proto-quasi-post-conservative

"Every day I get in the queue, to get on the bus that takes me to you...I don't want to cause no fuss, I just want my magic bus."

I love the Who, and that song in particular. But this isn't about the Who, or rock and roll, or buses, or traveling, or love.

Yes it is. Specifically, this is my attempt to deal with the onset of parental holiday madness in its myriad forms. The forms of madness currently hitting me in the face are "kids" coming home and leaving again preparatory to coming home and leaving again. The good news, of course, is that they still coming home (and leaving again). Being concerned about their physical, psychic, emotional, and material well-being, as I am, this most recent Thanksgiving visit from Abe and Zoe was simply my chance to find out that they are fine.

They still leave their stuff lying all over the floor, and the kitchen is always a mess, and we run out of food pretty fast, and I never know where they are or when they're coming back with the car, but they have all kinds of new things to talk about, they articulate their ideas so much better, they're much more self-reliant, and they're fine.

I like to look at this kind of thing as a test. How well do I cope with my kids' ways of coping with the tests that life, professors, friends, roommates, administrators, freedom, police, harsh weather, and Amerikan politics throw at them? The choices they make largely determine the kinds of things I have to cope with, and the choices I make in coping with their choices can make their next set of choices either easier or harder, more or less instructive, empowering, liberating.

Zoe got her schedule (and invoice) for spring semester in the mail. Holy shit, you're taking TWO art history courses and TWO philosophy courses AND French?! A different set of challenges for her, but the same kind of dilemma for me. To listen, inquire, advise, inform, and coach her in what I think I know about what I think she's doing; to let her do what she has to do, the way she has to do it, for herself; to let her know that it matters, that there will be consequences whatever she decides, and that it will be alright.

Abe will get on a Greyhound bound for New York today and return to the Bronx, where in his absence his housemates were evicted and their squat burned down. He's been in touch with them daily, and they have a plan to regroup, and we will all cautiously stay tuned to see what living situation they come up with. Meanwhile, we had some fun together eating hearty meals, doing a little yard work, watching old Monty Python videos, talking about music and books and movies and cities and jobs and stuff. The conversation that began 22 years ago just gets better and better.