Library of Maternal Nagging

Time for you to learn some basic money handling skills. Now I’m not the Madea of Money, but I know a lil’ bit. Also, I have lots of hip hop albums that talk about money.

You have three coin banks. One for giving. One for saving. One for spending. All year, you go through couch cushions, car seats, probably my purse while I’m sleeping and you amass a small fortune. At the end of the year, I decide we are going to cash this all in. Deposit the Save to your account. Decide how we want to use money to make the world a better place with your Give. And BALL OUT OF MOTHERFUCKING CONTROL with the Spend.

So I decide that this is the morning for a grand lesson. We are going to deposit your savings into your account. Sure I could just take all your change for you and give you money, but I want you to HANDLE YOUR MONEY. 

“Number three: never trust no-bo-dy Your moms'll set that ass up, properly gassed up”

And I will. To teach you a lesson. This weekend at Target, you wanted to borrow the money until the banks opened on Monday. I turned into The Godfather. 

Or worse, Sallie Mae. 

You thought you had $60. I told you I would charge you 20% on the loan.  So spend 50 bucks today and next week pay me my fiddy plus the VIG of 10 bones. Or, wait and get your full duckets. 

This is like my Hood Marshmallow Test ...

... and you passed. You opted to wait until Monday. AND you understood the basic principle which is that borrowing money is not free. 

Cash rules everything around you. Not credit.

Anyhow, we go to our bank, Wells Fargo. I want you to experience depositing money into your savings account. The teller comes back with a funny pinched look ... their coin counting machine is broooooken. She’s so sorry.

I blink. Decide not to make a scene, as I’m sure they will arrest me and put you in foster care before 10:30.

Head to grocery store for Coinstar. Broken.

By now, the corners of your mouth are in your shoes. You SOOOOOO want to spend your Spend bank but you know I won’t let you because you pay yourself first.

We go to Capital One. I don’t have a bank account at Capital One. We go in and explain and ask for their coin counter ... they don’t have one. “Those things are always broken,” says the manager. 

Now the corners of my mouth are in my shoes.

“Well what do you do for customers who have coins?”

You know what this Capital One branch (1801 E. 51st in Austin) does? They get out trays that sort coins and paper tubes. If the morning is slow, as it was, they sit down with a six year old boy and his frazzled mom who is trying to teach him about money but is now late for work. The manager and a teller take a bank and carefully sort your hard-scrounged fortune into them and package your coins into satisfying rolls.

Mr. C. talked to you the whole time. He showed you how the tray works. He examined your foreign coins and talked to you about where they came from. He asked about your coin collection at home. 

Ms. A, the manager, laughed a big bright laugh with you and called you Captain America which is the way to your heart. 

And as I sat poking my finger into a paper tube, I realized that I needed to settle down and accept the lessons you were learning. 

I want you to know that plans don’t go as planned. Sometimes you gotta figure out another way to get what you want. You were learning visually - how these coins made dollars. You were counting. You learned that bankers are your partners.

I would be remiss if I didn’t put on my Hey Lady voice and say, “This is also a lesson about EXCELLENT customer service.” 

And most importantly? You learned that showing simple kindness can make someone’s day. I know that when I walked into Capital One I  probably had my stank face on due to frustration. They were nice to us and it turned everything around.

At the end, they placed your dividends into neatly labeled envelopes with the totals written on paper inside. They made no money off that transaction. 

But that interaction made me feel so good about the other accounts I have with Capital One? I’m not thinking banking. Banking with them never crossed my mind. I thought of them more as a credit card company. 

So the other day, I let you watch How To Train Your Dragon and you were delighted. I watched along with you, fell in love with that cat-dragon Toothless and chuckled at Viking bravado. 

Then I decided that you were finally old enough for me to let loose with some next level ruining.

