A Quiet Frustrated Rant

On July 27, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized7 Comments

Open any news site today and you’ll see reports on two different theater shootings. The Holmes trial is in the sentencing phase, just miles from where I live. The Houser shooting happened less than a week ago. These two events have me ranting in a quiet anguished way. Three factors make these events personal to me: proximity, gun control, and mental health.

Proximity:

July 19, 2012 I flew home from a work trip. It was late. I drove home, and from the highway I could see the Aurora movie theater where less than three hours later James Holmes would open fire during The Dark Knight Rises. I was right there. Holmes could have passed me on the road as he made his way to start killing.

This February my family and I stopped at a great restaurant in Lafayette, GA while driving from New Orleans to Houston on Mardi Gras Day. I made the mistake of ordering barbecued shrimp, forgetting that they come with the heads still intact. After beheading my lunch I enjoyed my meal just blocks from where John Houser opened fire in a movie theater and killed two women and himself on July 23, 2015.

There is something about proximity that makes horror real. I was there. I can picture both of these places. I have swam in meets at Arapahoe High School and have friends who went to Columbine. It makes me wonder, are each of us one step away from knowing a victim or knowing a shooter?

Gun Control:

I want there to be an easy solution to this problem. I want some politician to stand up and say, “That’s it! No more guns in this country, at all, ever.” Except I don’t. I am solidly torn on gun control. I grew up with guns in my house. I learned how to shoot, I learned to respect guns, and I fondly remember the hours I spent watching my dad and grandpa reload after target practice. I enjoyed target practice. If I walked into a gun shop today the smell of it would bring back happy memories.

My dad hunted. As a child hunting put meat on his family’s table. I don’t hunt and never have, but I can tell you that nothing will teach you to respect a weapon like watching your uncle and dad gut and skin a deer they have killed. I have never questioned what a gun can do to a living creature. I don’t like play guns. We weren’t allowed to watch violent movies or play violent video games as kids. We were taught to respect guns to the point that I still feel a little weird pointing a Nerf water gun at my daughter and spraying her.

There are people who believe they need guns for personal protection. There are so many guns out there already that we can’t make them go away. I can’t round up every kid in the country and teach them the power of a gun, install new morals, and make them respect weapons. The problem seems insurmountable especially when there seems to be no middle ground.

Mental Illness:

The other thing Holmes and Houser had in common was a history of mental illness. So there should be an easy solution there. We just need to take care of the mentally ill in this country and we won’t have anymore mass shootings. Well, let me tell that it is not an easy problem to solve either. I’ve got close personal experience with mental illness in my family: depression and bipolar disorder have wreaked havoc on the Aftheads and extended Aftheads. I can tell you that even when mentally ill people want help it can be next to impossible for them to get it, or for their families to get it for them. There aren’t enough doctors, there is horrible stigma, the meds are expensive and can make people worse instead of better.

I’m obsessed with the news filtering in about Houser because it is all so true. I’m not surprised by the loophole in the law that allowed him to buy a gun. The rights of mentally ill people are slippery. Even if someone is a danger to themselves and others, there is a limit to what you can do to get them help. In the end, they are people and you can’t just go around limiting people’s rights, even if the people who love them are begging for help. I’m not surprised by his brother’s comments that the shooting wasn’t a surprise, and his words resonate with a truth that only some unlucky families get to experience. The kind of sick his brother was will rip apart families for a lifetime. I’ve seen it happen. Eventually you have to pick between your own life, your own family, your own safety and caring for the guy who just might end up being a shooter. With little to no help, no support, and no power what is a family to do? The problem is so big it seems hopeless.

The Solution:

This is a hard problem, and you do not make hard problems go away by ignoring them or doing nothing. I know that. We all know that. So, we have to start a conversation that’s going to make everyone uncomfortable. We are going to have to talk about guns killing people and we might slip up and talk about crazy people and we might end up with a solution that limits some rights. This will all piss people off, but isn’t it okay to piss people off to make sure that there is never again a room of dead first graders? (I’ll admit, as the mom of a daughter who just graduated first grade Sandy Hook is a horror story has a closer proximity than I can even comprehend.)

My favorite article about this topic is from one of my favorite authors, Stephen King. It’s called Guns, and it’s worth the $0.99 to read it on your Kindle or $2.99 to listen to on Audible. I have both versions. Know that if you buy it you are supporting the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. You might not be into such a charity, or Stephen King, so I’ll highlight his three measures to curb gun violence:

“Comprehensive and universal background checks.

Ban the sale of clips and magazines containing more than ten rounds.

Ban the sale of assault weapons.”

These seem so reasonable to me, and such a good start. Yes, people can still die if you have a gun that has a clip that holds ten rounds, but Holmes couldn’t have done what he did without assault weapons. Sure, people can still steal guns or buy guns for their family members, but Houser couldn’t have bought a gun with stricter background checks. King doesn’t provide a road-map for solving the mental health issues in this country, but he does ensure that when someone has a history of going to dark places they can’t buy weapons. That’s a start and we need a start. If there is a chance that someone is going to use a gun to kill another human being, isn’t it worth it to limit that freedom to make sure that we don’t end up being a country where every single person either knows a shooter or a victim? Can we start taking some steps to solve the hard problem before the next tragedy?

