Sadness in seven words

Well, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

Goodbye, George...

(Edited to add the explanatory link, which I seriously, SERIOUSLY can't believe I needed to do.)

Writing about writing about writing

Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

Sorry I've been feeling sort of quiet these days, but you know how it goes. I have been talking to other people behind your back, however.

Over the weekend, I was part of a Father's Day article about blogging dads for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Dads join the parenting blog ranks". Those of you who hate the term "mommy blogger" can now hate on "daddy blogger", too.

I also did an interview for writer and artist Debbie Ridpath Ohi, whose excellent work you may recognize from the Schuyler's Monster website. It focuses mostly on the writing process, so you can decide for yourself whether I'm truly a fancy pants author, or if I just got incredibly lucky. I won't tell you where the smart money is.

Sad Father's Day

I was all set to post something about Father's Day, and I might still do that. But I just found out that Tim Russert died today of an apparent heart attack.

I know we're going to hear a great deal about his contributions to the field of journalism, but the thing that I'll remember about Russert is that he wrote about fatherhood, both his life with his own dad and his relationship with his son, in a way that opened the door for other writers like myself who had something to say about being a father and a son, and what we're all trying to do in that role.

According to MSNBC:

Russert was a trustee of the Freedom Forum’s Newseum and a member of the board of directors of the Greater Washington Boys and Girls Club, and America’s Promise — Alliance for Youth.

In 1995, the National Father’s Day Committee named him “Father of the Year,” Parents magazine honored him as “Dream Dad” in 1998, and in 2001 the National Fatherhood Initiative also recognized him as Father of the Year.

Fathers have been pretty consistently marginalized in our societal narrative, but I think that is beginning to change, albeit slowly. Tim Russert was an agent of that change, although I suspect that all he really set out to do was write a love letter to his father (a personal mission I understand perfectly), and to give others a place to do the same. I truly regret the fact that I'll never have the opportunity to meet him, and to say thank you.

As a writer, I hate to admit when words aren't enough, but...

Reviewed in Brain, Child

A nice person sent me a scan of a review of Schuyler's Monster from the Summer 2008 issue of Brain, Child, which calls itself "the magazine for thinking mothers", although I supposed thinking fathers can read it too, as long as they don't fart or scratch or otherwise call attention to themselves.

Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter, by Robert Rummel-Hudson (St. Martin's Press, 2008). When the instructor of the Lamaze class that Rummel-Hudson attended with his pregnant wife said, "So the first thing the nurse will do is hand the new baby to you, mommies, so you can count their little fingers and toes..." Rummel-Hudson added, "And heads!" Weisenheimer moments like this pepper this making-of-a-father memoir and help leaven what could be a true tale of woe. Rummel-Hudson's daughter, Schuyler, was diagnosed at the age of three with polymicrogyria, a rare brain malformation that causes various developmental problems: the most frustrating, a lack of speech. Rummel-Hudson chronicles, with disarming frankness, the experience of parenting a child no one knows how to help. His own journey includes marital problems and fights with school administrators reluctant to work with Schuyler. His family's trials haven't extinguished Rummel-Hudson's smartass side, but they've drawn forth a tenderness that is touching and utterly familiar: "This love was daunting to me. It was the rest of my life, this love... I was Schuyler's prisoner now, and it was in that captivity that I had achieved my life's joy."

-- Elizabeth Roca
Brain, Child (Summer 2008)

Interview on Psychjourney

So if you've ever thought to yourself "Say, I like that Rob guy's voice so much, I could listen to him for HOURS," then today is your lucky day. I did an interview yesterday with Deborah Harper, the president of Psychjourney, and what was scheduled to be about a half hour interview turned into an hour and thirteen minutes. Wow!

The thing is, the interview went long because I think we got into some interesting areas, and Deborah is a fantastic interviewer who spends time with a question and follows up on points and gets very personally involved in the answers. We had the opportunity to talk earlier in the week instead of doing the actual interview (as I was sick and sounded like Puberty Frog at the time), and I think that earlier connection really made for a comfortable interview. I was much more at ease for this one than I've been before, and it definitely shows. I know an hour of me jabbering might not sound like your idea of a fun afternoon, but I think you'll like this one.

Psychjourney: Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey With His Wordless Daughter

When I went to the site this morning, I was surprised to see that in addition to the interview, Deborah had also posted the little video I made of two year-old Schuyler back in the summer of 2002, a full year before she was diagnosed with polymicrogyria. I watched it and found myself getting surprisingly weepy. It took me back to a time when we didn't know any monsters, only this funky, weird little kid who had a wheezy little donkey laugh and liked to dump water out of the bathtub.

