Frat Boy: Gracie - The Gala Part 1

Stunning.

This wasn’t any ordinary Formal, this was a Gala. This was a celebration of our SAI chapter as the oldest running chapter in existence. We were at The Drake Hotel, one of Chicago’s most beloved landmarks on the North section of the Magnificent Mile.

I was graduated at this point from my undergrad but continued at Northwestern for my graduate studies. Diana, my girlfriend (and my future wife) is two years younger than me, so she was still an active undergrad member of SAI.

Most people finish their time as an officer of PMA or SAI at the end of winter quarter and only have the spring to deal with watching younger people take over and than they leave. This is a difficult transition because for years you work at making an organization better and then you pass on these jobs to younger members.

No one is really in office for more than two or three years so sometimes the institutional memory doesn’t get passed on and young officers. This is a very inefficient way to run an organization if constant growth was a goal. However, the goal of PMA and SAI wasn’t for the organization to be in a constant upwards trajectory. Instead these organizations existed to help people bond and learn how to run an organization. The rotating officers, and having older people let go, was a great way to accomplish this task.

I did let go, but I was still a presence. I came to PMA and SAI events and I was often asked for my help and advice when dealing with issues. It was hard after being the music director watching the new music director try to figure out the gig, but it was okay and anyways, I had other priorities.

As this big SAI Gala started to come to together, the girls in SAI asked if the PMA guys would sing at this event. This was unusual as the PMA would usually only sing at their Formal and SAI would sing at their own. However, this was a special event and SAI extended the invitation. The current music director didn’t get invited to the SAI Gala, so I was asked to conduct the PMA as they sang a couple songs, and I happily agreed to help out.

The Gala was huge. Usually only undergrads showed up to Formals, but many SAI alumni showed up. There were much older people who had graduated before I was born who came and then there were those SAI members who took care of me when I was a freshmen, since graduated, who came back for the celebration.

It was such a great feeling to see all of these people again, introduce them to Diana and show tell them about how I had “grown up.” I remember seeing Gracie walk in. It had been more than two years since she graduated and we last talked. During that time, my resentment towards her had built. Not because of anything she had done during this time but because of how I felt that I had been mislead by her.

Gracie had her way of doing things, and her view on the way that SAI and PMA should run. I found that many of her opinions didn’t hold true now that my class was in power. For some reason this felt like a power grab and a way for her to manipulate me. Of course, this is silly. She had graduated and of course her views would be different than mine. As much as our organizations stayed the same, they also changed a lot. My negative feelings towards her, were more about my own insecurities and my inability to let go, more than it was about any bad things she really did to me.

When I saw her, I made every effort to avoid her (I know, reeeeal mature). This wasn’t really difficult since we had different crowds that we hung out with at this event. So everything went really smoothly.

I was so excited as I tried to settle down the PMA guys to sing. I gave them the pitch of our first song and we joined together in song. As we sang, I felt the positive energy coming from the guys and the girls behind me cheering us on. It had been almost a year since I last conducted these guys and it was a great feeling performing with them once again.

After the set, I left the ballroom to go to the bathroom, still feeling the adrenaline high from the performance. As I walked down the hall back to the ballroom, Jessica came running up to me. She was distressed and out of breath.  Jessica told me about what had happened in detail while I was gone, but all I heard was “Gracie,” “Diana,” and “fight.” The positive adrenaline and energy in my body, immediately turned into anger and without responding to Jessica, I pushed into ballroom.

Parenthood: Week 111 – Screen Time

The first time Ollie had screen time was when he was six days old. We settled down to watch The Expendables.  He slept through the entire film but it was some high quality daddy-son screen time.


There’s a lot of concern about the amount of “screen time” our children are getting. The pervasiveness of smart phone has made access to screen time omnipresent. There’s articles linking screen time to all kinds of disorders and dysfunctions, which have made some parents illogically concerned about screen time while other parents don’t seem to notice at all that letting their kid stare at a screen for most of that kid’s waking hours is a bad idea.

I’m not a psychologist or a sociologist. Nothing I’m saying here is based on any research. Like most things on this blog, my thoughts on screen time and children are based on my experiences.

Screen time has been a very important way for my family to acquire cultural knowledge. Like I discussed in this blog post about Bill Cosby, television helped my parents learn and understand what it meant to be American. Television and film opened the world to me and helped me become a more empathetic and understanding human being while video games helped create some of my favorite memories with my brother.

I agree that we need monitor much screen time our children have, but cutting out screen time or setting time limits doesn’t really address this issue. First off, as we’ve seen in the realm of sex education, abstinence education doesn’t work. Teaching our children to abstain from sex, alcohol, fatty foods, video games, and television and internet creates narrow-minded individuals who don’t have the tools to control life’s pleasures and interact with society.