A Wild Rumpus Tradition

On July 14, 2015 By aftheadIn Traditions8 Comments

There is somewhere you must visit if you are in Minneapolis, Minnesota if you are a reader, or a parent; if you are a parent of a reader; if you are a lover of books; or if you are a lover of pets. You must visit Wild Rumpus. You know the allusion right? From Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Thing Are.

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

Let’s start at the door, shall we? The youngest Afthead is almost too big for the small purple door built into the normal grown-up sized door. Almost too big, but not quite. 5 years now we’ve been making an annual trek to the purple door.

You walk in and the store is half zoo, half pet shop, half bookstore, and half magic land. (Yes, I know that equals two, but this bookstore is greater than a single bookstore.) It has cats with no tails, chickens, doves, creepy albino rats, cockatiels, chinchillas, ferrets, tarantulas, fish hidden in the mirror in the bathroom, and a really ugly lizard. The cats are free to roam the store and their tailless ends are usually followed by a parade of children trying to grab a pet or a snuggle. The chickens are also free to roam with a similar parade of kids, but they aren’t normal chickens. They are like poodle chickens cute but a little foreign. If chickens and cats need a break they retreat behind the sales counter taunting the children with their proximity and inaccessibility.

When you are done staring at the floor looking for animals your eyes travel upwards to the shelves and shelves of books. There are books taller than you can reach: picture books, beginning readers, later readers, science books, geography books and even grown up books. In the back of the store there is a scary section. The albino rats live there, and there is a hole in the floor where some other creature lives. When I was a kid, this would have been where I lived. I’ve always loved scary books. Not my kiddo though, she’s in the beginner readers picking out books she’s never seen outside of her classroom and she’s delighted.

About this time you glance up to stretch your neck and notice the boat carving a path through the ceiling. Yep, in case there isn’t enough magic in this place the ceiling is actually a river with a rowboat carving a path through the white ceiling and leaving a path of blue green water behind it.

If you are in Minneapolis carve out an hour and go visit. It’s right by the airport. You won’t regret a moment there. In fact, you might end up feeling like you’ve doubled your investment.

Yummies and Yuckies

On July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized4 Comments

When my daughter was little our pediatrician encouraged us to start doing “yummies and yuckies” as part of our bedtime routine. Each night we’d all share the best things (yummies) and worst things (yuckies) of our day. Sadly this little tradition has gone by the wayside – I think it had something to do with my daughter’s behavior being a yucky one too many times – but I’m going to bring it back here to catch you up on the life of the Aftheads recently.

Yummy/Yucky #1

Yucky – my daughter got lice. It finally happened. I’ve been dreading this day and threatening to abandon her at the fire station if it ever happened. (I’m convinced that “safe haven” thing extends to seven year olds, but only if there are lice involved). I didn’t leave her though. I’m mommed up, dumped insecticide on her head, and combed through her long hair for two hours and 45 minutes removing lice, nymphs and eggs. Then for a week after I spent an hour going through her hair and my hair with a literal fine toothed comb – man I really get the imagery behind that phrase now- to ensure we were done with the infestation. She had a really mild case. It wasn’t that bad. I won’t get PTSD, unless those crawly things end up in my hair!
Yummy – The lice killing chemicals had detailed step by step instructions for dealing with head lice, and vague references to “pubic lice”. I am thankful that I didn’t have to decipher those.

Yummy/Yucky #2

Yummy – we had an amazing trip to Washington D.C. to kick off our summer. We took my daughter when she was four, and she really didn’t have any context for why our nation’s capital is a cool place. This year she got it. She knows the president lives in the White House. She stood on the step where MLK gave his “I have a dream” speech and recited the first few lines. Making it even more special was that we got to go with her best friend. I’ve got an adorable picture of the two of them, head to head, wind whipping their hair in front of the Washington Monument.
Yucky – the best friend had lice when we were in D.C. but no one knew it yet. If you zoom in on the Washington Monument picture you can see those little burgers leaping off the friend’s hair into my daughter’s hair riding the currents of the wind to a new fertile land.

Yummy/Yucky #3

Yummy – Marriage equality happened! I have friends and co-workers whose lives are changed because of this, and I’m so thrilled. I didn’t find out the way I’d imagined, but I got to find out with my daughter and we had a great conversation about what the supreme court ruling meant. It went like this,

Me – “Kiddo, this means people can marry whoever they want. If a boy loves a girl they can get married. If a boy loves a boy they can get married. If a girl loves a girl they can get married.”

Kiddo – “I don’t want to get married. Why do kids have to get married now?”

Me – “No I meant a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman now.”

Kiddo – “Oh. I don’t ever want to get married.”

Me – “That’s still okay.”

Then we picked up one of her friends and headed to camp. The two seven year olds had another great conversation about the ruling:

My kiddo – “Hey my mom said that anyone can marry who they want now. It’s a big deal.”

Friend – “Yeah, people can kiss whoever they want. I hate kissing.”

My kiddo – “I’m not getting married to anybody.”

Friend – “Me either.”

Thus the nation changed to be more tolerant, more accepting and more equal, but you still don’t have to kiss anyone or get married if you don’t want to.

Yucky – I kind of forgot that everyone wasn’t anxiously awaiting this ruling. Its made some people I really love and care about pretty angry. While that doesn’t change my feelings it does remind me that change is hard and this ruling doesn’t mean that every individual has become more tolerant and more accepting.

Two more days of lice hunting and we can claim the infestation over. Maybe then my head will quit itching and I’ll have time to write again.