bella and i were having one of our, what she calls "red-leather chair chats". these happen when she and i are both around and have twenty open minutes. she will ask if we can meet in my office. this is a request i have rarely, if ever, said no to. once settled into our respective chairs we catch up with each other's life. these largely replace what used to be our dad hours which haven't happened for bella too routinely since, honestly, she began middle school. i blame this largely on me no longer being able too pull her out at lunch time for our father-daughter lunches like i used to in elementary. problem in both middle and high school is their lunches are not long enough for me to sneak them away and get them back in time for their next class, which is a bit bizarre to me.

on this day, after getting me up to speed on her life she asked what was going on in my world. i shared that we had just started a new marketing outreach campaign and i had to call about twenty people a day to see if they were interested in our service.

BELLA
why do you sound so unexcited about it? that is unlike you.

TROY
i don't know. it just hasn't been turning out the way i thought it would and i'm a little discouraged by it.

BELLA
how long have you been doing it?

TROY
two days.

BELLA
two days! that's it?

TROY
uhh. yeah.

BELLA
and who are you calling?

TROY
law school registrars.

BELLA
dad. you can't give up after two days. i mean you're still getting your script worked out. it took me weeks before i had my approach down at club fitness. AND the people you are talking to are professionals. they can't even be mean to you. has anyone hung up on you.

TROY
no.

BELLA
six or seven of the people i call every day just hang up on me. don't even say a word. just hang up.

TROY
i guess i didn't think of it that way.

BELLA
you can't quit after two days. it's not the dearmitt-way.

the next day i made ten calls. seven people answered. and all of them were pleasant and helpful. when i was done for the day i may have even thought to myself--well, that was kinda fun, but i would never tell bella that.

i recently had reason to go on facebook and came upon this lovely bit of history. glad stacey wrote it down as i failed to and it was nearly lost. i don't recall this bit of wisdom but it surely has marty's thumbprint all over it. thank you stacey!

at the end of every week, i write two journal entries--one for my business and one for my personal affairs. i do this with several things in mind. i like to reflect on the happenings of the prior seven days. this is both to celebrate any progress and achievements as well as help set the tone and priorities for the week ahead. last week's personal entry, shared below, felt a little more potent than most.

there's more than a little truth in that closing sentiment.

i always wanted a sibling. i can't say if i wanted a brother or a sister more, but i always felt like i was missing out on something special living as an only-child. then over the years as a ravenous collector of people's personal stories, i heard some things that made me think maybe it wasn't all bad that i never had to share my toys or bedroom or mother with another. obviously that ship sailed l ...

in case my level of joy at how things played out wasn't clear enough yesterday (ref), allow me to submit the following. i think bella's emotion is a bit more fear-based in that she is less than ninety minutes from her first college class. mine is pure elation that i get to see my girl off for another first day of school from the same spot i have for the last fifteen years.

do good baya as you always have and you always will.

there is something in the dearmitt-world that merits a bit more discussion. those paying super-fine attention will have noticed that my days-left-with-bella counter (REF) started displaying negative numbers last week. no one dreaded that moment more than i. 

i've talked a little bit about bella and college but let me hit ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. the universal language

bella does a lot of house and pet sitting these days. this summer she spent more nights sleeping in other people's homes than she did in ours. and their homes have pools, multimedia systems and lavish bathrooms which is a bit of a bonus, particularly when you are being paid to be there. through this work and her other pursuits, she has become a competent manager of her time and juggling multiple r...

marty and i begin a new phase of parenting this week. we are now the parents of three teenagers as anthony turned 13 on saturday. it seems unfathomable on many levels, but i'm sure time will blur again, and we will wake up as parents of three full-on adults.

i'm elated and relieved that we got all three of our children through their childhoods without any great catastrophes. not all famil ...

bella merits one more shout-out this week. earlier i had talked about bella reaching one of her high school goals but there were a few more i didn't mention. shortly after starting her freshman year, bella learned that at her school there were a few service awards presented every year to the senior class. she immediately pointed to the s ...

i'm pretty sure this is why we don't live in wyoming, or colorado, or utah, or, and especially, montana.

one of the most often told origin stories of the marty/troy relationship deals with where we live. when people learn that i grew up in colorado, the first thing they ask is why we don't live in colorado now (versus st. louis).

of all the couples that live in st. louis, 90% of ...

anfer has a new nickname at school. it is "ol grandpa anthony back at it again withe the new kycks" (anthony tells me the spelling matters, like a lot).

