Over Valentine's weekend, a polar air mass wafted down from Canada, which allowed us one of our few opportunities to feel smug and superior. Over on the east coast, temperatures dropped below zero. This deserved evening news headlines and serious-faced warnings about the dangers of numbers that low. In northern Wisconsin, we got ready for a party on a lake.
It was cold, for sure--six below--but we only felt it for a few minutes. We shoveled a big section of the ice to create a berm, a windbreak for the bonfire. Work beats polar air masses. Ten minutes in we removed our hats and gloves, and unzipped our coats, because clothes wet from perspiration would amplify the chill later. The strange feeling of warmth and sweating while the air stings skin with promises of frost is something we experience only a few times a year, but in a lot of ways, it's the core of living in Wisconsin. We respect winter, and we pay to live under it, in heating bills and chunky winter boots and snow shovels and yearning for spring. But we are not winter's subjects or its tortured peons. If the sun's out, and the breeze isn't too bad, we can shed our layers and be fine, just like we do during summer, or just like all the people down south.
Fires need fuel, so we cut down a tree.
Two balsams stood on the shore at my parents' place in Oneida county. They were beautiful trees that provided shade for my mom's wooden swing. But sawyer beetles moved in, and over the course of a few years, the trees died. When we sat on the swing, we could hear the larvae chewing through the wood. Then big pieces of bark started falling off. The trees wouldn't recover, so my uncle brought his chainsaw and dropped the first one, 55 feet, 8 inches tall (we measured), exactly where he said he would. Then we had lunch.
A true Wisconsin gathering is done pot-luck style. Most of the items contain cheese, cream or otherwise, and several offerings need to be sausage-based. Add in some pickled fish, some sauerkraut, and a half-dozen types of "bars," and we had a full-on cultural meal. The food of our ancestors, with lots of ranch seasoning.
Oh yeah. And beer. We had a dozen kinds of beer to be sampled and passed around. A good number of people at this gathering knew a good number of the people who actually brewed the beer.
Then we bundled up and headed outside to light the fire. Heat rises, so there's no need to worry about bonfires on the ice. The warmth that radiates from the coals melts a thin layer of water, which further insulates the flames. And even if the laws of physics flip-flopped, or for some unknowable reason we found a weak spot on the frozen lake, we were only forty feet offshore, with four feet of water beneath us. Worst case scenario, we still would have been fine.
Then we drank and laughed and poked at the fire. We waved at the snowmobiles racing by. We threw a football around and brought out the beanbag boards. One of the uncles set up some tip-ups and kept running out to check them, but he didn't catch anything all day. We stepped inside for dinner, then came back out afterwards to stoke up the fire and watch a few fireworks. By then, the sun had set, and the temperature dropped fast, so we returned inside to play board games and suppress yawns until bedtime.
At 4:00 AM that night, the temperature reached 30 degrees below zero, according to my dad's weather station. That was not a record.
Developing pride in wherever you're from and the idiosyncrasies of life there isn't hard, or new. Nothing that happened on Saturday was so unique or strange that it deserves anything more than an eyebrow-raise or a curious nod. Plenty of people have never walked on a frozen lake, or felled the tree they burned that afternoon. But sometimes the threads of experience in a certain place at a certain time weave together to create a day that feels definitive, that stands for all the deep and complicated ways our landscapes affect who we are. Saturday was that sort of day. Wisconsin permeated us like the smoke seasoned our clothes, and the smell won't wash out for a long time, at least until we gather on the lake next year.
Eighth grade isn't all bad. I know we've collectively agreed that middle school wins as the most awkward and awful time of life, and, no doubt, my thirteenth-into-fourteenth year of existence contained plenty to suffer. The emotions. The urges. The hygiene. The embarrassment, the endless, heart-stopping embarrassment, like when a friend's mom suggested I start wearing undershirts. Like when some older boys asked why I sat female-style cross-legged on the bench during basketball games. I didn't get to play much during those games. I had one job: sit there and look manly. But instead I apparently adopted a posture like we were about to be served tea during our Women's Society meeting, twirling my foot and commenting on how delightfully our team was playing.
