

Still Life With Basketball

The middle boy had a basketball tournament yesterday, which meant spending nine hours in a school gym on the other end of town. The team went .500 for the weekend, which is consistent with their record for the year. Mine had one not-so-good game and one very good game, scoring a career-high 17 points. Nine of those came on three-point shots that he refuses to stop taking no matter how often I give him the death stare.

"Nice shot," his coach said after one three-pointer early in the season. "Don't do it again." But, he's in sixth grade, the other point guard insists on taking them too (peer pressure's a bitch), and the coach finally decided if they're in the groove, what the hell.

My youngest came to watch. So did a friend of mine, P, and P's son, who's buddies with my youngest. Another neighbor, E, met us there, along with his 14-year-old. It's nice living in a place where people care enough that they'll do something like that.

Besides, when P and I saw E's car on the other side of the parking lot, it gave us the chance to slip an unsigned note under his wipers that said, "Next time don't park so close to my car, fuck face." His son told us later that he spent an hour bitching about the asshole that would do something like that. When E found out we'd done it, he swore at us loudly enough to get some sidelong glances from other spectators. Our wives find us juvenile.

These gyms get noisy during tournaments. It doesn't help that my youngest likes to talk. A lot. And he was angry because his older brother had gotten his birthday present that morning (a TV for his room), leading to a litany of complaints about the unfairness of life. While I don't disagree with the principle, it has no specific application to my children. I sat away from him so he'd stop yapping at me.

About halfway through the second game, the 14-year-old neighbor boy looked at me and asked, "What's wrong with your kid?"

I looked down the sidelines. He was holding a basketball and talking to it, saying, "Dad doesn't like me. Dad hates me. I don't like Dad. He likes my brothers more. I never get anything." The basketball didn't seem to be responding, but I guess you can never be sure.

After the game, I asked him if his brain lesion was acting up again. He looked at me for a second and then asked for money for concessions. I gave it to him, he said, "Thanks," and he walked away, unaware, but for the moment, quiet.

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

Have you ever worked with someone who gets distracted from the job at hand when a squirrel runs by the window? Someone who spends down time vacantly staring at a wall, slack jawed, brain making the kind of ticking noises you hear when an engine's cooling down? A person with the best intentions in the world and absolutely, positively no way of making any of them come true?

That is my life.

I am a nice person.

Actually, I'm not. I am, however, very passive aggressive. That means when someone behaves like this I grind my teeth until they hurt, but I'd rather suffer than confront them. Instead, I cut them out of things and try to maneuver them out of the organization, or at least my part of it. In this part of the world, that's how most people deal with conflict.

I can't take it anymore, though. One person, who has been told not to do something at least fifty times in the last three years, something that has the potential to seriously harm our organization, did it again today.

"Please don't do this," I've said.

"You really need to stop doing this," I've said.

"Stop it," I've said.

"Please, I'm begging you," I've said.

To no avail. Today, it was done again. Not from maliciousness, just from pure and total incompetence. I weep.

Soon, I am going on an extended business trip. I will miss my family, my friends, my dog. While I'm gone, this thing will be done again and again and again. I won't be there to see it. I can't wait to leave.

Killing Me Softly

Karl Rove was involved in a purge of United States Attorneys? And the administration lied about it? Shocking.

I was at the National Archives with some colleagues not too long ago and we were joking that people better appreciate the Constitution before Bush took his red pencil to it. Unfortunately, it's not much of a joke.

One of the things drilled into a law student's head is the importance of prosecutorial independence. If a district attorney doesn't think charges are warranted, it doesn't matter what the police, the public, or other elected officials think. There is a professional and moral obligation to represent not just the government or the public, but justice. I'm sure that's one of the infinite number of things that have changed in a post-9/11 world, but it seemed to work pretty well for the preceding 200+ years.

Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales and their minions don't think so, though. They believe that George W. Bush is America and that United States Attorneys are either with him or against us.

These people are killing our democracy.

Parent Of The Year, Part 3

A couple of years ago, my two youngest asked, "Where did we come from?" Responsible father that I am, I sat them down for the Talk.

"Sometimes, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they decide to have a baby," I said, looking at my middle child. "That's how you were born. Your mother got pregnant and deposited an egg sac, like we read about in "Charlotte's Web." When the eggs hatched, you crawled out and came to live with us."

"I did not. I was born in a hospital. Mom said."

"Of course you were. Nowadays, mothers always lay their egg sacs in a hospital. It's much more sanitary than a barn."

"How about me?" asked the youngest. "Did I come from an egg sac too?"

"No, sweetheart. We found you and your friend on the front step. When we drew straws, your friend's parents won and they picked him. We're still looking for your real parents, though, and they'll love you very much, just like we do."

There's nothing that compares with the wonder in a child's eyes.