this came from a conversation where anthony and some classmates were talking about going back and playing minecraft again for nostalgia sake. anthony said, if he did, his username would be "ol grandpa anthony back at it again withe the n ...

aleo just got his driver's permit and has begun learning to drive. as with bella he is learning on a manual and like bella i taught him how to do it when he was thirteen. this means his first time out instead of just teaching him how to drive a stick-shift we could get right into the rules of the road and other next-level skills.

i took him to the same place i took bella and where lots o ...

last week bella achieved a long-term goal she set several years back--to pay for her own college education (or more plainly, to exit college debt-free). she has been saying this since she was in the sixth grade. and every time she did i would essentially pat her on the head and tell her that was not something she had to worry about because i worked at a university and one of my benefits was having ...

one or alex's teachers forwarded an email exchange he had with our aleo. it follows:

---

From: Alexander Dearmitt
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 9:00 PM
To: Social Studies Teacher
Subject: Australia Questions

I would just like to check to see if I was answering the questions you were asking so here are 3 questions I have about the project:

1. For the structure of the government do you mean like the branches of government in Australia?
2. For where the gov. meets do I need to say what buildings or just that they meet in the Parliamentary Triangle in Canberra?
3. Also, can we have more than five links in our bibliography?

If you could answer these questions that would help me immensely.

From,
Alex

---

From: Social Studies Teacher
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 9:10 PM
To: Alexander Dearmitt
Subject: Re: Australia Questions

1. Yes
2. PT in Canberra is fine
3. Yes

Cool?

---

From: Alexander Dearmitt
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 7:07 AM
To: Social Studies Teacher
Subject: Re: Australia Questions

Cool beans!

Thanks, see you 2nd hour!

---

there are two things you need to know for this story.

the first thing is that one of my best friends, bookguy, turned 50 six months before me. i have always basked extra-overtly in these six-month spans where he is older than me, with a lot of tired and sad jokes about old men and the like. these adolescent quips roll off him as easily as you'd expect with his knowledge that i am a few s...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. siblings

on christmas day 2018 i did something i've never done in my more than fifty years of life -- i went to the gym.

being someone who is reasonably active and tries to be fit, it is kinda impressive that i have never-ever-ever been in a proper gym. there are a number of reasons for this, my concave chest probably topping the list, but if we picked at them, which i did that christmas afternoon, none of my reasons could be described as pride-inducing or even defendable (my 'friends' would tell you the same could be said of many of my convictions). and now i had a daughter that not only regularly worked-out at our neighborhood gym but also WORKED at that same gym and it was easily her favorite job of all to date. she had asked me join her numerous times and i always said the same thing in response, "thanks bay but i'm not a gym guy".

then here on christmas day, a day of family and togetherness, well after the morning mayhem and a few hours of lazing about, bella stood up amidst all the gift chaos and said she had to get ready to go to the gym. after she left the room i thought of her walking there alone, working out alone, walking home alone and it made me a bit sad. then i thought it might be nice if i joined her. this reaction came partly out of concern for her safety but also out of sympathy too - spending christmas day alone at a gym did not seem like the kind of christmas any parent wishes for a child. AND as a bonus i could see where she worked. AND i could experience a gym on what should be a pretty quiet day. AND spend some alone time with my girl (something that gets harder to do with every passing month). AND since she knew what she was doing, she could teach me what to do. benefits abound.

so i went to bella and asked if i could join her. after realizing i was serious, her face lit up. elated would be too strong of a description but not by a whole lot. she seemed very happy i would be joining her. i told her i'd go get dressed. after i turned she called after me.

BELLA
do you know what you're going to wear?

TROY
i guess my biking bibs because we'll do some cardio on the bikes right?

BELLA
uhh, well, people don't really wear biking bibs to the gym.

TROY
really? don't they ride the bikes?

BELLA
well yes, but they're doing lots of other stuff to -- not biking-bib stuff.

TROY
hmmm. well if we're going to bike at all i feel like i need my bibs.