Yes, it’s easier to simply cut things out of your children’s lives but that doesn’t mean that it’s better. I hate it when Ollie has meltdowns when we turn off the television, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up helping him learn how to watch television in appropriate doses. It is essential that we help our children learn to moderate the pleasures in their lives.

Not all screen time is created equal. Watching Sesame Street with your child and encouraging your kid to answer the questions asked by the characters is very different than sitting you kid in front of a show, not meant for their age and leaving them alone. I would rather watch an hour of an appropriate show with Ollie than let him zone out for 15 minutes watching a show like South Park (I love South Park btw, I just don’t think it’s right for Ollie).

As a parent, I am so grateful for the pervasiveness of screen time. Have you ever had to go to the bathroom when you are alone with a child and needed to use a grocery store bathroom? If it wasn’t for Elmo on youtube, I have no idea how I would have got Ollie to stand in that bathroom while I did my business.  Plane rides without iPhones would make a difficult experience with Ollie, excruciating. Besides these more difficult situations, I’ve had a lot of joyous moments watching television with Ollie.

I can’t describe how wonderful it feels to watch reruns of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and have him hear the same message of emotional acceptance and the importance of loving yourself that I did as a child. Hearing him giggle uncontrollably when watching monkeys on Planet Earth was adorable (they don’t want to get their paws wet, sooo cute).



Also, there's Peter, Paul and Mary concert footage with Ollie that I remember watching with my brother. There’s also seeing pictures of his family on the iPad and regular FaceTime conversations with his Popo (my mom), which are highlights of our day whenever they occur. Screen time has not only relieved stress as a parent but has helped Ollie connect with the world around him and his family.

Don’t get me wrong, Diana and I are very conscientious about the amount of screen time and we are not going to let Ollie become a zombie. However, it’s important that acknowledge screen time and all the technology that it includes for how it can enrich our children’s lives.

The screen time thing is really tough to manage.  Right now, Ollie is off of anything that has Elmo.  For some reason when Elmo gets turned off, he melts down worse than when he's watching something else.  I know I will battle Ollie with screen time, and I'm not looking forward to those fights but they are going to be worth it in the long run.

We as a society will continue to struggle manage the way screen time impacts our lives.  The negative consequences of our failure, allowing screen time to cut us off from each other is looming but the way technology can bring us together and make our face to face interactions more meaningful is a possibility that our children deserve.

Frat Boy: Formal

In high school, except for one exception, I didn’t really like dances, but in college I loved formal dances, which we simply called Formals.

If you want to read about me learning to love dancing in college check out this post.  This story also has a related this related link to a story about a how, a current New Yorker editor helped me learn to embrace what I loved about music and myself. 

In high school, dances consisted of making dinner reservations at some fancy restaurant, somehow making our way to the school, taking a picture, awkwardly standing around for a dance or two and then sometimes going to an after-party. When you were an underclassmen, transportation consisted of parents or older siblings.  When you were older you could drive or because of peer pressure you rented a limo.

I didn’t like dancing and the effort put into being seen and doing things a certain way felt disingenuous and kind of silly.

After the ladies of SAI taught me how to dance and the gentlemen of PMA helped me embrace the fun and silliness of dance parties, I looked forward to any opportunity to dance. It was liberating, fun and one of the best ways to relieve the stress of academics.  In my group of friends there was nothing sketchy about what we were doing on the dance floor and anything that seemed to approach more risqué dancing moves were more silly than sexual.

My frat had a Formal every spring. Our Formals looked like this. We walk over and get our dates (most of which were in SAI) and present a bouquet of flowers (not a corsage).  We would make our way to PMA and all pile into a rented school bus. The bus would take us to some kind of banquet hall in a hotel. Everyone would eat dinner in the room, like in a wedding reception. And after dinner we would dance. Then the formal would end, we would all climb into the school bus, which would drive us back to the frat house.

The guys would suit up and the girls would were nice dresses. However, unlike in high school the girls wouldn’t buy a new dress for each formal. More often than not they would reuse a dress or trade dresses with their sorority sisters for variety.

The school bus seemed weird at first but it was actually a really nice way for us to have some fun on the way to the location and take away the issue of driving. We’d hire a DJ and photographer. There would usually be a cash bar, and the food varied in quality depending on the location. A nice view was a plus, but in general, no one really cared. We just wanted an excuse to dress and get down with our “family.”

That was the main reason that these Formals were so much fun. It really felt like a family event. Most of the people who came were people from marching band, SAI and PMA. These were people we lived with, ate our meals with in Saga and defined the community that made our social group feel like a family.

At Formals we had our traditions. Being a music fraternity we had a way of singing grace and performing as a men’s choir toward the end of the night, which was a highlight for everyone involved. SAI had their formal within a couple weeks of ours and that was also a really fun event that had a similar format and vibe. I loved those events as well.