ME: (during the scene where the kids are going to learn to ride their previously enslaved dragons) Hmm ... if I were those dragons and I had been taken away from my family and held captive in an arena where they FORCED me to fight for my life or be killed? I wouldn't be down with this. I would cook them all where they stand and try my best to fly home to you. I don't think it is fair that now the dragons have to ride the vikings around.

Then I shoved a handful of Cheetos in my mouth to take the edge off.

You thought for a while and you said, "The dragons should ride on top of the vikings for a while."

Hell yeah they should.

My first level of ruining was during your Thomas the Train era. Thomas the Train is CHOCK FULL of plantation mentality.

Think about it. All the trains are measured by how hard they work for Sir Topumhat. Steamies and diesels are pitted against each other. When the diesels try to prove their worth or demand equality, they are punished. Ah, yes, I found Uncle Thomas the Train disturbing.

Did I even think about not letting you watch? Nope. Because I value my kneecaps. And you would have taken a Fischer Price chainsaw to them if I made the house a no-Thomas zone.

And we loved Thomas together. I took you to see that thing when it was in town. I have a stash of about 10Gs worth of train and train accessories that I know will be flash points for ALL THE MELANCHOLY when you leave me for Princeton.

But none of that stopped me from speaking up when I didn't think something was fair. Or when I thought Thomas was being an asshole and nobody was calling him on his bullshit. 

I asked you how you thought the diesels felt? And if you felt like Thomas should apologize for what he said? I wondered out loud if the trains were paid to work this hard?

Sometimes you answered. Sometimes you didn't. But I just wanted you to think about the message you were being fed.

Some days I am STUNNED by how much WRONG our culture feeds to our kids. Don't even get me started about Rumpelstiltskin. That story says that if you're pretty, you can lie and break promises to people who helped you in your hour of need. Especially if they are ugly.

There's too much out there. I can't fight it by not allowing you to see it. You're gonna see it.  I can only fight it by teaching you to think critically about the stories you are told.

I'm very gentle with my ruining. I did not pull out my Marcus Garvey poster to draw parallels for you. I'll let you close that loop later. But I know that even a gentle ruining knocks a tiny bit of fairy dust off of your childhood.

You know what has become so very delightful about you? I now get verbal confirmation from you that my nagging is totes working.

ME: Hard work?

YOU: Pays off.

ME: (rubbing my hands) MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

YOU: Nobody else's mom is like this. What is wrong with you?

Whatevs.

Anyhow, you require less savings of my brain and more direct deposit. I tell-nag you more than I write-nag you. 

But one day when you are an adult ... an adult with an undergrad from Stanford and a doctorate from Yale who between chess, fencing and academic scholarships managed to code sweaters for the needy in Sibera who has married a person that I like and respect and the two of you NOT ONLY do not live with me, but have a wonderful property with private quarters, a champagne fountain and a flock of guinea fowl for me which you INSIST that I live in for part of the year ... yes, boy, when you are THAT adult, you might wonder where I was going with all of my crazy. So sometimes I'm going to write so  you can understand what I was trying to do with some aspects of my parenting. , 

The thing I am grappling with lately, is tackling the anti-black images that we are all bombarded with. Both subtle, and FOX News.

You aren't going to be a conscious brother by osmosis. I'm adjusting my lifestyle to show my work, so to speak.

For example, I normally buy Elle magazine. But I consume a lot of relevant beauty content from Essence/Ebony/Jet online. But now, I am going to get a subscription to every black magazine except King. You need to SEE black people on the coffee table. 

I have to make sure you know how I feel about little black girls and other black women. Lupita N'yongo is gracing the cover of Vogue this month and I must have taken you to the grocery store a billion times to see if it was in Austin yet. We did a little "Loo-pee-TAH!" conga line over to the magazine stand, only to see last month's cover girl.

This happened so many times that I thought you might start yelling, "GODDAMMIT! Still Charlize!"

I caaaarefully planned your introduction to the Huxtables. Not too early or you'd be bored. Not too late or you'd be JJ from Good Times.