BELLA
uh. ok. well, you gotta do you.

in the end i didn't wear my biking bibs and thankfully so. as bella told me, there weren't a whole lot of people at the gym in padded biking shorts with overall straps. funny that. but how big of a rock star is bella being willing to show up to HER gym and HER workplace with HER father wearing nothing but biking shorts. she is SUCH a BETTER person than i was at her age. and yes i know that if we spent three minutes picking at it, we'd all learn that she is a better person than i was yesterday. moving on.

so we went to the gym and i stepped through bella's workout with her. she had the double-duty of doing her own workout while also serving as my teacher. something i think she would be very good at (vid evidence below). i will say having someone that knows what they are doing is pretty helpful. and having that person be your daughter, is pretty awesome. you will likely not be surprised to know bella is like a full-on celebrity at this place as all the yoked-out, meat-backed regulars absolutely love her. so any self-consciousness i might have felt at being a gym newbie was dashed given the protection i got from bella's celebrity halo. though bella's status could not spare me the discomfort i felt personally during our workout when we had to pull the weights off after bella's reps so i could lift just the bar (and in some cases wish they had thinner, lighter bars).

as for my thoughts about it, i joined the gym the next day and asked bella to share her workout schedule with me. short version is anytime she is going to the gym and i am not working, i will go with her and do whatever workout she is doing (e.g. legs, chest, etc).

what people were saying about the bella-dad workout:

a neighbor and obvious gym-regular pulled me aside one day at the gym to say, "i gotta tell you troy, you and bella are absolutely adorable working out together."

on christmas day anthony asked marty where dad and bella were. when she told him they were at the gym, he said, "well, that doesn't feel very special." this was in response to us going out on christmas day, a day where none of us are usually more than fifteen feet from the fireplace.

and later in the day when i asked alex what he thought of me and bella going to the gym he said, "oh, you were gone?"

lastly, my personal trainer even takes video of your work so she can point out issues with your form. one sucky thing about it, aside from seeing i have to straighten my back more, is it also exposes that any adorability points i earned for working out with my daughter were lost each time we had to pull all the weights off after bella's turn so i could just use the bar.

marty told me of a new workout trend where you hire people to excercise for you.

yes. you are reading that right. you stay at home. they go to the gym in your name. then they report back to you what they did. and that is your workout for the day.

before you scoff too much, you should know that this approach is getting some traction. i get that at first blush it sounds a bit ridiculous, like SNL-skit ridiculous but as with many like things, there is some logic at work. the tactic, in this case, is you get to watch someone leading a healthier lifestyle than yourself AND see and hear what goes into it. as you watch your sponsor get more fit and attractive, you start wanting that for yourself and because of the daily reports, you have a sense for what it would take to make it happen for yourself. so on paper, it has some merit and is finding some success in practice too.

for me this falls into that oft-cited "if you worked as hard at the thing you're trying to avoid as you worked at avoiding it ..." bucket. but in ruminating on it further, it occurred to me that i have been doing this exact practice for more than ten years. the difference is i don't have a workout proxy. i have proxies for social media and the daily news cycle. i know loads of people hyper-engaged in all of those matters, and i just kick back and watch all their hand-wringing and angst and consternation from afar. and when i see what immersing yourself in those matters does to one's mental well-being and personal fulfillment, i see all i need to maintain a healthy and fulfilled mental state for myself. and this is precisely what the workout sponsor does for someone. so if it is half as effective for them as my system has been for me, then get yourself a gym proxy, like, today.

and all of these mental meanderings have given me an idea for a new company that is connected to (1) my current use of social media and news proxies and (2) my obsession with time management. if you are addicted to being connected and informed and love the way you feel after giving hours of your day to social media and the news cycle BUT want that feeling without giving up all the time to stay "plugged in", hire me, or my new company rather. what we will do is send someone to your house first thing in the morning. upon arriving, they will knock on your door, and when you open it, they will kick you square in the groin, girl and boy alike. they will then toss an invoice at your crumpled frame and as they turn to leave will call out, "see ya tomorrow." that way you can fit all that gut-punch level dread and mental turmoil into your day before your first coffee is even cold, leaving the rest of the day's hours for more fulfilling and meaningful pursuits.

50 (a 2-part essay)
PART 2: On Being 50
(Part 1: On Becoming 50)

i've long held this approach to aging where i liken it to a formal education, which if done right, aging rightfully is, no?

in your twenties, you're like a freshman in high school. scared and intimidated but when with other freshmen, cock-sure, loud, and certa...