My favorite moment is when she violently smacks me in the head and then immediately embraces me with a sort of poignant tenderness. That's my life with Schuyler in a nutshell.

Dallas Child

The fam
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

A local free monthly called Dallas Child, asked me a few months ago to contribute an article to their regular "daily diary" feature. I wrote up something for them and submitted it, and then promptly forgot about it like a doofus until Julie (who did NOT forget and had been watching for it this whole time) brought home some copies of the June '08 edition from her store.

You know how it is when you write something and then don't see it for a while, then you come back to it and don't actually remember writing much of it? That's how I felt when I read this again. Not in a bad sense, but rather in a "I can be sort of amusing now and again" sort of way.

That sounds like an excellent epitaph, now that I mention it. Someone jot that down.

Dallas Child is available all over the place in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, but it's a pretty safe bet that you can find it at your local bookstore. For the other 99% of you who don't live here, you can read it online:

Daddy Diaries: Robert Rummel-Hudson

Redacted

Purple fairy
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

I don't like deleting posts, as a rule. But after sleeping on it for a night, I think yesterday's garment-rending was an overreaction. Yes, it was uncool, reading something that one kid said about Schuyler. And as her father, I can almost guarantee I'll react strongly when I feel like she's in danger, even if it's just the danger of having her feelings hurt. Truthfully, I'll probably consistently OVERreact, because I'm a dad. That's what we do. Trust me, it beats the deadbeat alternative.

Anyway, I've taken down the post, because in retrospect, it felt like I was being overly negative and was focusing on one bad experience in a school and with teachers and classmates who have been almost entirely supportive of Schuyler. One of her teachers wrote us and said that Schuyler is an almost universally beloved kid at her school. It seems now to be a little unfair to turn a spotlight on one stumble.

But I'm keeping the photo, because you can't deny that Schuyler works the purple.

Book Launch 2.0

This is one of those things that if you're an author, it feels so truthful that while it's really funny, it also stings just a bit.



Film by author Dennis Cass. (Thanks, Karen...)

Goodbye, old friend

I've donated Beelzebug to Texans Can!, an organization that helps at-risk kids get an education. They came and picked her up today.

The whole time they were hooking her up and taking her away, I had this big old lump in my throat. Okay, I need to go take the New Hotness for a drive before I turn into an old woman for good.

She constantly changes, she never changes

... and friends
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

About two hours to the southwest of here, there's a town called Glen Rose. It's known around these parts for two things: the Commanche Peak nuclear power plant and Dinosaur Valley State Park, location of a large concentration of dinosaur footprints preserved in the bed of the Paluxy River. We took Schuyler to Glen Rose over the weekend. Not to see the power plant (cool though that might have been), but rather to see some of the actual footprints made by real dinosaurs.

It's hard to say why Schuyler loves big monsters so much, although I've always had the feeling that she sees them as her natural allies. As I've written before, she's never been afraid of them. Whether it's King Kong or dinosaurs or the Cloverfield monster, she's always been drawn to them as friends. Even her most recent imaginary creature, the Grass Monster, can be tamed by pouring a little bit of beverage onto the ground. When it comes to monsters, they are all Schuyler's.

As she grows older and girlier, her interests have shifted, like any little girl's might, but on her own terms as usual. I am encouraged that she doesn't want to be a princess, and if you call her one, she adamantly declares, "I'm not a princess. I'm a queen." Even at eight, she's not interested in middle management. A few weeks ago, I used a bunch of Amazon credits I'd accumulated to buy her a wooden castle that she'd wanted for a long time, and I don't know if I've ever seen her happier. She has populated it with fairies, and princesses, and cute little animals.

But there are a few dinosaurs and dragons hanging around outside the castle walls, peeking in the windows from time to time. Sometimes they come inside, not to bring mayhem, but to join in the fun. Her dinosaurs never attack anyone (although they do occasionally eat some of the animals). To Schuyler, there's nothing incongruous about their presence in her world.

The dinosaur park was a hit, I think. She gawked at the slightly ridiculous giant fiberglass dinosaurs guarding the park's entrance, and she wanted nothing more than to splash into the river and explore. We kept up as best as we could, slipping on the rocks and twisting our ankles every three or four steps. Schuyler saw the footprints, and she seemed impressed, but mostly she didn't want to look. She wanted to do. Long ago dinosaurs can't compete with being a wild kid in a fast-moving stream.

