I haven’t played Warcraft for over a year. I miss it, once in a while, but I also know, as I have always known, that RL >>> WoW: real life is better than a game. But it isn’t the game I miss — it’s the community.
It’s easy to deride a community built by people who spend seven, eight, ten hours a day playing computer games: obese people with negligable grooming, living in dirty homes, people with stagnant careers and foetid family lives, surrounded by empty Hot Pocket trays, Mountain Dew cans, and crumpled Doritos bags. Surely not everyone who plays computer games, even compulsively, fits that stereotype, and yet the image is out there, and it bothers me, and not just because for a long time, I was part of that community.
The image, the stereotype bothers me because it’s mean, and it’s wrong, because what’s missing in that stereotype is kindness. Overall, I discovered, through hours and hours spent glued to a computer monitor, that the people with whom I played Warcraft were kind, in a way that I, with my super-achieving, hyper-competitive life filled with super-competitive hyper-achieving peers had not seen before. Certainly, not everyone — there are enough my-way-or-the-highway players in the game to satisfy any stereotyper. But the aspect of Warcraft that kept me coming and the thing I miss the most about the game is the kindness of the people with whom I played.
It was a kindness that allowed others to make mistakes. Warcraft is a hard game, and it’s interdependent, and even among people who are good at playing computer games, it’s easy to make mistakes: Standing in fire. Casting the wrong spell. Overlooking a monster. Falling — off a cliff, off a building, off a ledge, or a path, or a mountain; it’s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the end. Warcraft, especially at the end of the game, when the monsters get bigger and meaner, is a tight enough game that one misclick by one person, one misstep, will easily kill an entire party. Sure, it’s frustrating, but while people did get mad, but they never got mean.
I do believe in coincidences, but in this case, I don’t think it is one. I think there is a pattern, a reason, a lesson.
In recent days, I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the unlikeliest of people for the way I handled my daughter’s situation. “School was horrible for me,” they tell me. “You did the right thing.” People I never would have thought would have found themselves in the crosshairs of a mean kid, but then, I remember that you can never know the whole of someone else’s story, but only what they chose to share with you. And over and over, I heard it, especially from the kids I played Warcraft with:
School is pretty horrible.
Yeah, I pretty much keep to myself at school.
Naw, you guys are my friends. I don’t have a lot of friends at school.
I go to school with some mean kids.
And then the rare confidences, the ones that broke my heart. I’m fat. I’m gay. I’m okay at sports, but the acne is a problem. I live in a trailer with my grandparents, and all my clothes are from Goodwill. And not just from kids, either — for years, my primary community was one of adults who, for whatever reason, and often no apparent reason, found themselves holding the short end of the stick, the butt of jokes, the target of cruelty. And so, they escaped a world where people were mean to come fight monsters along side people whose only commonality was a level of kindness I had never seen before, and don’t think I could find anywhere else.
I don’t think it’s an accident. I think people are good, most of them, and when people have been on the receiving end of cruelty, they often learn how important it is to watch their language, to look at things from the other person’s perspective, and above all, first and foremost, to consider other people’s feelings.
It’s not something I’m great at, but I do try. And now, seeing what my daughter Catherine has gone through, I’m resolved to try even harder, to choose my words carefully, to be aware of my facial expression, to not even think cruel thoughts lest I telegraph them through a glance. It’s a lesson my daughter has learned the hard way, but then, she is a kind person, much kinder, sometimes, than she lets on. And she’s moving on, making new friends, moving forward.
It’s me who’s stuck. It’s incredibly horrible and awkward for me, every time I bring my son to class, looking at the other adults who know, to one degree or another, that I pulled my kid out of our school, and why. People have been kind, especially the teachers in whose eyes I unavoidably threw mud by yanking my kid out of their classes despite the fact that they did everything right. “You gotta do what’s good for your kid,” is the prevailing sentiment. And yes, I know I hurt people’s feelings, and I know I probably could have handled the situation better, but I did the best I could, and now, I find myself alienated, and, for the first time in a year, acutely missing the World of Warcraft.
I know I can’t renew my subscription. I don’t have time to play, and I can’t face what it would do to my regularly scheduled life if I were to spend even three hours a day slaughtering pixels. But I keep thinking of my mage, a low-level character with some best-in-game gear sitting in the bank. I’d really love to log in and go blow some stuff up. But more, I think I need a little kindness.