Formals are really a unique event. Getting together with a large group of friends for the purpose of being together and dancing just doesn’t happen in adulthood past college. The only thing that approaches Formals is wedding receptions. I’ve been to some really fun ones that are really meaningful but they are different. It’s just a different energy with multiple generations and the focus on one couple celebrating their union.

This lack of a focus on celebrating a specific event but rather purely celebrating life is what made these events so wonderful. Formals taught me that its worth putting in time and energy simply for the sake of getting friends together to have a good time. You don’t need a major life event to party; you just need good friends. Th Formals were a reminder of this fact and its something I forget when I feel too tired to call up friends or feel like I need an excuse to have fun.

A Formal may seem like just a bunch of college kids getting their party on, but it's so much more.  It's the feeling of losing yourself in dance, surrounded by friends, feeling no embarrassment, only freedom.  It's a feeling of energy, of love and of life.  It is the expression of the human spirit and most importantly a damn good time.  

Sharing Ollie's New Couch

Parenthood: Week 110 – Ollie Do It

One of the proudest moments I’ve had as a parent was about two months ago, when I was showing Ollie how to open a water bottle. Instead of taking my help, he pushed my hand away and insisted “Ollie do it.”

Since then, “Ollie do it,” has become a common phrase in our household. Sometimes it’s from Ollie telling Diana and me that he wants to figure out something by himself. Other times it’s Diana and I reminding Ollie that he can do something with out her helping. The best is after Ollie accomplishes something like putting together a puzzle and proudly exclaiming “Ollie do it!”

As parents, it’s wonderful to feel needed. This unique sense of responsibility and the knowledge that your child wants you to comfort her more than anyone else in the world is really special.  However it’s important that we help instill a sense of independence and the sense of pride that only comes from doing something without assistance.

We aren’t tough parents when it comes to pushing Ollie to gain independence. We didn’t push Ollie to learn how to walk.  There’s really been no “tough love,” that I can remember with Ollie. Teaching children to be independent isn’t about being demonstrative or creating traumatic situations for children to struggle through.

Helping our kids become more independent is about teaching through small playful tasks. Teaching Ollie how to undress and dress himself has been a lot of fun. It started with him helping me take off my shirt. Then I showed him where to put his hands and how to maneuver his arms. He doesn’t get it all of the time, but when he does he’s really proud of himself.

We show Ollie how to clean things up around the house.  He’s not really good at it, but he tries and enjoys the activity. That’s something that you need to keep in mind with toddlers. When we teach them these tasks, we need to accept that fact that by our standards, they are doing a really poor job. But that’s okay, because when Ollie sweeps the floor, it’s not about cleaning the floor but rather Ollie learning how to contribute to the family household and becoming more independent.

At times “Ollie do it,” can become a cry of annoyance when Ollie refuses help for something he’s not able to do (mostly because of safety reasons). This kind of "independence" can be difficult to deal with but it pales to the joy that comes from the growing number of things that Ollie can do without our assistance.

As parents we want to be loved by our children.  Some parents think that if they remain needed by their children and don't teach them how to be independent, then their kids will always be around, and that  may feel like love.  However, if we teach our kids to be their own people, they will come back to us not to ask us to do things for them but rather to share in the joys of life.  Their love will be based on the pride we have given them, not the things we do for them.

As Ollie learns how to do for himself, we learn how to do for Ollie, helping him to be his own person and face the world with us, not because he needs our help but rather because he wants to share the joys of future adventures.

Frat Boy: Gracie - The Bad

When Gracie told me that she approved of my first girlfriend I had in college, I was really annoyed.

I was a sophomore and while I still saw Gracie around and thought of her as a friend I didn’t need her like I did the previous year. It was Gracie and a group of girls that made me feel welcome at Phi Mu Alpha parties. For this and many other instances in which she made an effort to bring me into the fold, I was grateful.

But I wasn’t a kid anymore.

Over time, I had overheard people complaining about Gracie. People would say that she was controlling and was a know-it-all. Yes, Gracie did like things to go a certain way, but that way was to be inclusive and yes she did talk authoritatively about PMA, SAI and NUMB but the reality was that more often than not she knew what she was talking about.

So I played by Gracie’s rules. I took her advice during my first election at PMA, which I won. We talked about the politics of our fraternities often and she never stopped standing up for me.

The more I grew into my own person, the more I became a leader in the organization, the more distance there was between Gracie and me. She would always give me an enthusiastic hug when she saw me, especially at parties, but we had less and less to talk about.

I was walking on campus on a beautiful spring day and Gracie saw me and we stopped to talk. She told me that she heard about this girl I was with, who was a new member of SAI,  I wasn’t surprised that she had heard the gossip, but I was taken aback when she told me that she “approved” of me going out with this girl.