Penguin Dawn, or Maybe Crows, 1993
But eighth grade boasts plenty to balance all the awkwardness. Eighth graders are kings and queens of their schools, and junior high is the only time the achievement of top status isn't immediately followed by stressful, crushing reality. Senior year of high school means college starts soon. Senior year of college means jobs and real world. Seniority at work means the eventual slow fade of retirement. But eighth grade means... freshman year of high school. Sure, freshmen year offers its own challenges, but they are paired with freedom, and dances, and football games, and, if nothing else, relief from the trials of middle school. I called my first girl in eighth grade. My first parent-less overnight trips happened in eighth grade. Growing up takes a long time, but in eighth grade we settled in to enjoy the ride. There were still plenty of bumps, but at least we had our safety belts buckled and our seats adjusted.
That was how eighth grade felt to our class that one spring day. We were on top, high-school bound, and grown-up, not all the way, but plenty for a warm afternoon in April. Our small school couldn't employ a dedicated art teacher, so our regular teacher, Mr. Mooney (names changed to protect the innocent), led an art class a couple times a week. We focused on projects that didn't need lots of extra supplies. No paint or clay for us, just paper, scissors, and glue. Mr. Mooney was a serious man with big academic glasses who cared deeply about the straightness of lines, so art class must have been torture. Most of the time he delivered instructions, turned on his big console radio, and sat at his desk.
Everything would have been fine, if it weren't for that radio.
This memory takes place during the early 90's, so we must have heard some Mariah Carey, maybe a little Ace of Bass. For some reason, "Baby I Love Your Way" seems inexplicably linked to that time period in my mind. But in between those songs, one particular track came on the radio. The band Firehouse released the song in 1992 on their album Hold Your Fire. The song is titled "Sleeping With You," and it goes a little something like this...
We learned what it took to peel away the eighth grade veneer of confidence and well-being. It took a holdover 80's rocker singing about his disinterest in the moral ramifications of sexual intercourse.
While the song played, we all sat up straight and giggled a little, then stared at Mr. Mooney to see his reaction. If he heard the song, he didn't show it at all. Whether it was tragic obliviousness or calculated disinterest, he doomed us to listen to the whole track. The humor faded to awkwardness as we all tried to retreat into our desks. There were girls in the room. And the song was about sex. Each chorus became another set of nails on the chalkboard. No one moved. We all put our scissors down. Before the song, we felt like adults. Then Firehouse ruined us all by showing how many miles we had to go before we were anywhere close.
I blame the radio.
II.
Little kids mishear song lyrics all the time, then try to sing along with their own versions, and it's almost always cute and hilarious. When I was a little guy, this song received a ton of airplay.
My version went something like this. "Woah-oh here she comes. Watch out boys, she'll chew you up. Whoa-oh here she comes, she's a mad beaver."
My parents asked me to sing my version often, for their friends and relatives, and they all found it hilarious. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why my version was so humorous. But that's okay. I get tons of laughs out of my kids saying unintentionally dirty things. Circle of life.
III.
This One Might Be Upside-Down, 1993
My kids have a superhuman ability to remember song lyrics. They hear a song one time, and then they are able to sing along with the entire thing. They inherited this skill from their mother. It's a little freaky, and it's so consistent that it has to be genetic. I don't know what advantage was conferred on my wife's caveman ancestors by their talent for repeating songs. I imagine they gained status and resources by winning caveman karaoke contests, thus passing along the trait to their offspring.
Last year, my kids heard "Animals" by Maroon 5 and sang it all the time. I picked them up from school one day, listened to their rendition a few times in the car, and when we got home I had a great idea. I would put the video on repeat so they could sing along. That would entertain them for at least an hour. I took advantage of one of the fancy technological features of our television and zapped the video from my phone to the TV screen. Then I retreated to the living room to write. Solid parenting. A+ dad.
After at least six times through, a thought occurred to me. "I wonder what that video is like?" I assumed it was fine. Maroon 5, a popular band, would never put out anything to offend their younger fans. So I watched the video, and saw this.
That's right! I willingly played this creepy, dirty, sex-saturated, horror-movie video for my seven- and five-year-old. Multiple times. Ha ha!