This afternoon, while the Nicholas was playing with a neighbor and Catherine was at dance class, I stuck a chicken in the oven. I salted it and peppered it, and I dumped a bag of old carrots in the pan along with some mushy apples and a couple of onions and a few shards of an anise star. Then I made rice, and then I put a pan of brussels sprouts in the oven to roast.
I used to be able to whip up dinner with minimal effort years ago, but after back-to-back pregnancy and toddlers and pregnancy and cancer and toddlers, I forgot how.
I think I’ve remembered. And I think this “Cooking” category might start … cooking.
I understand, from reading the internet on my Macintosh computer and my iPhone, that Steve Jobs died. From cancer. At 56.
Damnit.
I think there is a little bit of his soul in every one of those little devices.
He changed the world, and we lost him too soon.
Everyone loves a good protest march. Well, not everyone. Chris doesn’t. He calls it Throwing Frisbees for Peace, because the connection between protest and reform is so tenuous, and he thinks (rightly) that there are more effective ways to effect change.
I say that the right to peacefully assemble is one of things that makes us American, and if Things Are Afoot, I want to be part of it, unless, as in the case of the Tea Party movement, I get the wiggins. Back when we lived in Washington, DC, I used to swing by the Mall whenever there was a well-organized march, not to wave a sign and yell and scream so much as to see what was up. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t ever make it down to the annual Stonewall march when we lived in New York, and one of the things I miss about living in Miami is the King Mango Strut which isn’t exactly a protest march but it has the same vibe.
Friday, I hear, the Occupy Wall Street movement is coming to Dallas. And the weather is glorious. And Catherine has the day off of school. And it would be educational for her, right? RIGHT?
On the one hand I would feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite attending because my comfortable lifestyle is funded through Chris’s work in America’s financial sector. On the other hand, Chris is a pension actuary, so if there is a “side” he’s on the good guy’s side, helping companies pay pensions to their retired employees which, no matter how you look at it, is a very good idea. And I do believe that this protest thing might actually take off and change some stuff, and I also do truly believe that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, if Denmark is the way our government and corporate sector are all snuggled up in bed together. So I am contemplating heading down there to see what’s up.
Most of all, I am inspired by this lady. She’s someone I have known since the day I was born. Her husband is a decorated war hero, a career military guy whose retirement is so recent in my mind I still feel the urge to salute him. She’s one of the people who convinced me to join the Junior League. This is the lady who taught me to make salad, eat lobster, and never, ever give up on anything. She once saw Albert Einstein walking across the green at Princeton, remembers it, and tells the story.
I figure if my Godmother is telling me to quit bitching and start a revolution, I’d better get on it.
I spent the day sitting behind a desk answering phones.
I was putting in my hours for my Junior League placement at Gilda’s Club, which recently merged with The Wellness Community to become Cancer Support Commuity. It’s a national nonprofit organization that offers fantastic resources for people going through cancer treatment — both patients and families, and most especially kids.
I’ve gone from cancer patient to cancer survivor to just a regular volunteer.
It’s fantastic that all I had to do with the Junior League was shoot off an email to get back with the program — and the volunteer orientation over at Gilda’s Clu… I mean Cancer Support Community was super-easy and nice. I know that’s the way these things ought to happen, but I’ve done enough volunteer work to know what a rare treat it is when they do.
It was a good day for me. One of those benchmark days.
Cafe Cubano.
That’s Spanish for Cuban Coffee and it is the best food ever: thick, hot, sweet, rich. It’s got a flavor that Starbucks can’t touch, which the Wall Street Journal pointed out 20 years ago when they questioned the coffee megachain’s decision to expand into Miami.
I make my own cafe Cubano at home, in my little steel cafeteríta, but mine never tastes just right because I don’t put sugar into it.
This evening, my mom mailed me a link to this fabulous video, and I think tomorrow, I’ll make it the right way.
I like to heat up milk on the stove until it gets hot and just begins to foam, then pour in a shot of perfect Cuban coffee. It’s heaven.
You should try it.
So, I pulled my kid from her fantastic private school and enrolled her in the fantastic community elementary school down the street. My friends have all told me that I am crazy, and by that I mean making the “crazy” sign and using language like, “you are making a terrible mistake and you will be sorry.” I know there is a very good chance that in January I will show up at the door of the private school, the school where I am keeping my son, where he is flourishing, with my hat in my hand and a giant helping of crow to eat, begging them to take her back. And they might not. And yet I pulled her.
I said it privately, and I’m saying it publicly: the school is a great school, they handled the situation with the boy who was picking on her as well as they could have. His mother is a prince among women, and I can only hope that if I were in her situation I would show as much class as she has shown. I hope she and I can salvage a friendship out of this; I think we can. If I had it to do over again, I’d pick the same school.