It worked. You LOVE The Cosby Show. You want to be Theo. You love his haircut. You love the way he dresses.

That is all we watch at night. There are other good family programs, but hardly any where the black people are the protagonist. If they are, it is about how Jayquan grew up in the ghetto and survived anyway.

I will not teach you that you are a sidekick in the world. YOU are the main character and your life is not a tragedy you have to overcome.

Clearly no news programs. And no radio.

I have an entire playlist devoted to you being able to scream "WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT, YOUNG 'UN?" whenever an Isley Brothers song comes on.

When I just want something on the television, I play Brooklyn Castle for you. It blew your mind that a kid who looks closer to Biggie than Eminem could be brilliant. In fact, you kinda want to BE Justus Williams, and it tickles me SO MUCH.

YOU: The BROWN GUY? He's the BEST at CHESS?

But you know what hurts?  Already, you could hardly believe that the white kid in the movie was NOT the best player. Nowhere close to the best. You kept asking, incredulous, the brown boy is better?

I was a VORTEX OF THE FEELS. 

Well, to be accurate, the "feels" and the "pissed."

Curating your personal library is also a crusade. Finding enough well-written, beautifully illustrated children's books featuring black kids is exhausting. Everything is maaaaybe multicultural or "He ain't heavy, he's my lil' brother." 

We are in the process of writing a few of our own (under your CREATOR brand pillar). If you don't like something in the world, solve it.

I even think about the art in my house. For a while I had a looootta oil portraits of white folks. They were cumulatively creepy. Like an oil magnate's library. I put them in the bedroom. Because it cracked me up to watch my friends' faces - YOU SLEEP IN HERE? THEY'RE ALL ... WATCHING YOU!

But my warped sense of humor is mostly wasted on you right now. You'd just see a lot of white people. If I only find white faces worthy of display, what does that say to you?

Much to the relief of my friends, that rogue's gallery had to be taken down. Now that doesn't mean I replace all my art with black folks, but I am very conscious of the balance. 

Luckily, I have gorgeous family portraits to put up and the people in them are beautiful enough to qualify as art.

Also, I'm not above helping people be more inclusive. Sometimes it's nothing that a brown crayon can't fix ...

You're welcome, IKEA.

My other little tirade concerns crayons and worksheets and products. Adults are having a hard time learning that there is no such color as "flesh." Your color of flesh is flesh. So is mine. So is your grandfather's. So is Auntie Seng's. All of them. Unless it is clear? I don't want it described as "flesh" or "nude."

For the good of all you kids, mommy is going to have to teach some grownups a few lessons on color.

Okay, Scoops. I want you to know how important a good teacher is. I know that right  now, you think teachers are as awesome as ... I don't know ... toothpaste? But as you grow up you'll realize that being stupid and having stanky breath are two of the worst things you can wish upon a person.

I include both of these things when I'm composing a curse.

Anyhow, this woman taught ME how to teach YOU how to tie your shoes.

I also feel that you should know that you yelled, "NOT FAIR! WHY DO I HAVE TO TIE MY SHOES?!"

More than once.

And I did not fling your tiny Marie Antoinette self into a tree. I just stared at you and named all the people who are forced to debase themselves daily by tying their own shoes.

But what I love about this woman is that she taught ME how to teach YOU. You picked it up in no time flat, even though you didn't like to practice it. Her method is creative and simple and does not include a motherfucking bunny ear nor require that I disjoint a finger.

Your Auntie Ty is a firm believer in taking classes. I think that if you count up all the workshops at Second City and Continuing Ed classes she has taken, she has two PhDs and a Masters. It keeps her inspired.

In that way, she has taught me to always be on the lookout for a teacher. When you stumble across a good one, it is always a delight.

Mommy volunteers with a group that helps refugees. One of the things we do is called a sewing club that offers sewing lessons, socializing and English practice. My sewing is meh, but I know enough to help out. 