After watching it on my phone, that last thing I wanted to do was race into the family room and make a big deal of it. That would confirm whatever scary salaciousness my kids most certainly suspected and make the video even more enticing. So I casually walked over, ready to flippantly comment on the song and suggested we switch to a different video.
And then my wife came in the door.
She saw what was on TV, and I tried to calm her down.
"I know this is bad," I said, "but we can't make a big deal out of it."
My wife didn't agree, so I accelerated the plan. I turned the video off and expertly deferred the kids to another Youtube clip. After a hundred apologies and assurances that kids see weird stuff all the time, I didn't ruin them for life, no problem, my wife forgave me. I still get to see our children.
But as part of my penance, I must warn others of the dangers of popular radio. There's some dirty stuff out there, as I seem to experience over and over again. Please, take my advice. Stick to classical music.
Two weeks after Christmas, the verdict is in. We failed. Once again, for the seventh year in a row, my wife and I did not succeed in giving our children any gifts that held their attention longer than two weeks. All the wrapped boxes earned plenty of excitement Christmas morning, and eve, and the weekend after Christmas when we attended our extended family parties. But in perhaps the greatest example of the first-world-problem cliche I can muster, we couldn't find the right overpriced construction of plastic and electronics to entertain my kids, and it's stressing me out.
But this is not one of those nausea-inducing entitlement stories where awful, whiny children complain of their boredom while surrounded by all the trinkets they begged for and threw tantrums over only a few weeks prior. They actually didn't ask for anything for Christmas. We spent hours around the kitchen table, flipping through catalogs and brainstorming the items their friends used to entertain themselves.
"Do you want a remote controlled car?" I asked.
"No," said my son.
"How about an Xbox?"
"Not really."
"More Legos?"
"I guess I could use more Legos," he replied. His list eventually filled with duplicates of items he already had, like a fancier set of walkie-talkies, and things he saw his parents and grandparents ask for, like a digital weather station.
Finally, I figured it out.
My kids' lives feature very little advertising. Most of their television viewing occurs through Netflix, with no commercials. They spend a fair amount of time on their Kindles, but the ads they see on Youtube usually don't apply to them. My son likes shark videos, but the spots in front of those are for cleaning products and cell phones. It's not that my kids don't like toys. It's that they don't know what toys are. They don't know how much blissful, wild fun can be delivered by a plastic action figure, because they've never witnessed child actors illustrating that particular joy.
My kids are fine. They switch between half-heartedly regulated screen time and their imaginations, between time with friends and time crafting and creating and time outside. They participate in a relatively healthy mix of distractions. Just not toys.
So... I have seen the problem. And he is me.
This all means 80's commercials were incredibly effective, way beyond what I've ever given them credit for. Look at those TV kids. They were so happy. And they all lived in the foothills of the Rocky mountains, where boulders abounded and paths on which they could drive their Cobra vehicles snaked through their childhoods. And when the toy required a more abandoned, industrial setting, they had those too. Everyone back then lived just around the corner from an old warehouse, where underground laser tag and crossfire tournaments regularly attracted throngs of fist-pumping fans.
Those kids were never alone. Playing always meant excited friends, none of whom would rather have played Nintendo or baseball after the group started playing Ninja Turtles. They never fought over who shot who first, they never claimed they "dodged," which was always ridiculous, because one can't simply dodge a bullet or a laser blast or a well-thrown nunchakus.
The evil wizards in the marketing departments at Hasbro and Kenner wielded a power that I don't think they understood. They worked me into a toy frenzy all those years ago, when Christmas morning meant joy and satisfaction beyond much that I can recreate as an adult. Possessing that new MASK vehicle, acquiring all the pieces necessary to construct a complete Voltron, those were profound and cherished memories. But their dark magic has earned them sales thirty years later, as I stand in the toy aisles weeks before every Christmas and try to put together a selection of toys that will give my kids that same dopamine wash, that same plastic-induced rapture.
This past Christmas, Santa got my son a remote-controlled Millennium Falcon, a toy far cooler than I anything I had as a kid. He still plays with it, every once in awhile, so it wasn't a waste. But when he's not around, I hold the thing, scrutinize it, look at all its parts, and how they fit together. Owning such a cool thing just makes me happy.
My son owning such a cool thing makes me almost as happy, too.