Schuyler is changing, she's leaving some of the things from her past behind her. She's becoming interested in the concrete world around her, like the "grow your own butterflies" kit we got for her recently. She checks on the caterpillars every day when she gets home from school, watching for them to begin their transformation. I watch her as she transforms herself.

But when the evenings wind down, she still brings a stuffed animal or a doll to bed with her, and since this past weekend, she's taken to looking over the edge of her loft bed, down at the new poster on her wall. It's a brachiosaurus, tall and vaguely menacing (for a salad eater), and she's captivated by it. The last time I put her to bed, she said goodnight to it, and blew it a kiss.

Memorial Day, 2008

"We are Making a New World" (1918), Paul Nash

At a Calvary near the Ancre

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And brawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
WWI soldier poet, describing a roadside crucifix damaged in battle

Summerfest: READ, Concert on the Patio

Schuyler's Monster
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

I have more information on next weekend's event in Fort Worth.

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Summerfest: READ, Concert on the Patio
05/31/2008
TCU Barnes & Noble Bookstore
2950 West Berry St.
Fort Worth, TX 76109
Taylor Witt, Event Coordinator
817.257.7844 | taylor.witt@tcu.edu

Join us May 31 from 12pm - 8pm for the kickoff event to our summer-long book drive benefiting the Women's Center of Tarrant County's Literacy Program. Music by Conspiracy of Thought, Waiting for Decay, and local band Fate Lions.

Guest Authors Dr. David Cross and Dr. Karyn Purvis, authors of The Connected Child, and Robert Rummel-Hudson, author of Schuyler's Monster, will discuss and sign copies of their books. We'll have prizes, face painting and a visit from Curious George!

Because everyone LOVES to read about dreams

Storm
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

In my dreams, Schuyler almost always does the same thing. She talks to me. She's always sitting next to me, and she's usually holding my hand. And she always says the same thing, or some variation of it. She always tells me it's going to be okay.

Last night, I had a different dream about her. In this dream, we were outside, and she was running across a field, or a park. Every so often, she turned and called out to me. "Come on, Daddy! Hurry up!" Then she kept running, and I couldn't catch up to her or call out to her.

And in front of her, the sky was dark except for lightning flashes, and a tornado was beginning to form.

I woke up before the alarm this morning from this dream, and I tried to go back to sleep, but my mind was in that "Oh, fuck THAT" mode that it goes into when it wants nothing to do with the delights that my subconscious is serving up.

I'm not one to give much credence to dreams as prophecies, although in the past I have had a few that turned out to be wickedly accurate. I still believe that when our dreams do come true, it's because our subconscious minds have picked up on clues that we might not be processing consciously just yet. I don't believe in "Watch your ass!" messages from the Great Beyond.

And I certainly don't think Schuyler is doomed to be eaten by the weather.

Things have gone so well for us for the past few months, and if anything, I suspect my subconscious mind is saying "Okay, so what's the catch?" (As if the first five or six years of Schuyler's life weren't the catch.) So I'm not going to read too much into whatever sort of metaphorical bugbear my mind is trying to call up for me.

Still, though. That wasn't much fun, and it's been bugging me all day.

Beelzebug's sweet sorrow

Beelzebug and friend
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

It was eight years ago almost exactly that we bought the '99 VW Beetle that we came to know as Beelzebug. It was the week before Mother's Day, meaning it was also a week before we discovered that Julie was pregnant. At the time, my friend Jim in Texas wrote to tell me what a mistake it was, buying this cheap, trendy little car instead of something good and solid and responsible that would last for years.

Well, Jim's been right about a great many things over the years, remarkably so considering that he suffers from a persistent rash known as Conservative Republicanism (I hear there's a treatment for that now), but he was wrong about Beelzebug.

That's not to say that the car never had problems. Things started going wrong with it just about as soon as the warranty ran out, things like plastic switches and little hipster accents. But the car has never experienced any serious engine problems and has gotten us from the tundra of Kalamazoo to the demilitarized zone of Detroit, then to New England for four years before finally moving me and all my crap to Austin and then finally to Plano.

It's been nine years and 122,000 miles (not easy miles, either), however, and poor Beelzebug has been making ominous sounds for some time. The air conditioning hasn't worked for a while (which makes for a delightful driving experience in Texas), and the engine tends to overheat when the car isn't moving (like in, oh, say, Dallas rush hour traffic). There's a lot of work that would need to go into repairing the car, and putting all that money into a nine year-old plastic, trendy, high-mileage car feels a little like giving a heart transplant to a 100 year-old patient. Every time poor Beelzebug makes one of its scary noises or overheats, you can almost hear it whispering its DNR request.