One Sunday, another group was working on a cookbook. One of our clients came in and made a dish from his native Cuba. 

OH THE NOMS THAT WERE NOM NOMMED.

It was so delicious and simple that I came home and whipped an entire pan up. And you know that is as likely as saying I came home and made a unicorn pop out of linen closet. 

I found a teacher when I was supposed to be teaching someone else. And he didn't even know he was teaching me. 

Delightful.

My childhood was filled with teachers. They were like gardeners pushing bulbs. My great aunt Honey was an elegant experimenter, filling my days with imagination and testing my skills in an invisible battery of encouragement and evaluation. A tray of beads for stringing. An abacus. Books from a much higher grade level than the one in which I resided. It seems so simple, but now I see the strategy and the strategist that sat at her table with demurely crossed legs.

My grandmother enrolled in a program that would teach her how to teach me.

You are going to have a time in your life where it will be chic among your tribe to complain about your teachers. My job is to try to make that nearly impossible for you to do. I want you to be honest, boy boy, before you say "UGH, SCHOOL SUUUUUCKS" I want you to think about something. Do you really mean that school sucks? Or do you mean that you would rather be doing something else right now? Because you should say that instead. 

I can tell you that as a working adult, you'll feel that way a lot. I'd rather be sleeping. I'd rather be writing. I'd rather be spending time with you, letting you ask me really awkward questions about my body parts. I will admit that I've said NO FAIR! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO NEW YORK AND STAY AT THE SOHO GRAND AND MEET NEW PEOPLE AND JUDGE AWARD SHOWS AND EAT GOOD FOOD.

Then I punch myself in the face and move on, because that is what an adult does.

Okay son, settle in. I'm about to tell you an EPIC TALE of your uncle. 

Lawrence. Lee. Leonard.

Lawrence Lee Leonard married my aunt, Vicki when I was about 10 years old. I was an only child and I lived with my great aunt, great uncle, and my grandmother (Emmazine, Uncle B and Delle). I was also a Chaucer-reading nerdball.

In other words, I had NOBODY to play with. EVER.

And then came LAWRENCE LEE LEONARD.

Lawrence Lee loved to play board games. Specifically Monopoly. And he didn't mind playing with a ten year old.

The object of our family Monopoly playing was to own every cheap property between the GO and the JAIL.

Let me set the stage …

You're supposed to take all the houses off  the board when you replace them with a hotel. I didn’t know that until I was an adult.  We kept all four houses AND the hotel on the board. That stretch with all that development was TERRIFYING. You were afraid to pass GO, because you were about to have to pay a BILLION dollah to some Monopoly slumlord.

I learned to unabashedly enjoy playing passionately, winning hilariously and losing gracefully from Lawrence Lee.

He was animated and FUN and never in a rush. He wanted to play until the bitter end and then some. If he was moving his shoe or iron or whatever his token was, he was going BOOP. BOOP. BOOOOOOOOOOP, as he slid past a property that would have bankrupted him. Then he’d wipe his brow with the curtains.

This one time? Lawrence Lee totally destroyed me. I landed on property that was so loaded? I STILL have to send him a small envelope of Monopoly money every month. THE RENT WAS TOO DAMN HIGH.

When my little top hat landed on that space?

Lawrence Lee threw all HIS money in the air, jumped to his feet and ran out the door.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

We heard feet running down the stairs. We heard the front door open. We got up and looked out the window. Lawrence Lee had his arms triumphantly raised in the air and was running out of the yard, and into the street. We watched him disappear down the block at full speed. A few minutes later, he reappeared from the opposite direction — still running at top speed. This man had Prefontained around an entire square block. We saw him run toward the house. we heard the front door shut. Heard him running up the stairs. He arrived back in the room, grinning like a crazy person, fists clenched and waving in the air.

