I always kind of assumed that the boy would follow in his pappy’s footsteps at USC, but he just sent in his intent to register at Cal, thus ending (effectively) a journey that started on his first day of kindergarten last week. It wasn’t last week? It was 13 years ago? It seems like last week. I picked him up after school and he sat in the back seat of the car sipping a juice box while we talked about his day. I have a video of it. There are three schools in California that you could plausibly go to ahead of USC: Stanford, Cal Tech — two small, private schools with ultra-low admit rates — and Cal. Cal has a better academic reputation than USC. USC has cranked up the academics over the last 20 years, and especially over the last 10 years, to the point where if you… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
Meeting Ron Artest
My kid and a few of his high school friends are on their way to see Ron Artest at Living Spaces in Irvine. He’s doing a meet and greet from 3:00 to 5:00. What kind of advertising is that? Those kids don’t have money to buy furniture. Read more →
Bird by Bird
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. He was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Blue Man Group
Hey fellas — mime died out with Red Skelton. It doesn’t become entertaining again because you paint your head blue. I say to my kid, “You know what I would do if I owned the Blue Man Group concept is have multiple shows all over the world so I can make more money.” “You can’t do that,” he says. (It turns out they actually do do this, BTW.) “Why not? It’s not like going to see the Beatles, where people actually care who’s in the group. It’s more like going to see Lion King. Why would there be only one Lion King show?” “If you’re making more money, then I’d want you to pay me more money.” “Well, that’s the beauty of my idea, Clem Kadiddlehopper, because as I said, nobody cares about you. You want more money, you can take a hike. I’ll get another guy in here and… Read more →
Twitter: 2011-02-01
RT @ChelseaVPeretti: When people say "it is what it is" we all learn so much via this insight # RT @eddiepepitone: if your life involves long discussions about flax seed than you need to take more risks. # RT @eddiepepitone: I always tell children that lunatic clowns will kill them in their sleep. I want to see the cut of their jib. # Read more →
Hamlet Backwards
This semester’s AP English final is on Beloved, a depressing novel enjoyed by no one. “I need an 87 on the final to get an A in the class,” my boy says. “That sounds manageable,” I say. “Not really. I knew Hamlet backward and forward and on that test I got an 86.” “What is Hamlet backward? It’s Telmah, right?” Read more →
The Elevated Scrub
For most of the season, my boy’s been one of the kids who only plays in the last few minutes of blowouts. He’d like to play more but he’s never been on a basketball team before. To me, the fact that he tried out at all is a win, making the team is icing on the cake, and whatever happens after that is up to him and the coach. He told me he’s had some of his best practices lately, and in last night’s game, he got in for a few minutes in the third quarter and then played the whole fourth quarter. “I’ve elevated myself from scrub to super scrub,” he said. Read more →
Twitter: 2011-01-26
RT @yoyoha: Every woman has a tiny ball of hatred in her heart that is fed by the actions of everyone around them. # RT @capricecrane: Is there a “Your Kid Looks The Same As Yesterday” button on Facebook? # RT @yoyoha: I’m currently eating graham crackers in the shape of little bunnies. This can’t be helping my street cred. # Read more →
Twitter: 2011-01-21
RT @alaindebotton: It's always the scariest people who parade their kids around us to persuade us of their (elusive) humanity. # Read more →
My Kid Needs to Learn to Set an Alarm Clock
“I’m taking a nap,” the boy says. “I need to wake up at five.” “Okay,” I reply. “Five o’clock,” he says. “Okay.” “What time do I need to wake up?” “Five.” “That’s right.” Read more →
A Sherlock Holmes Christmas
My kid comes home and sees three newly wrapped Christmas presents . . . “That’s a book,” he says, pointing at one of the presents. Then moving on to the other two: “I don’t know what that is, and I don’t know what that is. I’m on to you guys.” “What are you on to?” I ask. “The fact that you don’t know what’s going on? You only got one thing out of three. Nice work, Sherlock Holmes.” “The clues don’t always come all at once,” he says. “I’m a third of the way there.” Read more →
My Family’s Guide to Failure