"No heroic measures," it seems to say. "Please just let me go..."

We've been looking at new cars for a few months now, and we had pretty much decided on half a dozen different cars before changing our minds. We had actually decided to get a Mini Cooper S, the choice originally made by Schuyler and which certainly would have felt like a worthy hipstery successor to Beelzebug. We came as close as filling out the paperwork and toying with the deposit. Seriously, we were close. It would have been yellow. Yellow. You know of my love of yellow.

But in the end, we got an excellent deal on a Mazdaspeed3, which looks like the respectable, four-door Mom & Dad hatchback Mazda3 but has a ridiculously punchy engine and will pretty much go as fast as you ever would want to go. It actually scares me, a lot. And it turns out that it was built in Hiroshima, which tweaked me a little bit, for some reason.

But no matter how much I grow to love this new car (and I have to be honest, I am digging it a lot), it'll never be quite the same as Beelzebug. We brought Schuyler home from the hospital in that car, after all. How do you top that? Goodbye, old friend.

Getting Schuyler

I never know what I'm going to write about here, and really, it could be anything. (My elderly but faithful car Beelzebug is going to get a post soon, after all.) But in general, there have been two kinds of entries that come up the most in recent months: Schuyler and Schuyler's Monster.

I make no apologies for writing about the publication experience, by the way. If I am blogging about my life and in particular my life with Schuyler, then the fact that it's a memoir, and more specifically a memoir about her, means that when people say "We want to hear more about what's going on with Schuyler!", this is a huge part of what's happening right now. So yes, in general of late, you've gotten a lot of two things. Either I'm trying to make Schuyler come to life for you, or I'm talking about the book and its media exposure.

Tonight, I'm happy to announce that I'm going to do both.

The story that Fox 26 Houston reporter Greg Groogan and special projects photographer/editor Matt Matejka put together was broadcast earlier tonight in Houston. It looks like it's going to run in some other markets, including the Dallas area, so don't be surprised if you see my big, white, doughy Robba the Hutt head on your tv soon. And possibly during the dinner hour, too, for which I can only say that I'm truly sorry. It doesn't exactly do my poor heart good either, looking at that face every morning. You at least get to look like you.

It's a different kind of story than has been done before, I'll say that right off. It's of a somewhat higher pitch emotionally, for example. But I like it, and the primary reason for that is simple.

They captured Schuyler. In the short space of the story, and really mostly in the latter half of the story, they show the Schuyler that I know and love and have been trying for all these years to show to you.

A lot of people are curious about her. They want to see how she talks and how she uses her device, and they want to know some very simple things. For the people who have come to feel emotionally invested in Schuyler (and I am learning that there are more of them than I ever imagined), they want to know most of all that she's happy.

And if there's nothing more that you take away from Greg's story, I hope that you'll see just how happy she really is. I see Schuyler's happiness and I want it for myself, I want to laugh like that every day of my life.

And the funny thing is, because of Schuyler, I usually do.

Thanks, Greg, Matt and everyone else at Fox 26.

MyFox Houston | Schuyler's Monster: Texas Dad Writes Book About Child's Disease

Things are afoot at the Purple Cow

The father of one of Schuyler's friends at school left this comment on an earlier post, and I thought since it was left as a public comment rather than an email, it would probably be okay to share here.

I think it gives a unique view of sharing a few moments in Schuyler's world, from a different perspective.

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eran has left a new comment on your post "Mosaic":

Tonight we celebrated my son's fifth birthday at the Purple Cow. For those of you not familiar with Plano, this is a fifties type diner in Plano that has a model train running on a track suspended from the ceiling. But the big attraction is that they serve purple milkshakes. Essentially, it's our kids' restaurant of choice.

I got there a little bit early before my wife and kids showed up and had a few minutes to have some thoughts to myself. For some reason I thought, "I wonder if we will see Rob and Schuyler here tonight." It was a fair enough assumption because we often see people who we know every time we eat there.

