Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 532

My daughter’s first ambulance ride

My daughter took her first ride to the hospital in an ambulance today after having an allergic reaction to what we assume was peanuts.

We determined that Clara is allergic to peanuts more than a year ago, but as far as we can tell, she did not come into any contact with peanuts today. But when my wife picked her up at preschool this afternoon, her arm was covered in hives. After confirming with her teachers that she hadn’t eaten any peanut products, Elysha assumed that the hives had been caused by the heat and proceeded to drive home, only to discover en route that her condition was worsening rapidly.

This is where my wife gets impressive.

Driving by a construction site, Elysha pulled the car off the road and alerted a police officer on traffic duty that she had an emergency. The cop told her that he would call for an ambulance, but as he said this, Elysha spotted an ambulance driving by and flagged it down. Clara was receiving treatment moments later.

Being allergic to bees and having suffered an anaphylaxis more than once (the first time leading to momentary death), I know how terrifying these situations can be. I can’t tell you how remarkably well Elysha handed it, especially considering she had our four-week old son with her at the same time. 

When I received a call from the police officer informing me that my wife and children were on the way to the hospital, I had just stepped out of the shower. After hanging up the phone, I had to dry off, get dressed and drive more two miles more than the ambulance did in order to get to the hospital, yet somehow I arrived nearly twenty minutes ahead of them.

Granted I ignored every stop sign, red light and posted speed limit along the way, nearly killing myself at least twice, but still, I’d like to think the ambulance would’ve reached the emergency room before me. After all, the guy driving the ambulance started his trip with clothes on. I did not.

I also find it slightly disconcerting to see that Clara is taking after her father. I have traveled by ambulance to the hospital at least a dozen times in my life, including twice before the age of three, once after splitting my head open in my bedroom and another time after swallowing a bottle of paregoric. Clara has now her first ambulance ride at the age of three, which is relatively early to experience such a thing, and I am hoping it is her last for a long, long time.

To her credit, Clara handled the evening well. Though she was initially inconsolable in the ambulance and difficult to treat, she was calm by the time they arrived to the emergency room, and thanks to an injection of Benadryl, her hives were almost entirely gone. We spend almost three hours at the hospital before being released, and other than complaining about being hungry (which I did as well), she couldn’t have been braver or better behaved.

She even made good use of her time while we waited for the doctors to determine what should be done next.

  

Electricity, aggression, sport, death and some old fashioned backyard fun. Has there ever been a better combination?

Have you heard about this yet?

It’s possibly one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s just a tennis racket. Right? 

Wrong. It’s the Koolatron Lentek Biteshield RZ02 Electronic Racket Zapper. It’s a tennis racket-style electric fly swatter that uses electric shock to kill flying insects such as mosquitoes, flies, and gnats. Stick this bit of ingenious technology in your hand and you have instantly been transformed into a human bug zapper. 

And even though the manufacturer warns that this is not a toy, I can’t imagine a better toy. A more perfect toy. No longer must I smear mosquito guts on my hands while trying to kill these vile insects. Now I can simply electrocute them in mid-air.

Even the name of the thing kicks ass. Say it aloud. Seriously. Just speaking the name of the product  makes you feel good.

I know that I recently made a few requests in terms of any possible future gift giving occasions, but if none of them pan out, the Koolatron Lentek Biteshield RZ02 Electronic Racket Zapper would make a fine substitute.

Conflicting emotions

My wife sent me these photos of my three-year old daughter and my three-week old son, and at first, my heart was warmed by the affection that they obviously have for one another.

Then I looked closely at their facial expressions and realized that in each photo, the emotions of my daughter and my son appear to differ considerably. 

In each image, one child is quite happy while the other is decidedly less than comfortable.

Poor Charlie.

     

The Friendship Application 2.0

Behold the newly-revised Friendship Application (the original one was more than two years old and in serious need of an update).

There have been instances over the past year or so when it seemed as if someone in my life was on the verge of becoming a genuine friend. This is all well and good, but what if the person turned out to be a Jets fan or a militant vegan or lived an hour from my home?

I’m not opposed to making a new friend, but I have standards.