Yes, Gracie once upon a time really was my “college-mom” but in a year, I had grown up and out of needing her to take care of me. While I did care about what she thought, the fact that she felt that her approval was important to me didn’t feel right.

We have people who look out for us at points in our life when we need help and Gracie was really there for me.  But I couldn’t help shake the feeling that while I grew up, she didn’t see that in me. Later I would understand how hard it is to let go of being in a place of influence in an organization and watch the younger crowd take over. But at the moment, I felt like she was being condescending. Maybe this was simply the way that Gracie showed that she cared, and I just took it the wrong way.

Some relationships take decades to develop and be fully explored. Other relationships take years to pan out while some arch in even shorter periods of time. At the end of that year, when Gracie graduated, I knew we were done. Towards the end, Gracie and I had gotten in some disagreements and there was tension surrounding her from others as well. Most of us just brushed it as her just being herself.

Sometimes in life we decide a fight isn’t worth it, but sometimes the battles we let go lead to even bigger conflicts. And telling myself “Gracie was just being Gracie” came back in a way that I never expected.

Frat Boy: Gracie - The Good

"What I've got they used to call the blues Nothing is really wrong, feeling like I don't belong. . ."

As the sound of Karen Carpenter’s voice mournfully singing these words from “Rainy Days And Mondays,” filled my dorm room the steady patter of rain accompanied my feelings of loneliness.

The rush and excitement of freshmen year band camp was over. Classes had started and everyone seemed to settle into the rhythm of the year. Everyone seemed to have a place, and a group of friend except for me.

Northwestern University Marching Band (NUMB) had welcomed me with open arms a couple weeks earlier. I spent all my free time hanging out with NUMB'ers during band camp and in the first couple weeks of school. Because I had spent so much time with NUMB people, I never got to know the other freshmen in my dorm and there really weren’t that many people in NUMB that lived in my dorm.

NUMB was great but after rehearsals ended I wasn’t sure what to do. People talked about hanging out but I didn’t know how to reach out and get myself involved. I knew of Phi Mu Alpha (which I discuss getting into in this post), but I wasn’t quite ready to knock on their door.

For those first couple weeks, after eating dinner, I would do some homework in my dorm room (which was a single) and watch a DVD by myself. This seemed okay but the loneliness built up. Every freshman has that night when they hit the bottom and don’t feel like they belong at college. For me that night sitting n my room and listening to the Carpenters.

Then a got a message over Instant Messenger (old-school online texting).

     Gracie: Do you want to go out for ice cream?
     Me: Not really, I got a bunch of stuff to do . .
     Gracie: That’s fine, we’re coming over anyways, be ready in 10 minutes
     Me: Wait, who is coming, what?
     Gracie: Later

Gracie wasn’t our section leader in NUMB, she was our mom. Like the prison mom’s in Orange Is The New Black, she took care of people in her section and took young ones like me under her wing. During band camp, she kept tabs on me and made sure I knew what was going on. She never let me eat at a table by myself if she was around and if anyone even thought to give me a hard time she got up in their face without hesitation.

At first when she referred to me as one of her kids, I was kind of put off. I was still getting used to switching from being a older person who had “kids” of my own in high school marching band. However, by the end of band camp, I was took comfort being under her care.

For Gracie, being a section mom was an instinct. Her warmth embodied the best parts of Midwest hospitality. Even though, I had yet to open up to her, she gave to me, simply because she chose to care.

The knock on my door startled me because I hadn’t really had any visitors to my dorm. I opened the door to Gracie and a collection of about ten NUMB’ers and associated friends. They were all soaking wet, some in raincoats and some in just shorts and t-shirts. Before I could say anything they all entered my small room and started complementing the posters I had up in my room.

Gracie came up to me and began to speak, but put her finger up, motioning for me to wait a minute. She took off her glasses and attempted to wipe the beads of rainwater off with her soaked sweatshirt. After realizing that it was not going to do any good, she giggled at herself, put on her smeared glasses and said, “let’s go.”

“Look, Gracie, I got this thing due . . .”

“Kevin, find his jacket, let’s go. . .”

Before I knew it, I was walking in through the inky blackness of the night to the local ice cream shop. The crowd was giggling making jokes while Gracie walked next to me casually putting her arm around my shoulder, “c’mon Kings, this will be fun, relax.”

As puddles of water collected under our seats, we all ate ice cream. I didn’t have a lot to add to the conversations but everyone was being patient with me, explaining jokes and unpacking background for the stories they were telling.

After we all finished up the group walked me back to my dorm. As they said goodbye, Gracie squeezed my arm and gave me a wink. I brushed my hand through my soaking hair and watched Gracie gleefully skip through a rain puddle to catch up with the group. Then for the first time that day, I smiled.

The world can pour everything it’s got down onto you, and Gracie showed me that you don’t have to let to get it down.