50 (a 2-part essay)
PART 1: On Becoming 50

twenty years ago i had a breakdown of sorts. it kinda came out of nowhere. it was right around my 30th birthday. a year earlier my mom had given me the name and phone number of my biological mother saying she thought i was old enough to have it now. fact is, she thought i was old enough for a good while but kept waiting for me to ask about ...

most everyone has some level of chaos behind their computing setup. wires are just part of the package when you get into computers and their accessories. the bigger your rig, the more wiring you have to contend with. i have been battling this cable mayhem since getting my first true home computer, a gateway desktop in the early 90s. though the word 'battle' implies that there is some give and take in the situation, but that is unfortunately not the case here. i have never won or even come close to winning this altercation. it has been nothing but a full-on beatdown from day one. and my internal OCD-wiring, which is thankfully better organized, has felt this loss every hour since i powered up that first gateway computer.

when i thought about any unfinished business i had with my forties, this curiously enough, came to the forefront. i concluded that i wanted my computing "basement" (e.g. wiring) to be every bit as presentable as my computing "living room" (e.g. desktop). that was my challenge.

i spent a week, maybe two, just thinking about my options. once i had a viable idea in hand, i took to it. i shut down the operation and gutted the works. and when i say the works, i mean everything had to come out. the magnitude of this may not land for most, but i have been sitting at the same desk for nineteen years. for someone that works and dabbles in tech, this equals a lot of wiring buildup, some vital and some that may have been decommissioned as long as ten years ago. in example, the wires below my desk could still support a palm pilot, something i haven't used in at least, cough, three years. but all new visions require a pristine palette to start, so that is why it all had to be cleared out.

this project has produced a new issue though--now the underbelly of my desk is such a piece of art, i wish it wasn't so hidden away.
















to the obvious question of what is the round thing on the floor. it is a 50's circular fan and doubles as a (1) footrest year-round, and (2) a fan in the summer months to combat the heat produced by my yoked mac tower.

to a less obvious but still relevant question, yes, that main outlet strip across the top does have pivoting lights which makes working on the setup not only easy, but almost fun.

in addition to the box of awesomeness (yesterday's family gallery), the weekend/week of my 50th was delightfully decadent and had multiple exceptional moments that blew me away.

BLOWN AWAY I
my celebration began officially at 3:30 on friday, or birthday-eve if you prefer, with a massage. the masseuse asked if i needed something specific worked on. i said not really. she asked why i was there. i told her that i always get a massage on the last day of the decade of my life so i was there to close out my forties. she said fair enough and we got underway. at the very end she said something really cool but i was so comatose i can't remember precisely what she said but it was something like "i hope this marks the end of one great decade and the beginning of an even better one". i loved the touch and thought she gave to the moment (pun for anthony).

i left there and went to one of my favorite meals in the country, stuffed atlantic salmon from mccormick and schmick's (originally Jake's Seafood in portland Oregon and still #2 on this list).

then i headed home to meet up with the family for an a cappella holiday concert. we have been going to this event, run by a friend, for almost two decades and it has always been conveniently scheduled near my birthday. on this day, due to the massage and dinner, i was running late. because of this marty went out to pick up some other people who were going with us, friends of the kids, and said she'd swing by the house to get me after getting them. i got home and knowing we were now pinched for time, watched for the car. when marty pulled up, i trotted towards the car. as i approached alex, through a cracked window, said i would have to drive. so i ran around to the driver's side. i opened the door ready to apologize to marty for being late but instead of seeing marty in the passenger seat i found one my best friends, bookpimp, from north carolina. *

i should add, our being late did not derail the evening as our friend had roped off a section of seats for us. so our party of eight was able to arrive at a packed auditorium minutes before showtime and slide into a protected run of third row seats. thanks e-lo!

BLOWN AWAY II
the weekend was a lock after that and we enjoyed the concert and then some lion's choice and capped the night off with some ted drewes custard.

the next morning bookpimp and i went to southwest diner for some mexican breakfast burritos and then spent the rest of the december day in front of a fire trading stories and one-liners. for dinner we went to my favorite eatery in all the land and where i spend every birthday dinner, cafe natasha (still #1 on this list). they were totally full up and i failed to make a reservation (we rarely go on uber-busy saturday nights). the hostess was about to shuttle us out when the owner saw us. she came over and gave hugs and the situation was explained. she told us to wait while she checked things out. she returned and said if we could wait ten minutes she would take care of us. so i got my syrian kabobs after-all. there were two other birthday groups there, one of which was a table of about twenty people who turned out to be some sort of choir because when they sang happy birthday to their person they lit the room up with a rendition of happy birthday fit for a royal. later when the owner surprised our table with a piece of candled-birthday pie and started singing happy birthday, the twenty person choral group joined in and it was a most lavish moment.

BLOWN AWAY III
we then went home, re-stoked the fire and gathered round for presents. anthony got me a mug that said essentially that i only urinate glitter and defecate gold, something i may have been known to say around the house a time or two--anthony felt it only right to commemorate my personal position in ceramic form. aleo made a video for me where he modified the opening credits to calliou (pronounced kigh-you) to instead say troy-you as i had always told the kids that show was about me but i wouldn't give them the rights to my name which is why they had to call it calliou but it was originally named troy-you and every time the song played i would replace the word accordingly, much to my childrens' agitation (i also may have told a very young bella that high school musical was about my life--that time i let them use my name because it was cooler than some whiney cartoon kid with a perfectly round head). bella gave me a "missing-bella" kit to help me after she leaves for college (it included a generous quantity of her hair which she had cut a few weeks prior in support of this gift).



then marty closed the affair with her mic-drop box of cards (discussed yesterday).

BLOWN AWAY IV
then on sunday bookpimp and i drove to central illinois for a horseshoe at d'arcy's pint and then on to the video game museum in mclean illinois for some 80's arcade ambiance. after a good number of quarters we made the two hour drive home. the four hours we spent in the car magically felt like twenty minutes which bookpimp astutely called amazing and terrible at the same time (amazing how time magically passes and tragic that it seems to end so soon). we returned home for sunday dinner and some more fire time.

in the morning i drove him to the airport and he was off. for the record bookpimp made a surprise visit twenty years earlier for my thirtieth birthday.

BLOWN AWAY V
two days later i drove back to the airport to pick up my other best friend, bookguy, also from north carolina, who flew in for a quick visit and we shared a lovely day together. that i have two friends of this caliber at this point in my life (three if you count marta) is not something lost on me.

marty, my children and my closest friends went to great lengths to make me feel special and valued by them. at the end of my birthday, in front of a warming fire i told the people circled around me that they would never know what their love and support meant to an only, adopted child who lost his mother eight years earlier. short of having my mother as part of that circle, i can't imagine a better way to greet one's half-century mark.

* when i say "one of my best friends from north carolina" i'm not saying that that is my, like, best north carolina friend and i also have a best pennsylvania friend and a best ohio friend in some bubba-gump shrimp sorta way. i was simply saying this is one of my best friends and he lives in north carolina. i see that it reads a bit funny. though to be comprehensive here, it is equally curious that my other best friend also lives in north carolina. so my two best friends in the world both live in north carolina a few hours apart, for reasons that are in no way connected (neither grew up there). and for further curiosity my mother's best friend also lives in north carolina and is situated perfectly between my two best friends. so on my road trip east every summer, sometimes referred to as the best friends tour, i visit my first best friend, then my mom's best friend and then my other best friend. that they all clustered themselves so conveniently close just ups their best-friend stock all the more.

i turned fifty earlier this month. as this mile-marker grew closer, i found myself imagining what i should do here in this space to acknowledge the moment. coming into the weekend i thought i'd ask alex to to hook me up with a pitcture, like he did in utah when i started my new adventure as a business owner. he did such an exceptional job then ( View in Family Scrapbook >>>

the holiday season is upon us which means an uptick in our social get togethers. as has been discussed previously, i am always on the lookout for great questions to be asked of people i meet. the safest and most productive question i've ever run across is simply "What are your interest?" versus the american staple "what do you do?" which is one of the worst possible questions for a whole variety of reasons. the "interests" question should get any conversation moving and if it does not, like they say they have no interest, then you know to cut bait (fast) and mingle your way to the next party-goer.

should that fail or you already used that question on someone at last year's party, i've got a new one for you to churn the conversational waters. the question is: what is your most memorable moment from last year?

i've been using this for a bit and it is raw, uncut gold. but brace yourself because this simple query can lead anywhere. expect everything from the mundane (i finally got a promotion i've been wanting) to the fascinating (i dissected a human cadaver) to the tragic (i lost my mother). aside from the mundane, which can usually offer something with some work (do you think there is antying you could have done to get the promotion sooner?), you are assured of avoiding re-hashing people's netflix queues, pop music taste and favorite eateries.

while the cadaver conversation was extraordinary, my favorite detail from this young medical student was about the initial moments of the experience. upon first seeing the body she described the confusing blend of panic and fascination but the dominant memory was hearing a student behind her sobbing as the dissection began. the downside of this new super-question is holiday parties are not long enough to fit everyone in. i could have talked to cadaver-girl for three hours and not have even been close to done and there were twenty more people to get to.