Well about 15 minutes after my family arrived, my daughter says "There's Schuyler!" Yup, I'm not lying, I really wondered if we would see her in there. Lauren knows Schuyler because she has been in all of Schuyler's classes at Gulledge. Lauren and I walked over and I introduced myself to Schuyler and Julie. Pretty much after that Lauren, Schuyler, and my son Scott were inseparable the rest of the time we were in the Purple Cow. They picked songs to play on the jukebox (Lauren always plays YMCA by the Village People). They eventually ditched the boring parents, sat at the bar and ordered purple and chocolate ice cream. I'm not sure who paid for that actually. Rob, please let me know if they charged you guys for my kids ice cream and I'll pay you back.

This was my first time meeting Schuyler and I have to confess I got excited the way someone does who sees a celebrity. I think because I read the book I built up a mental dialog and wanted to see it played out by the real actors. I asked her if she liked soccer and how many goals she scored this season. She raised 8 fingers. She had a very good season indeed! Lauren's been playing for two and half years constantly and she has only scored 3.

Schuyler is a riot. She has a lot of energy and she is laughing constantly. When the kids were all sitting down at the bar, I joined them. I enjoy watching Lauren hanging out with kids her own age. I see a side of her that I don't often see at home. To tell you the truth, I could understand almost everything Schuyler said to me tonight. She has learned to be expressive with her hands which does help. She had her device at Julie's table but she just wanted to hang out without it.

Julie came by and spoke with us a little bit. I asked her about the device which she showed off to me. I'm a computer programmer so my inner geek came out and I wanted to know all about it. After Julie and I talked I began think about how Schulyer could communicate in the future once she outgrew her device. I actually see her using a Blackberry sized device with a full QWERTY keyboard. This device would have a strong enough speaker so that she others could listen in a crowded room. I hope that as the AAC generation gets older the technology evolves with them.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. Lauren kept asking me if Schuyler could come over tonight. I told her that Schuyler and Julie were eating with a friend and tonight was not a good night. However, maybe someday soon she can come over and we can have a soccer game.

Tagged

I made it into this week's Tagged!, a weekly video series about books on the Barnes and Noble website. It's hosted by Molly Pesce, who I believe used to be on that iVillage show. My mention is maybe a third of the way in. They used lots of floating head photos, which was nice.

Sometimes I get it right, and others times not so much.

Travelers
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob

One of the things about Schuyler's condition that you might not know is that it causes her to drool at times. It's the same thing that makes her mouth unable to form consonants, a lack of sensitivity that causes her to slobber without necessarily always feeling it on her face. It could be much worse; in some kids with PMG, it actually manifests itself in partial facial paralysis.

I don't write about it very often because it's certainly not how I want her to be represented. Every now and then she gets made fun of for it, both in person and even online (including once by a "friend" of mine, although I doubt very much that she realizes that I know who it was). But all the same, it's part of life with Schuyler's monster, and it's part of who she is. No embarrassment, no shame, just a quick word (or even a discreet "wipe your mouth" gesture) and she takes care of it. But still, it's there and we deal with it.

Yesterday, she and I were waiting to pick up some food at a Chinese restaurant. We were both sitting there sort of lost in thought, and so when she started to drool, neither of us really took notice at first. When I finally saw it and took out the ever-present napkin to quickly wipe her face, I noticed a woman sitting a few seats down from us. She was watching us without even trying to hide her gaze.

Just about this time, our food was ready. I grabbed the bag, took Schuyler's hand and stepped toward the door, giving her face one last quick wipe. As I did so, we passed the woman. She looked down at Schuyler and then back at me.

"That's disgusting," she said.

I glanced down to see that Schuyler was a few steps ahead of me and couldn't hear me. I then looked at the woman and opened my mouth.

Maybe I was going to take advantage of this possible teaching moment to educate her about kids with disabilities. Or perhaps I was going to use my quick, cutting, fancy pants authorly wit to sting her with some erudite word missile that would cause her to stop and think about her lack of sensitivity. Or maybe, just maybe, I was going to offer a kind and forgiving word or two, something to make her small Grinchy heart grow three sizes that day.

"Fuck you," I said.

We walked out quickly as she stormed into the dining room, presumedly to find a boyfriend or husband to come give me a beat down.

And here's the thing. I'd love to be able to say that as I think back on that moment, I now have a handful of intelligent responses that I wish I'd used on her. But honestly? I keep coming back to "fuck you".

"Monster, Monster über alles..."

Well, it looks like Schuyler's Monster is going to be translated into German. The deal is in the works, by golly.

The first thing I did when I found out was go to one of those translation sites to see what "Schuyler's Monster" becomes in German.

Turns out, it's "Schuyler's Monster". Well now, that's not very Teutonic and menacing.