LAW'INCE LEE LENARDT (that’s not a typo, he should make his name all sharp at the end when he was particularly proud) GETS ALLLLLLLL YOUR CASH AND ASSETS. DEPOSIT THEM ALL IN THIS HERE BOX.

Then he helped me count my sad little money.

“Twenty-eight … twenty–nine … AW, NAW! You owe me … lemme see … nine thousand five hunnert two dollars and semty-three cent!”

Then he sat next to me. He looked into my eyes and said, “Now if you want to do the dishes for the next week, I might be able to make you a small loan?”

I lost. He gloated. I didn't need therapy.

Lawrence Lee inspired the house rule that I’m sure you have heard a million times by now.

You’re not allowed to be a sore loser. However, you’re allowed to be a OBNOXIOUS winner, as long as you are entertaining. You can strut, yell, whoop, laugh, talk shit, rip your shirt off with the joy of it all.

One thing I miss about spending holidays with your dad's family is the board game showboat-fest. Your grandmother SCREAMS with joy when she beats your grandfather at Connect Four. 

Your grandfather is very elegant. He says nothing until he wins. Stuff like, "You may call me ... The Count."

Now, let’s talk about a football player named Richard Sherman.

The conclusion of this one game was the stuff that movies are made of, a Cinderella story with cleats. Last play of the game, the hero saves the day and the game by foiling his antagonist. Who then TOTALLY SHOVED HIM IN THE FACE when he returned to be sportsman-like.

And then? They interviewed him ...

I believe that if journalists are on the sidelines of a competition, and you go on the battlefield to interview someone, you are trying to get a real, honest, passionate response. You want to know what they are really thinking when they live that moment.

That is what he really felt. At that moment.

People got mad. They called him “pure ghetto trash.” They called him “a thug.”

I didn’t like that language. Nothing that he said was thuggish. The worst name-calling  he did was call the opposing player “sorry.”

There’s a wonderful, wonderful article on Deadspin.  They say you can’t be black, talented AND arrogant. America can only accept two out of the three. Three of the three are scary and distasteful.

I’m not going to go too far into that.  Some folks are just plain racist. Others are prejudiced and so entrenched in the idea that they are NOT. RACIST. that they can’t see where prevailing culture miiiiight be clouding their judgement.

But I want you to know about a misunderstanding that happens a lot between people of different cultures/religions that are otherwise doing an amazingly harmonious job of being honest and awesome together.

Some non-black people that I care about and respect didn’t like Sherman’s rant. Like, had an EMOTIONAL, PASSIONATE, I'M-GOING-TO-UNFRIEND-YOU response to it.  

NOTE: These are not racist people. None of these people called Sherman anything like “thug” or “pure ghetto trash.” Those people, my son, are poop-heads and have some SERIOUS prejudices. Although I’m SURE they have black friends and/or have dated a black guy.

 Anyhooooo …

Not talking about them. I’m talking about intelligent, loving, wonderful people who felt like the rant was poor sportsmanship.

Not everybody grew up with Lawrence Lee. But I believe that many African Americans did. Culturally, we find passion and in-context trash talking to be reasonable parts of competition.

Hey Lady was trying to read up on this incident this morning:

HEY LADY: Okay, now what did he say that was so thuggish?

ME: I think you saw it.

HEY LADY: No, I only saw the thing where he said something about messing with the best.

ME: Right.

HEY LADY: But where is the one that made everybody mad?

ME: That one.

HEY LADY: What one? I want to see the one where he said all this AWFUL stuff?

ME: Exactly. I can also tell you who is on first. May I have more bacon, please?

Still, we can all agree that they’re not going to play this clip in your P.E. class as an example of sportsman-like behavior. Sherman acknowledges that.

But for a lot of black people I know? Including me? The way that people were so quick to call Sherman these loaded names? That FAR outweighs the issue of sportsmanship. 

And when our loving, intelligent people do not see that as the higher crime? That hurts a bit.