At a recent family gathering, someone whom I won’t name here recommended to my son, a high school senior, that he start looking for a community college to attend for a couple of years before transferring to a four-year school. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “Do you have any more good ideas? Maybe he should punch himself in the face really hard.” One of the things I love about my boy is that when he does something, he puts his heart into it. He takes on the risk of failure. The safe approach — and historically the preferred method in my family — is to do things indifferently, fail, then announce that you weren’t really trying and that you could have succeeded if you’d wanted to.” We have family members who — despite, to my knowledge, having never done or said an intelligent thing in their lives — never… Read more →
Once Again, Age and Guile Triumph Over Youth and Talent
We’re at the gas station . . . I’m in the passenger seat while my son fills ‘er up. “This pump doesn’t have any way to lock the handle in place,” he says. “I have to stand here and hold it.” “Really?” I say. Don’t pumps always have a way to lock the handle? “Yeah, really,” he says. “I’m 100 percent sure.” I’m about to get out of the car to look things over when he says, “Don’t get out of the car.” Ignoring this admonition, I get out of the car anyway and sure enough, the pump did have a locking mechanism at one time but it’s been removed. “You owe me 10 dollars,” the boy says. “Why?” “I told you you had to hold it,” he says. “I didn’t say you didn’t. I just wanted to size up the situation.” The problem is that in the process of… Read more →
High School Confidential
I ask my boy how school’s going this year, his senior year in high school. “It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t enjoy it that much but I do it anyway.” When we get to the subject of his English teacher, he says, “He’s fine, other than he’s got a Napoleon complex and spends the entire class talking about himself. I know everything about him and I’ve learned nothing about poetry. “He has a two-year-old daughter and another daughter six months old. He coaches a cross-country team. He considers himself the greatest runner of all time. We don’t know what pain is because he has a messed-up knee and he runs on it anyway. “He thinks Mr. Plette [the AP History teacher] is soft because Mr. Plette give higher grades than he does but don’t tell Plette he said that because Plette’s his boy. “He’s a San Francisco Giants fan. He’s… Read more →
High School Seniors Do Not Appreciate 17th Century Metaphysical Poetry
“Have you read ‘Break of Day’ by John Donne?” my son asks. “I haven’t,” I reply, “but that’s more of a failing on my part than a reflection on the greatness of John Donne.” “John Donne sucks.” “You can’t talk about metaphysical poetry without giving it up for John Donne.” “I don’t want to talk about metaphysical poetry. How is that ever going to help me?” “Someday you’ll quote a snippet of Andrew Marvell in a status meeting and people will be very impressed. Verrry impressed.” Read more →
A Personal Reflection on Current Events
My best friend in college hanged himself. He wasn’t gay. It broke my heart, but nobody famous took any notice. We’re all against bullying of course, but it’s a fact of life. Everyone gets targeted for whatever it is that makes them different, and if you’re absolutely normal in all respects, you’ll be targeted for being too perfect. I put my son in tae kwon do classes at an early age. I said it was for fitness and confidence and all the usual stuff, but really it was so that any needlessly cruel behavior directed toward him could be addressed via a kick in the teeth. Sometimes you have to beat someone’s ass to teach him how to get along with the rest of the human race . . . Read more →
Twitter: 2010-10-04
I hear my kid downstairs yelling about Kunta Kinte & the 13th Amendment. His mom must have asked him to bring the groceries in from the car. # RT @eddiepepitone: Does it make me a bad person if to get to sleep I visualize boating accidents? # Read more →
Why We Need a Big-Screen TV
“This TV cuts off the bottom of the scrolling bar,” my son says as we’re watching a football game. “I can’t tell if it says SCORE ALERT or SCORF ALERT. I assume it says SCORE ALERT but I don’t really know.” “That’s a really good point,” I say. “And I don’t care about scorfs. I only care about scores.” Read more →
High School Senior
My son, dismissing the need for parental advice in his senior year of high school: “You only know what people tell you. I know what’s going on.” Read more →
I’m Worried About My Boy
He’s killing himself with schoolwork and college applications. He doesn’t sleep anymore, just keeps himself going with 5-hour energy drinks. All of the college apps are due by Nov. 1 so if he makes it that far maybe he’ll be okay . . . Read more →