Thus the Friendship Application was born.

If I feel that someone is on the verge of becoming my friend, I will send an email that reads:

Dear _____________,

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed that we may be on the verge of becoming friends.  In order to ensure that you are proper friendship material, please complete the attached application.  A score of 100 or above will indicate that this friendship can proceed.

Less than 100 and I will be forced to terminate this potential friendship.

Good luck!

Some items of note in regards to my criteria:

The vegetarian question does not imply that I have a problem per se with vegetarians or vegans (I actually have at least two friends who are vegetarians), but considering my limitations in terms of vegetables, it makes friendship slightly more challenging in terms of finding a place where we can both eat.
In asking if an applicant is a teacher, I am seeking to determine if our schedules will closely align. A teacher with the same summer vacation as me is much more valuable than someone who is working 8-10 hours a day throughout the summer months as well.
Even though I am a Yankees fan, it should be noted that a Red Sox fan can score points based upon my recognition that this rivalry often produces interesting debates and lively banter. The same does not apply to Mets and especially Jets fans, who are always annoying and downright unpleasant when discussing their teams.
In terms of golf, you can score points for being a golfer, but actually playing on a regular basis (and therefore being available to play) is much more valuable to me. Some of my closest friends are golfers, but because they only play a couple times a year (for reasons usually associated with the demands of their job or family), it means little to me in terms of available playing partners. I considered adding a question about whether or not an applicant had to ask his or her spouse for permission to play golf, but I didn’t think that anyone who required permission would answer honestly.
In terms of football, flag football scores more points than touch football because flag football implies a greater commitment to the game. You can also easily transition an attempt to strip a player of a flag into a full-blown tackle, often without much complaint or protest.
My question regarding an applicant’s weekend wake up time seeks to determine his or her availability. I have friends who profess to love golf, for example, but are unwilling to get out of bed at 5:30 AM on a Sunday in order to play. The earlier you get up on the weekend, the more likely you are available for early morning activities. Some of my closest friends will routinely call or text me at 6:00 AM on any given day, knowing that we are always awake at that hour.
The question about the all-nighter seeks to determine a person’s sleep tolerance. I am often in search of friends who are willing to stay up exceptionally late in order to attend a Moth event in NYC, a Monday night football game in Foxboro, MA, or even an all-night activity like the Williams Trivia Contest at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. There are few people willing to sacrifice sleep in exchange for attending one of these memorable events. I am always in search of more.
In terms of martial state, unmarried is preferable to married simply because there are fewer demands on a person’s schedule and greater availability.
Similarly, a childless person is preferable to one with kids because of his or her increased availability, but having children similar in age to my own children is also helpful and can score you points. 

Just say I screwed up

When my wife emerged from the store, this is what she found:

Her car is the one on the left.

Carrying our three-week old son in his car seat at the time, she did not want to place him on the curb and climb in the passenger side in order to move the car , so she instead went back inside the establishment to find the moron who had parked beside her.

The woman turned out to be utterly unapologetic, claiming that the parking spots were “small” and assuring Elysha that she had “nothing against her or the baby.”

Nothing against her or the baby? Did the idiot think my wife was accusing her of being some kind of anti-infant parking vigilante?

Why is it so hard for people to simply admit that they screwed up? It’s as if doing so costs them a piece of their soul. My fifth graders struggle with this from time to time, but they are ten-years old.

It’s slightly more understandable.

Of my scant few talents, I sincerely believe one of my most valuable is my willingness to admit fault and accept blame almost without hesitation.

Why the hell not?

Imaginary amigo!

MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND is on sale in Spain! A reader was kind enough to send me a photo of the cover today (I hadn’t seen it yet).

The surprising results of my highly unscientific social media survey (I’m honest, hard-working and jerky) and thoughts on effectively analyzing an author’s brand.

Last week I received an email from a frequent reader of my blog and a follower on Twitter who had just finished reading my new book (she lives overseas where it is already available). In the course of commenting on my book, she referred to me as a “gentle and kind” person, citing the things I write on Twitter and on my blog as support for this assessment.

