Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 449

Book lover today. Reader tomorrow.

She can’t actually read much yet, but she has all of the proper reading behaviors, and she loves books.

She looks like a reader. The words aren’t from behind.

Not quite me.

A friend sent me this, saying it made him think of me.

“Me?” I asked.

“Not you,” he said. “The exact opposite of you.”

This made a lot more sense to me.

Little Elton John

Is it me, or is there a definite resemblance?

Some golf shots are too good to be true

I’ve seen some strange things on the golf course. I have made more than one shot in my time that seemed impossible. I have unintentionally bent golf balls around objects at impossible angles. I hit myself in the head with a golf ball last year. I have struck water fowl.

But I’ve never seen anything as cool as this happen on a golf course. 

Returning home tomorrow.

Today is my last day of summer vacation. Tomorrow I will head back to school. It is a bittersweet time for teachers. Another summer has come and gone, faster than we can believe, and while most of us wish that our summer days would never end, we are also returning to a profession that we love with all our hearts.

Sadly, the first two days of every school year are consumed with meetings. My students don’t arrive until Wednesday morning, making the beginning of school especially difficult.

I love to teach. I despise meetings.

As my school year begins, I can’t help but think that I am returning home after a summer abroad. After fifteen years of teaching, my school has begun to feel more than a little like home. It has become a fixture of my life, and during my years spent teaching, I have worked and continue to work among people who have become some of my closest and dearest friends.

I have taught children who return to my classroom on a weekly basis to apprise their former teacher about their adventures in middle and high school. As they grow older, some of these students have become friends. I play basketball with them, counsel them on difficulties that they are experiencing and share in their accomplishments. Some of my former students now babysit my children and attend important family events with us. It’s something I could’ve never imagined when I began teaching so long ago.  

I have also developed friendships with the parents of some of my former students, and these friends have become some of the most important people in my life. I count many of them as my best  and closest friends. One is my daughter’s godmother, and two others are my son’s godparents.

Recently, I came to realize that some of the most important events of my life have taken place inside the walls to my school.

On September 11, 2001, I watched the second plane strike the World Trade Center and the both towers fall on a television in my principal’s office. Immediately thereafter, I retrieved my students from music class and went on with my day without telling them that anything had happened, giving them a few more precious hours of normalcy in a world that had suddenly changed.

In the fall of 2002, I met my future wife in the first staff meeting of the year. Ironically, our first real conversation would take place a few weeks later at a YMCA camp as we hiked around the lake with students and discussed the plans for her upcoming wedding, an engagement that she would later break off.

In the fall of 2004, I revealed plans to ask Elysha to marry me to a colleague and friend in our Curriculum Specialist’s office. A month later, while Elysha was trapped in an after-school meeting, a committee of teachers and friends helped me choose Elysha’s engagement ring. During the next month, I would hatch my plan to ask her to marry me in the principal’s office with several friends who were instrumental in pulling off the surprise.

In the spring of 2005 Elysha and I would knock on the door of our principal’s office after school one day and ask him to marry us on our wedding day.

That same spring, I received a call from the veterinarian before school informing me that my dog required life threatening spinal surgery. I went on to teach for the rest of the day while Kaleigh was in surgery, waiting to hear if she was alive or dead.

In the winter of 2006 I found a set of golf clubs in the back of my truck in the parking lot of my school, tied together by a thin, red ribbon. They were a gift from a friend and colleague. That set of used irons, which he had purchased for $10 at a yard sale, began my long and joyous road to golf mediocrity.  

In February of 2007, I was sitting at the desk in the principal’s office when my aunt told me over the phone that my mother was dead. I spent a few moments alone before returning to class to finish the day with my kids.

In May of 2007, I received a call while teaching from a member of Human Resources, instructing me to come to his office immediately. That phone call and the subsequent meeting led to nearly a year of turmoil and terror that included an anonymous conspiracy to destroy my career (as well as the  careers of my wife and friend), a large-scale attempt at character assassination and public defamation, a legal battle over my First Amendment rights and the unexpected and overwhelming support of the community.     

In the fall of 2008 I was sitting at my desk when a call came in from the geneticist, informing me that I was a carrier of the muscular dystrophy gene, and that I was almost certain to contract the same disease that killed my mother.

That same year, I was sitting at the same desk when I received the call from my agent informing me that Random House had made a preemptive offer on my first novel. I spent a moment collecting myself before finding Elysha alone in the hall and informing her of the news. She collapsed to the floor in tears, sparking great concern throughout the faculty that something terrible had happened (and that perhaps I had broken up with her). I was standing by the library after the school day had ended when negotiations over the book had finished and the call came in with the final purchase price.

In the spring of 2010, a student teacher and I had a conversation while on recess duty that gave me the idea for my third novel, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. The book that I didn’t want to write and thought would be stupid was born on my school’s playground and has now been published in more than 20 countries around the world.

With experiences like these, and so many more, is it any surprise that a school can begin to feel like a home?

I can’t help but wonder: Does this happen to everyone at the workplace, or is there something different about working in a school?

Updated from a post originally written in 2010.

My parental genius is finally bearing fruit. I’m not sure what exactly I did, but still, fruit!

Yesterday morning, my four year-old daughter woke up, got dressed, made her bed, cleaned her room, and only then opened her bedroom door and called for me to come see her. 

She did this on her own, without ever being asked, but I am taking full credit for it, because I am her father, and that is my right. Somewhere along the way, I said or did something incredibly insightful that left an indelible mark on her, and the fruits of my genius are just now becoming evident.

It’s 5:48 in the morning. The sun has not yet risen. The house is quiet. I’m trying to write, but in truth, I’m anxiously waiting to see if it happens again when she wakes up.