Every snow removal event begins with noble intentions. This time I will shovel. Shoveling is great exercise. Old people sometimes summon heart attacks with the effort of shoveling, so it must burn incredible calories. And shoveling forces quality time with my yard, my land, my little fiefdom on the corner of Nimitz St. and Pamela Pl. I can survey my kingdom like a baron while I scrape the concrete. And shoveling builds fortitude and work ethic, like I'm a role playing game character. Every stroke of the snow shovel is a point. When I was kid, I leveled up every few snowfalls, but an advanced guy like me takes years to unlock new achievements. Still. Someday, when I need to battle an abominable snowman or other extreme ice creature, I'll be ready.
You know what? The snow's a little heavier than I assumed. There's a few more inches than I thought. The snowblower will clear the brunt of it, but I'll clean up with a shovel. That will still count.
Jobs That, Like Clearing Snow, Will Eventually Do Themselves 1. Building demolition 2. Artificially aging new clothes so they look worn 3. Killing livestock 4. Wiping up spilled water off of surfaces that are unaffected by standing water 5. ???
My brother and I handled most of our family’s
shoveling when we were kids, but not without an admirable amount of
whining. My dad, with saintly
compassion, suggested we try a new approach.
“Try making a game out of it,” he suggested. “Guess how many rows it will take you to
finish the sidewalk, and see how close you are.” As he had shoveled considerably more miles of
sidewalk than I had, I tried it. Now I
count everything - minutes until the end of my work shift, hours until the
weekend, socks that need to be folded, words in my writing, and swipes of the
toothbrush. The long section of the sidewalk always takes about 90 rows.
People Who Benefit Most From Snowless Winters 1. Flip-flop manufacturers 2. Grave diggers 3. Bugs 4. Kids who really like rolling down hills 5. Bike messengers?
One thing I care about a lot more because of the snow - My shoes. We all do up here. We all have to. In some parts of the world, people can just throw on any pair of shoes at any time. Can you imagine what that would be like? Can you imagine how much less pressure those people face when it's time to leave the house? Up here, one needs to consider how much snow fell, what type of snow fell, how much ice covers the sidewalks, what kind of ice, how warm it will get, and what tasks the day will contain. Only then can an appropriate pair of shoes be selected, and we all know exactly which ones will work in every winter situation. One thing I care about a lot less because of the snow - A few weeks before a particularly
nasty snowstorm about ten years ago, a middle-aged gentleman and his wife moved
into the townhouse across the parking lot from my wife and me.He drove a burnt-orange, shiny
Firebird.After the aforementioned
snowstorm, he attempted to drive his perfectly stereotypic mid-life-crisis-mobile.He spun his tires for ten minutes, spraying
dirty slush fifteen feet up the side of our building.Three weeks later, he sold the car.He explained to me, “It just didn’t make
sense for winter.” In fact, no cars make sense for winter. They're all covered in a salt glaze, and no matter what you do, your floor mats will be thick with dirty ice balls. So give up. You can get a car wash in April. Every time I turn on the TV in the winter, I hope that one of the
local weather anchors will break into show, out of breath with excitement.She will try to collect herself as her weather teammate, also
visibly perturbed, will furrow his brow and switch from his normal, forced
exuberance to a calm monotone that indicates what he is about to say is
very, very serious.Then, they will both try to piece together the following story.Meteorologist scouts stationed in northern
Canada were awoken by the screeching of their instruments.They sprang from their cots still half
asleep, but were shocked into total alertness at the readings racing across
their screens.They ran a few tests that
confirmed the wonderful news - the jet stream shifted south, which meant
the south side of the Eau Claire, with my house as the epicenter, would be
receiving a massive, record-breaking, mind-boggling amount of snow.Then, the two anchors, overcome by
their happiness, would hug. I really like snow. Sometimes I just need to remind myself.
This is a work of fiction (that's "made up," for those of you who haven't been in an English class in awhile.) However, I make no guarantee that the people and situations depicted herein don't resemble real life people and events.
Happy Holidays from the Rasmussens!
2015 was another great year for our family, and we wanted to send along a quick update. One of the best parts of the holidays is making fun of each others' Christmas letters and pretentiously correcting their grammar. We double checked all our apostrophes, but theres' sure to be some mistake's! Here we go!
The one picture we got of the kids with their eyes open
The kids are both growing and learning new things every day. Our daughter finished up preschool at the top of her class, and started kindergarten towards the top of the bottom third. Her favorite part is picking out crazy outfits every morning, with wild colors and patterns, and it should only be another year or two before crushing peer pressure extinguishes that creative spirit. Our son became a second-grader, and his favorite subjects are lunch and coming home. He tried joining a soccer league, although he's pretty scared of the ball and the only reason he sticks with it is because one time we bought him a slushy from the concession stand at the sports center. We're all enjoying the daily routines of being a young family, like fighting over teeth brushing and managing the charging of everyone's electronic devices, which we all use way, way too much.
My new running shoes, lookin' sharp!
We all set some goals for 2015, and our updates are as follows. I strove to run a 5k at some point during the year, and I took several steps towards that goal. I bought running shoes, and wore them one time when I cleaned the garage. After that, I thought about running more than a few times, so I'm still making progress! My son decided to stop using the words "poop" and "fart" so often, and he failed miserably. Our daughter strove to accomplish some kindergarten basics, like shoe tying and not showing her underwear to everyone all the time because she just can't figure out that wearing cute dresses means she can't roll around on the ground. She's almost got the shoes taken care of! And my wife attempted to be more patient with the kids and me, and there's still a few weeks left in the year.
Our Netflix screen, where we spent a lot time this year
The biggest news for my wife and me is probably our television consumption in 2015. We rewatched Game of Thrones, caught up on House of Cards, and made it most of the way through Fringe, which is like X-Files, only crazier. We tried watching a few documentaries to be more socially responsible, but gravitated back towards The Office for the third time through. In 2016, we really hope to get to Orange is the New Black.
My wife's well-earned posterior
Early in the year, my wife set out on a brand new fitness and nutrition regime, which worked. She looks great! Unfortunately, her life is now devoid of happiness and joy as her world is consumed with carb counts and desperate yearning for the Tootsie Rolls the kids now have to hide in their rooms. I, on the other hand, have gained nine pounds, mostly on the backs of fun sized candy bars. Thankfully, I've only outgrown two pairs of pants. Everything else still fits!
November brought with it an unfortunate challenge for me in the form an ingrown hair on my chin. My wife unsuccessfully went at it with a tweezers early on, and we decided to give a few weeks to ripen. Eventually I caught it with the beard trimmer and the hair that unfurled seemed to be a foot and a half long! So, while things turned out alright, we were all pretty upset for awhile there, and hopefully we are out of the dermatological woods!
We hope all of our friends and family had as fabulous of a year as we did! We look forward to seeing many of you in 2016, and we wish all of you, near and far, a very Happy Holidays.
I know this isn't a music blog, and I'm not very good at playing the music discovery game. My iTunes is full and robust and replete with names that most of my peers have never heard of, but whenever I try to drop a musician full hipster style, it never works. Instead of going with whatever obscure Portuguese indie electro-pop group that plays non-stop in my house and in my head, I screw it up. "Have you ever heard of Radiohead? I just discovered them. Looks like they've been making music for awhile. Pretty heavy stuff. You should check them out."
But, hey, for real, I just found an album, a few years old, sure, but this is it. This is the music that comes closer to sounding like the inside of my head that anything I've come across. Plus, the artist is Japanese (+2 hipster points), the album is in Japanese (+3), features traditional instruments (+5), and has a sweet video that kills when you get into a game of Youtube tennis with friends (+10). Watch this.
Reddit's r/music shared this video, and I watched it twenty times in a row, then bought the album, and discovered that "Katachi" wasn't even my favorite song of the bunch.
This album has everything I love. It is one-hundred-percent, unabashedly, unapologetically happy. You'll hear clapping, and lots of people singing together. Tokumaru is a multi-instrumentalist, and the album contains plenty of weird ones. I wish I knew enough about music to describe what I mean, but it has a light-hit aesthetic delivered with with full pop music energy. The filler tracks between songs tread a little too far into Loony Tunes soundtrack territory even for me, but they are fun. This is fun music, get up in the bright, sunshiny morning music, go for a stroll and have a picnic music. It's probably WAY too sweet for most, but mixed in with all the sugar are some amazing flavors, flavors that are hinted at by acts like Sufjan Stevens in his more playful moments. This is pretty much what I hope for every time I buy a new album.