I may be many things, but I cannot remember the last time anyone referred to me as gentle or even kind, and I doubt if anyone who knows me well would ever use these two words to describe me.

It led me to wonder how my online personality compares to my actual personality. Are there significant differences between the two? Is my online persona inauthentic or inaccurate, and if so, why would this be the case?

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to conduct a wholly unscientific survey yesterday in which I asked my Twitter followers, Facebook friends and Facebook fans to offer three words that would describe me.

Obviously there are serious flaws in this kind of survey. First and foremost, I had no way of protecting the anonymity of the people who responded, so I assumed that the responses would automatically skew positive. I was correct. Though there were a number of negative responses, the great majority were positive.

Then again, if you follow me on Twitter or are a friend or fan on Facebook, you are probably, though not necessarily, predisposed to positive comments anyway. If you didn’t like me to at least some degree, you probably wouldn’t subject yourself to my thoughts and ideas on a daily basis.

In retrospect, what I should have done is asked people for one positive word, one negative word and one word of their choosing. And ideally, I should have used a service like Survey Monkey to protect the anonymity of my respondents.

Hindsight is 20/20.

My sample size was also considerably smaller than I had hoped. With a pool of well over 1,000 people from which to illicit responses, only 31 people responded, yielding a pool of only 93 descriptive words to analyze.

What I should have done was offer free books to one or more randomly-selected responders. Free stuff will always get people to participate, especially when all they need to do is type three words into Twitter or an email client and click send.

On a positive note, I specifically asked people who have never met me in real life to respond, and all but 6% of my respondents were people who I have never actually met before.

I will learn from these mistakes and repeat my survey in six months, but for now, the data that I received has been fascinating, if somewhat limited.  

I have taken the 93 descriptive words offered by responders and attempted to categorize them. I initially came up with 9 categories, but my wife has argued for a tenth, which I will discuss later.

Of the 9 categories, I dropped “Occupational” from the table below because it contained words like teacher, author and parent. I did not think that these descriptors spoke to my persona. 

As a result, here are my 8 initial categories, comprising 64 of the 93 responses. The Occupational category contains 6 words, bringing the total to 71 of the 93 words categorized (76%). The words appear in the columns in the order in which they were received.

Disagreeable
Truthiness
Work ethic
Humor
Creativity
Different
Intelligent
Confident


provocative
frank 
determined
funny
imaginative
unusual
perceptive
self-righteous


score-keeper
frank
responsible
funny
creative
quirky
smart 
independent


curmudgeonly
honest
passionate
hilarious
creative
unconventional
witty
strong-minded 


defiant
honest
prolific
funny
creative
random
logical
confident


ornery
honest
productive
funny
creative
 
intelligent
unafraid


snarky
blunt
intense
funny
 
 
insightful
confident


sarcastic
real
energetic
 
 
 
astute
boastful


 
genuine
driven
 
 
 
clever
 


 
honest
hardworking 
 
 
 
insightful
 


 
blunt
hardworking 
 
 
 
insightful
 


 
honest
 
 
 
 
intellectual
 


 
blunt
 
 
 
 
clever
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
intelligent
 

The words “honest” and “funny” appear most frequently in the survey (5 times each), followed by “blunt” and “creative” (4 times each).

I should also note that the “score-keeper” response is indicative of my love for the phrase “I told you so”, taking it so far as to maintain an “I told you so” Google calendar.

The rest of the categorized descriptors were relatively self-explanatory. 

As I said, my wife has argued for a tenth category, with she labeled “Empathetic” but I am not sure if the words that she proposed for inclusion in this category are close enough in meaning to be grouped together.

I also have little faith in my ability to be empathetic, which may contribute to my hesitancy to include this category in my table.

If I were to include it, it would look like this:

Empathetic


chivalrous 


pure-hearted


humanitarian


loving


warm


personable


empathetic


encouraging


doting


caring


loyal

In addition to the issues already stated regarding this category, I also know that 5 of the 11 descriptors came from just two people, and one of those knows me (albeit vaguely) in real life. Extract the responses of those two people from the sample and it begins to look much less like a significant or cohesive category.

This leaves only 11 responses uncategorized.