Then the loving and intelligent people are surprised that we don’t agree. Because on any other day, we can talk about athletes' conduct and agree, not knowing that sometimes we don't really agree. Our sportsman-O-meters are calibrated far differently.

Then they are hurt.

Then everyone is sad and stuck.

I’m sad and stuck about it, still. Not sure what to do. If I were more like Michael Jackson, I’d grab both their wrists and lead both sides in an amazing choreographed dance.  I’m still thinking this whole thing out and trying to find a salon that can give me a Jheri-curl in my locs.

But what I want for YOU, Pumpkins, is to be able to recognize these moments. Sometimes when people stumble upon a cultural difference when they have been SO harmonious, it gets a little turnt up emotionally, which makes it hard to navigate. 

This is a part of the nuances of discussions around race. And not being aware of them can make good people wary of discussing their honest feelings.

You should also know this: The good people of America are lucky that your mother doesn’t play professional football. I would have wheeled a barbeque grill on the field. When they asked what I was doing? I would’ve said, “I’M SMOKIN’ THESE RIBS LIKE I JUST SMOKED CRABTREE’S ASS.”  

Then I would have done a little Katt Williams pimp-giggle.

Then there’d be fireworks across the sky that read SUCK IT, BITCH.

Then, MEANING YOU, CRABTREE. 

DO YOU WANT SOME OF THESE TASTY RIBS?

So I'm totally about to put you ahead of the game when it comes to romance. 

Although, I'm not sure you should listen to your mother on this one, since because I'm on the bullet train to spinsterhood. Only instead of 5, 324 cats I've got 100 pounds of really smelly dog. 

Still, my #teamspinster situation doesn't mean that I can't gently lead you past the painfully corny things that young people do.

Most of what is considered "romantic" totally blows.

Rose petals on the bed. Chocolate. Teddy bears. Even worse? Fon-fucking-due. You give a girl any of that and you deserve a flaming bag of poop in your dresser drawer full of Dockers.

Do you know how I figured out what the secret to romance is? Amelie. It's a movie. Go watch. I'll wait here. 

I'm trying to teach you to be curious. To be a creator. To be creative. When you apply those things to your life, your life is an adventure. When you apply those traits to a relationship? Your relationship is romantic.

Also? You gotta swashbuckle. For example ... 

Guy and girl meet in a crowded party. Chemistry. It is closing time and each is suddenly being pulled in different directions by the crowd and their friends. They are about to lose each other forever ... what can he do? 

He throws her his phone and calls it the next day.

This isn't from a movie. This really happened. It was one of the most romantic things I had ever heard of. It's something SO unusual and SO bold that I remember it fifteen years later and it didn't even happen to me.

See? A little bit of swashbuckling is important. Originality. Risk taking. That's what a good romantic gesture is made of.

Repeating the same thing all the time is a way that people try to express affection but in a really safe way. There's a certain amount of vulnerability in a truly original gesture. 

So she might look at you like you're nuts and tell you that she just wanted fondue like all her other girlfriends. And it'll probably crunch your feelings a little.

But don't fret long, cookie-pants! That's great! Now you KNOW that she sucks and get rid of her. She's boring.

And you have to get rid of her, because I'm going to be bored by her and you know how unruly I get when bored.

If you consider keeping her, remember that I am VERY creative. I will totally announce a rousing game of Booger on the Fork right before Thanksgiving dinner.

Okay, so your 5th birthday party nearly made me have to tear off all my clothes and run screaming down the street nekkid. A party planner I am not. However, you had figured out exactly what the Beastie Boys were fighting for all this time and you wanted a party.

I wanted a superhero party that made me feel like supermom, thus this thing was 5,000% harder than it had to be.

I couldn't even get the weather to cooperate. Normally I'm in a tasteful one piece swimsuit in December. The day of your party was officially supposed to have THE WORST WEATHER OF THE YEAR. I had to pull a last minute venue change.