I don't know what it is, but Mr. Tokumaru will be one of three artists whose entire catalog I will acquire and love and be super proud of (the other two are Sufjan Stevens and They Might Be Giants). This is not a music blog, but I had to share. All the hand clapping and group singing and bubbly happiness has me far too excited.
Take that, Eric Rasmussen from one year ago. You said, I heard you say it, "I'll start this blog, but I know I'm just going to end up ignoring it." Proved you wrong.
The lake that inspired manuscript #3
To mark the first year of this effort, here's an update on my writing progress. Writers navigating the publishing labyrinth love reading about other writers' progress. There are gobs of places to read people's success stories, not so many places to compare one's data to those who are still fighting the noble fight. So, here are my stats.
Output:
Since making the decision to pursue writing fiction as a professional, I have written three complete manuscripts (about 900 pages), seven short stories (about 140 pages), fourteen original creative nonfiction blog posts, a few articles for Volume One. I write just about every day. A lot of it is bad. Some of it is okay.
Successes:
My goal was a blog post every two weeks, for a total of 26 posts. I hit 35, and one of them, Things I Left in My Classroom Over the Summer, hit 2300 views (thanks Reddit, I know you're not big on the blogs). My Volume One pieces have earned much positive feedback from friends, family, and strangers. Manuscript one earned one partial request. Manuscript two received seventeen total requests. Manuscript three enticed eight agents to look at more of the work, with numerous queries still outstanding, and a selection in a Twitter pitch contest (thanks Michelle!) Over fifty short story submissions with my name on them are being considered by various journals and websites. Through all of this I've made connections with all sorts of folks in the publishing world, including a handful of critique partners who I value profoundly. Lots of real-life, non-digital friendships have been strengthened through these writing efforts and a phenomenal writing group.
I used to waste a lot of time on the internet and watching HGTV shows. Now I'm working on something, towards something, and no matter what else, that feels good.
In the story, under this ridge, something exciting happens
Failures:
93 rejections on manuscript one. 70 rejections on manuscript two. 51 rejections on number three, so far. A dozen rejections from short story and literary journals. For all the effort, I have not yet technically published any fiction.
Next steps:
I enrolled in an MFA program (Augsburg College, yo!), starting June of 2016. Manuscript number four sits prettily at 200 pages, and my goal is to finish by the New Year. Short story ideas abound. This blog is an actual thing. Motivation and hope persist.
The unbelievable, epic, heartbreaking ending takes place on a frozen lake, much like this
When I started this trip, I thought what I wanted sat just over the next hill. Two states later, I'm still driving, convinced that we'll get there any minute now. If I am epically, monumentally wrong, I'll hit the ocean eventually, and it sure has been a pretty drive.
It was cold, for sure--six below--but we only felt it for a few minutes. We shoveled a big section of the ice to create a berm, a windbreak for the bonfire. Work beats polar air masses. Ten minutes in we removed our hats and gloves, and unzipped our coats, because clothes wet from perspiration would amplify the chill later. The strange feeling of warmth and sweating while the air stings skin with promises of frost is something we experience only a few times a year, but in a lot of ways, it's the core of living in Wisconsin. We respect winter, and we pay to live under it, in heating bills and chunky winter boots and snow shovels and yearning for spring. But we are not winter's subjects or its tortured peons. If the sun's out, and the breeze isn't too bad, we can shed our layers and be fine, just like we do during summer, or just like all the people down south.
Developing pride in wherever you're from and the idiosyncrasies of life there isn't hard, or new. Nothing that happened on Saturday was so unique or strange that it deserves anything more than an eyebrow-raise or a curious nod. Plenty of people have never walked on a frozen lake, or felled the tree they burned that afternoon. But sometimes the threads of experience in a certain place at a certain time weave together to create a day that feels definitive, that stands for all the deep and complicated ways our landscapes affect who we are. Saturday was that sort of day. Wisconsin permeated us like the smoke seasoned our clothes, and the smell won't wash out for a long time, at least until we gather on the lake next year.