The principal is someone whose judgement I would trust with anything. Her teacher is fantastic, like a teacher in a movie, and I mean the kind of movie I never see, the kind where no one sprouts extra legs or eyes or turns into a flesh-eating robot 20 minutes into the film. The kids in her class are all great kids, even the one who tried to push her off the bleachers. It might well have been my kid pushing another kid off the bleachers. I don’t blame my friends for telling me I am crazy.
But still, I pulled her.
She was horribly unhappy. I could tell. She’s been unhappy all year. We couldn’t put a bead on it until a few weeks ago, but she was miserable and terrified, and I made the choice to believe her, and to believe in her.
Chris explained it like this: “It’s almost impossible to evaluate a scenario with an extremely low probability and an extremely high cost.”
He and I might be wrong. We might be a hysterical mother and overprotective father with a paranoid and delusional daughter. I am sure we are — but what if we’re not? I hope we’re wrong, and I’m glad we will always be wrong and that we will never be proved right.
If I pull her, the worst case scenario is that she leaves a wonderful learning environment where she is unhappy to face the unknown of a very different learning environment which people I know and respect tell is is great. The worst case scenario is that I have hurt the feelings of her wonderful teacher and principal, and pissed my friends off. And even in a worst case scenario, I can’t imagine my friends not forgiving me.
If I don’t pull her, the worst case scenario is too horrible to contemplate.
So I pulled her.
I’ve already been through a highly improbable worst case scenario once already, and so I no longer have the luxury of thinking that the improbable is impossible. Even so, I can’t go through life making major decisions based on the lesser of two worst case scenarios. It’s a horrible way to evaluate options.
Nevertheless, I pulled her.
I pulled her to teach her that when you are unhappy, and you have tried to make it work and it’s not working and you can’t see a way for it to work, you make a change. I pulled her to show her that I believe her, and that I trust her judgement. I pulled her because I want her to know that it’s better to be safe than right, and that when she is mortally afraid of a boy who she feels has been cruel to her and who has hurt her, the best choice — the only choice — is to leave.
Do I think her fear is warranted?
I don’t think it matters.
So, I have a heart condition. It might be a side effect from chemotherapy. It might be anxiety. It might be something that shows up in type-A women in our early 40s. My resting heart rate is high, and sometimes it spikes. It makes me feel really rotten.
The problem has been evaluated and I’m on medication, a beta blocker, that seems to work well.
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When I remember to take it.
I don’t like to take medication every day. Intellectually, I know that I need to, and I try to remember, but I don’t always, and I should, and it’s actually pretty important.
I have a lot more sympathy for old people who kvetch about all the pills they have to take.
Catherine and Nicholas were cleaning the kitchen, which they do, or else I will not cook food for them.
Nicholas dropped a glass and it shattered.
I cleaned it up, but I missed a piece, and Catherine stepped on it and cut her foot, which bled all over the floor.
Chris dealt with the bloody mess of her foot with a washcloth, Neosporin, and a Band-Aid.
Nicholas cleaned the blood off the floor and the chair. There was a lot of blood — not head-injury blood or miscarriage blood, but it looked like a crime scene from a family-friendly TV show. And he cleaned it up, and mopped the floor, without my telling him to.
Catherine said, “It’s my fault for having bare feet in the kitchen when I knew we broke a glass.”
Nicholas said, “It’s my fault for breaking the glass.”
I said, “It’s my fault for missing a piece when I cleaned it up.”
I don’t know whether my family would be functional like this if we hadn’t been through cancer and its aftermath. I like to think so, but I’m unfortunately lacking in the ability to peek into the alternate universe of my life without cancer, so I will never know.
I’ve been in a cranky funk for a couple of weeks and I think I know what is wrong.
It’s Border’s. I’m grieving.
I love books, and I love bookstores, and now I live in a city where there isn’t a decent bookstore. I live in a nation where the count of great bookstores fits on both hands.
I desperately want Mitch Kaplan of Miami’s iconic Books and Books to franchise, but I think he’s going to have to clone himself.
I keep having fantasies about opening a book store, but I know, with my head, that it’s an unlikely investment, although my heart keeps telling me otherwise.
I know that online bookselling is the wave of the future, but the serendipity of walking into a great bookstore and browsing and finding a fantastic read is, and always has been, the single greatest joy of my adulthood and now it’s gone.
Dance with the Reaper 