If it doesn’t, it’s not my fault.

 

Hot legs or hot dogs? Either is fine.

A new Tumblr called Hot-Dog Legs challenges viewers to determine if what they are looking at are legs or a pair of hot dogs.

It’s shocking how much the two look alike.

Perhaps this will finally bring an end to the self-indulgent photos of surf, sky and a pair of suntanned legs. Probably not, but there’s always hoping.

Truthfully, I like hot dogs a lot. They’re my second favorite food, topped only by ice cream cake. And legs are great, too.

So whether the photo contains dogs or legs, both fine with me.

A different ending for every reader

I agree. This is a brilliant idea.

Now I just need to become a famous author.

Why I am a reluctant atheist

I describe myself as a reluctant atheist.

Essentially, this means that I do not believe in God, but I wish I did. I have tried to believe. At this point in my life, I simply lack the faith required to believe. Despite reading the Bible cover to cover three times in my life, I have been unable to find truth in those words.

Truthfully, the more I read, the less I believe.

Adding the word “reluctant” to my atheist label has had an interesting effect on others in terms of their reactions to my position on religion.

For people of faith, the word “reluctant” seems to have added a level of approachability and acceptance that did not exist before. While many people of faith have a difficult time understanding the non-believer and are often offended by the criticism of their religion, they seem to have an acceptance of the idea of a crisis of faith, and they often assume that this is what I am experiencing.

Even when I take a hard-lined stance against a practice or policy of their religious institution, the addition of the word “reluctant” has seemed to temper their anger and outrage.

This has been good.

I tend to believe that my position on God is not a crisis of faith and more rationale and cemented than some of these people of faith seem to believe, but perhaps I am wrong and someday faith will come to me.

Either way, we seem to be able to engage in discourse more easily now.

For some atheists, the addition of the word “reluctant” has been greeted with skepticism and disappointment. They believe that I do a disservice to nonbelievers when I fail to take a strong position on my atheist views.

I try to explain to these people that my position on atheism is actually quite strong. While I wish that I believed in a higher power and an afterlife, I am convinced that neither exists.

“Then why try to believe in something that you know doesn’t exist?” they ask. “Why wish for the impossible? And for someone who has read the Bible carefully, why would you wish for the God described in the Bible?”

They have a point. The Biblical God, particularly in the Old Testament, is not a friendly guy. 

There are tough questions. I often find myself feeling like the little boy who has just discovered that Santa Claus isn’t real but still desperately wants him to be real. It’s a difficult position to explain or defend.

But I think I’ve found my answer. I’ve found my answer in Antoinette Tuff, the Georgian woman who saved the lives of untold numbers of students and teachers with her quick thinking and steel nerves. Listening to her describe the role that her faith in God played during her encounter with the gunman and the humility that her faith has given her in the wake of all the attention she has received was inspiring.

As I listened to her speak, I found myself jealous of her faith, wishing that I could believe with the absolute certainty that she possesses.

There is nothing wrong with wanting something as powerful as faith, even when you are convinced that it is predicated on something that does not exist.

My storytelling secret: I’m a small, frightened man onstage. Always.

I’m off to New York tonight to compete in another Moth StorySLAM.

I have been exceptionally fortunate enough to win the last four StorySLAMs in which I have competed, including my last three in New York.

I am not attempting to be humble in any way when I describe this recent streak of consecutive victories as exceptionally fortunate. A great number of factors come into play when competing in these events. In addition to a storyteller’s actual performance, the order that the names are chosen from the hat plays an enormous role. You can tell the best story of the night, but if you are the first or even second storyteller of the evening, you have almost no chance of winning.

The judging is also very subjective. While the judges typically do an excellent job, the difference between the winning story and the second or third place story is often slim.

Sometimes nonexistent.

So a story that may have easily won in last week’s competition might not place second or third the following week, depending on who has been chosen to judge and the level of competition.

It’s also extremely helpful when the names of some of the best storytellers in the house remain in the hat, as was the case when I won last week. When three champion storytellers are unable to the the stage because of bad luck, your chances of winning increase considerably. 

You need to tell a good story, but you need some luck on your side, too.

I’ve been telling stories for The Moth for two years now. I’ve told stories in 18 StorySLAM competitions so far and won 8 of them. I’ve done well and am admittedly proud of my success.

But here is the truth:

Last night a friend said to me, “It must be exciting winning all of these competitions in a row. You probably want to win tomorrow night and keep your streak alive. Huh?”

While it’s true that I would love to win tonight’s competition, the real truth is that as much as I always want to win, I’m much more worried about not making a fool of myself onstage. No matter how many times I take that stage and tell a story, and no matter how many times I win one of these competitions, the possibility that I will stand before that microphone and make an idiot of myself remains my primary concern. 

It’s odd. I love storytelling, and I especially love storytelling for The Moth. I love the audiences and my fellow storytellers and the competitive aspect of the event. I love it all. I would take the stage every night and tell a story if I could, and yet it still scares the hell out of me. Perhaps a little less now than it did my first night two years ago, but when I am telling a story, I feel like I am walking on a high wire.

If I perform well, I have the chance to thrill an audience.

But there is also the ever-present possibility that I will fail, and if so, I will fail in front of an audience who were depending on my to entertain them for five minutes. Even worse, I will fail in the midst of sharing something meaningful or intimate about myself.

So if you see me on stage tonight or at any point in the future and think I look exceptionally poised and confident in the midst of my performance, please remember that there is also a small, frightened man on the stage as well, hoping like hell that the audience will like him and terrified that he will fail miserably.