One of my main objectives with this party was fooling Pinterest into thinking I'm awesome. Most of the ideas I had? Didn't have time to execute at the party. But my mommy, seeing me looking all poopy, convinced me to set it up all cute again at home and take pictures. 

SUBTERFUGE ACCOMPLISHED. AWESOME RESTORED.

I want you to know that's a big part of the job of mama ... making kids feel awesome. And when I see your little booty in that Captain America costume with that smile on your face? 

I think I did my job.

Episode 3: Meet Pearl the strategic planner for AMSDEN™.

EPISODE 2: EEEEEEEEVIL.

People mostly think my new parenting ideas are cool ... until they find out I'm an Executive Creative Director at an advertising agency. Then I'm a hair EVIL. Aren't I a little manipulative? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

EPISODE 1: WHAT IS THIS CRAZY SHIT? WHERE IS MY NAGGING?

These are very special volumes in the Library Of Maternal Nagging. I'm working on a little project. I'm going to see if I can sell Amsden on himself - or at least the man I'd like him to be. I'm going to supplement my nagging with posts about my manipulation. MAMAS! THROW YO HANDS UP AT ME!

So in my quest to advertise you into greatness, the first thing to do is to create a brand.  

Your brand will not be based on what kind of career I want you to pursue, but what kind of man I want you to be.

I can't really do anything about the career path you choose. But let me put in a plea against these–the NBA, the NFL, rapper, rapper entourage, travel agent, drug dealer (Glaxo Smith Kline/food manufacturer) and any sort of engineering. I never met an engineer whose job I can understand. You do fucking what for Accenture? No, sir, you may not buy me a drink.

Also? A job at Monsanto will make me feel like I have failed you as a mother. I don't care how much money it pays you.

Yours will be based on the man that I want you to be when you are 25. I've been imagining you at 25. Post college. Or mid-startup. Or both. (I SEE YOU, STARTER LEAGUE BOYS). I'm watching actual 25 year olds of today? What traits do I want to encourage and discourage?

You need some brand pillars. What do you stand for? When people think of you, the man, how do I want them to describe you? 

Normally a planner would have the lead on this kind of thinking but I'm yo mama and that kinda makes me a client. No point in pulling in the strategic planner if i have no concept of where I want to go. At least an idea that she can help me vet and grow.

When I'm working on a problem at the ad agency, I always leave my computer keys and pick up a pen. So I have been doodling and scribbling on your behalf. I debated straightforward qualities like, CURIOSITY. 

Or perhaps taking more license, like SWASHBUCKLER.

I felt like I was cheating a little with that. I'm cramming a bunch of things into one word. Swashbuckler means bold and daring risk taker, a bit of a romantic figure. Prone to adventure. Courageous. A bit brash and confident.

That's one word and 46 things to do to get you there.

Is that good? Too big?

I'm meeting with your planner.

That's funny. You have a nanny and a strategic planner. How many kids that aren't named Kardashian can say that?

So this began on the Twitter (@FlyLibrarian), where I rant about a hodgepodge of stuff - motherhood, advertising, revenge, square-toed loafers and stuff. Mostly I just try to figure out how I can live my life like I'm Cindy Gallop. All of the awesome and the occasional dollop of ... that other thing she's known for.

DON'T GOOGLE THAT, BOY. IF I WANTED YOU TO KNOW, I WOULD HAVE MADE IT A LINK.

You have reached an age where you start trying on and absorbing so much of what's around you. I have to be careful of your circle of influence. For example, if you watch a bunch of cartoons that are a little advanced for your age, I get a lot of smart ass ninja turtle responses like, "Chill out, mom-dude."  

You are hyper-sensitive to all the emotions around you. You absorb them and play them back because you think that is what you are supposed to do.

It was bumming me out a little. This planting the seeds of a man thing is hard. And they say that this time until you are seven is key in establishing your values and adult mindset. What if I blow it? What if I forget something? WHY CAN'T I MAKE YOU STOP BITING YOUR TOENAILS IN KUNG FU CLASS? AND WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR YOUR FUTURE?

Then it hit me ...

I persuade people to do stuff for a living. AND I'm a black man's mama. Technically, I should have all the juice in the world when it comes to you.

Now being a Creative Director and momming are notoriously unfriendly to each other. But I'm gonna drag both into a room and force them to make nice. Or no pie after dinner.

I'm going to use what I know (advertising) to tamp down my fear of the unknown (parenting). In advertising, I can detach a little and focus on what needs to be done. In parenting, I'm all LAWD JESUS HOW AM I GOING TO GET HIM TO SIT HIS ASS DOWN FOR CIRCLE SHARING TIME? IT'S GODDAMN CIRCLE TIME, not ORBITING ELECTRON TIME. DO I HAVE TO SHOW UP AT SCHOOL AND STAPLE YOU TO THE FLOOR? 

Sometimes. Sometimes I'm like that.

Anyhoooo, I'm all excited about introducing you to your brand. I have even recruited a planner, (HAAAAAAAAI, PEARL!) because I'm a bit on the obsessive side. You are my focus group of one. I am going to use everything I know about influence to get you to stay true to your brand - the gentleman you'll be when you're 25.

I can't wait to create your brand identity, do some research, get some briefs going and get started on some solutions.

I might even make you a logo.

Okay, so when you're reading a book and someone asks you how it is, you can only give an incomplete answer. Because it ain't over yet. And you don't have any distance from the book. No perspective.

You can only give a full, considered assessment once you have finished the book.

When someone close to you dies, a book closes. There will be no more heartbreaking tragedy. No more love story. No more near misses with mountain trolls. Characters will give you nothing else to love or fear or desire. It has happened. There will be no more narrative.

My father's book is closed.

It was an odd book. You should know that by now. 

But I want you to know that when the book closes on a difficult character that was close to you, your mind will try to heal that relationship. I know that it sounds crazy. But I believe that it is a part of a healthy autonomic system.

It will feel better if you have taken some steps toward letting it do so while that person was still alive.

My mom would try to tell me that and I thought she was crazy. She wanted me to call my dad. See how he was doing. Tell him what i was doing. Send him a picture.

I would put down my prized Nicki Minaj voo doo doll and calmly inform her that if she wanted to talk to her ex-boyfriend, she should call him.  

She didn't want to talk to him. She just knew that I needed to.

I still kept my hard candy shell, though. In principle, I was determined to keep my father at arm's length so that he could do no more damage. There could be no more disappointment. I wanted to keep my expectations low. I held on to that basic idea so tightly that I couldn't see that he had not disappointed me in any particular way in 20 years.

If you love someone and the relationship is difficult, try not to set your feelings in stone. Keep examining it from new angles. You will see it differently as you age, as your forget things, after you have a demanding job, after you have your own son.

This morning when I was driving to work, I reeeally wanted to tell my dad that I love him. I knew that that would have made him happy. Oh we told each other at the end of conversations. We had worked our way to that much. But at the end of a conversation,  it can take on the feeling of "Whut up, Home Skillet?"

This morning, I wanted to tell him a heavy, straight up, I love you. Not for anything he did or didn't do for me. But because I don't have to look in the mirror to know that a certain smile that I smile is his. I like that smile.

My father's smile says, "I am totally amused by this shit" and "I just might have to shoot one of these motherfuckers" all at the same time.

You would be surprised at how useful I find that particular expression. I'm in advertising.

Oh who are we kidding? I use that look at the Piggly Wiggly. 

Anyhow, I want you to know about how I feel today. One day I might need to find the words that make you understand that sometimes feelings trump logic. Sometimes you should put down your voo doo doll and gently, carefully, let them allow you to see things differently.