The word “talented” appeared twice in the data, but I was unsure of what talent these responses were referencing, so I was hesitant to categorize them.

Two others (eloquent, articulate) spoke to my writing and/or speaking ability.

The last 7 words, relatively singular in their nature, appear below:

Uncategorized


endearing


grateful


inspiring 


realistic


young-at-heart


strong


sentimental

A couple of these struck me as quite insightful on part of the responders, including “sentimental” and “grateful.” I think I possess both of these qualities in abundance but tend not to broadcast them very often.

I was also unsure what the descriptor “strong” was meant to reference.

So what have a learned from this?

First and foremost, I’ve learned that I could have conducted this survey much more effectively and will do so at some point in the future.

Second, I think I’ve learned that my online and offline personas are quite similar.

Yes, I am honest, quite often to a fault.

Yes, I am hard working. Some might say that I am always working.

Yes, I suppose I am fairly intelligent as well, though I have also lived a life full of shockingly stupid decisions.

Yes, at times I can be funny and creative, though there are many times when I am decidedly unfunny and uncreative.  I am just discerning enough to delete those unfunny, uncreative blog posts and tweets before the rest of the world can see them.

And yes, I can most certainly be a curmudgeonly,


defiant, overconfident, boastful,


ornery,


snarky,


sarcastic, unconventional provocateur. Perhaps even more so than this survey indicated.

And yes, perhaps I am occasionally, slightly, marginally more empathetic than I would like to think I am.

Maybe.

It’s also occurred to me that in terms of my career as an author, this survey, in many ways, is reflective of my brand. As a person who writes a blog every day, tweets several times a day, and routinely posts to Facebook (in addition to my fiction), I am in the business of creating a brand for myself, and that brand will go a long way in attracting readers and establishing a platform for myself.

But knowing how my readers perceive that brand is difficult to measure. A survey like this, especially if done more scientifically, could be quite beneficial to anyone who is producing content on a regular basis and looking to build an audience. While my goal is to be as authentic and honest as possible with my readers, a survey like this may uncover certain aspects of my persona that are being over-emphasized based upon the nature of blogging and social media.

I may also learn that there are aspects of my character that I am failing to project entirely, and these aspects may be beneficial to share with my audience.

Thankfully, it would appear, based upon this highly flawed survey, that the person I am and the image I project via my online content are one and the same. There is nothing I despise more than inauthenticity.

If nothing else, my respondents seems to have clearly gleaned this aspect of my character.

Making his feelings abundantly clear

My newborn son is in my lap, presumably happy as a clam while I tap away on my keyboard.

I’m making serious progress, able to type with two hands for once, feeling good about myself and this simultaneous parenting-writing scenario, when I look down and see this:

Apparently things weren’t going as well as I thought.

A new, perhaps bladder-inspired ending to Tiny Furniture.

Has anyone see Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture?

I heard great things about this movie, and over the weekend, my wife and I finally had a chance to sit down and watch it.

It’s an excellent movie. The writing is very good, the cinematography, while not visually stunning, is interesting and different, and the acting is excellent. I like Lena Dunham. She’s brave and honest and funny.

My issue with the film is its ending. In fact, it has no ending. It’s one of these movies that make you wonder if the director simply ran out of film or lost the last few pages of the script and decided to yell, “That’s a wrap!” in hopes that the last pithy line of dialogue will be suggestive enough of an ending to allow art house critics and hipsters conjure meaning in their minds while arrogantly assuming that only they are capable of understanding said meaning.

The movie just stops. There is no respect for story arc or even the sense that a story should have some kind of beginning, middle and end.

I can’t tell you how much that annoys me.

Would I recommend that you see Tiny Furniture?

Yes, actually I would. It’s an excellent film.

But do me a favor. Since you will be watching it at home, stop the movie wherever you think it should end. Choose any pithy, suggestive line of dialogue that feels right to you. Or stop it when you need to pee and shout, “That’s a wrap!”

Make your own ending to the movie rather than being surprised like me when the credits begin rolling and you are left wondering what the hell just happened.

Feel good

Less than two minutes that may restore your faith in humanity: