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Origins of Minnesotan Gothic

I posted this picture by itself earlier this week. No explanation, no description, just the picture. Quite frankly, I didn’t think it needed one.

A bunch of people on the Interwebs agreed. My friends on Facebook (and some of my friends in real life) thought it was awesome, too. It was good enough that Mom and Dad are probably going to include it as part of the New Year’s letter to our family and friends in 2014.

But I’m not writing this to pat myself on the back. Well, not just to pat myself on the back. I think the picture’s inception was kind of interesting and thought it might be worth sharing as well.

It all started on the afternoon of the 17th when Mom, Dad and I went to my little brother’s house to shovel his driveway and sidewalk. Justin and his family were down in Florida for a week, but he assured us that it wouldn’t snow while he was gone. That afternoon was the second time we were at his house during that week because the weather didn’t care what he told us, it was gonna do what it damn well pleased.

A little while before we left the house, Justin texted the whole family a picture of him, his wife and their daughter in a swimming pool, enjoying the sunshine and having a grand old time. Nothing like unintentionally rubbing someone’s nose in their misfortune, right? But it did eventually lead to Minnesotan Gothic, so in retrospect, it wasn’t all bad.

When we got there, six inches of snow was eagerly waiting our shoveling efforts. On most of the driveway, at least. Next to the street, the snowplow had been by earlier, so all the snow on their side of street had been piled up there as well. I have no idea how deep it was, but it was also eagerly awaiting our shoveling efforts. Lots and lots of shoveling efforts.

Thankfully, a neighbor saw us and offered to clear off the end of the driveway with his snowblower when he was done with his own driveway. On his last pass, Mom asked me to take a couple pictures of him at work. Our original plan was to send one to Justin, let him know he picked a good week to skip town.

We finished up and were heading inside for a couple minutes, at which point we decided we should take a picture of ourselves instead. Swimming pool vs. snowdrifts. Sunshine vs. gray skies. Bare arms vs. heavy winter coats. Essentially telling each other “This is what you’re missing.”

Mom used to carry a small camera in her purse and I’d used it to take pictures of all three of us before. When we were in Norway, I got a shot of us on a boat crossing a fjord. (Also in Norway, I tried taking a picture of four people and cut off the outer halves of the outer people, so apparently, my aim was really good and my arm wasn’t long enough.) However, now that she has a phone that can take pictures, the camera was redundant and would just be taking up space.

Without a lens that I could aim and a button to push to take the picture, I wasn’t going to bother trying to get all three of us in a shot. As soon as I thought about Mom and Dad in front of a big snowdrift (“See what we’re sort of, but not really enjoying that you’re missing?”), I immediately opened up my phone, did a search for “farmer painting and there it was: American Gothic. That was our picture.

I showed it to them before we went back outside and initially thought we’d have to take it next to the street. For some reason, though, Justin had been shoveling the snow from their front walk into a giant pile and it was even bigger after two snowfalls. Perfect. Mom was holding a shovel and she and Dad started smiling: “No, you have to be stoic first.” I took three or four pictures that way, giggling pretty much the whole time, then got a couple of them smiling.

Unfortunately, I was holding my phone up high to get a better angle for the picture, so that combined with the light against the phone’s screen (plus all my giggling) meant I didn’t see my finger at the edge of the picture. And that’s why God created Photoshop. Photoshop, smartphones, snowdrifts, shovels, vacations in Florida, my parents and American Gothic. But maybe not in that order.

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A reason for me to celebrate V-Day

A conversation with my uncle this afternoon brought me back to high school when we performed the musical Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? I played Father O’Reilly (I know, I totally look like an Irish Catholic priest) and I had a few solo lines during one of our big numbers:

The patron saints want your veneration.
They can give you a hand if you give ’em a call.

Why did this pop into my head? Because he informed me that St. Valentine is also the patron saint of epilepsy.

Regardless of my relationship status, that’s something that I have a lifelong bond with. Unfortunate, but I’ve survived this far. Survived to the point of not having a seizure in close to 12 years. It’s possible that my brain has become addled during that time—St. Valentine isn’t the patron saint of brain-addling, so he’s no help there—but at least I’m functional and that’s something I’ll always appreciate.

I promised myself I wouldn’t make any callous seizure jokes at the end of this because I really am happy that things are going as well as they are. I met someone in the United Hospital epilepsy ward back in 2001 who had dozens of staples in his head because they cut out a chunk of his brain. I’ve got a small scar on my forehead from running into a volleyball standard in fifth grade. That’s how well things are going for me.

So now I’ve missed two holidays that I’ll have to celebrate belatedly. One is St. Valentine’s Day and giving thanks to the patron saint (or just giving thanks in general). The other is 50% Off Chocolates Day because I didn’t make it to the store today and it’s too late to head out there now. That’s one I’ll definitely be celebrating tomorrow.

P.S. — In case you’re wondering, the collision with the volleyball standard didn’t cause any brain trauma. I’ve had a couple of CAT scans done on my head and they’ve revealed no physical abnormalities. Plus the scar is on the left side and the excess brain activity is on the right side. We don’t know why the seizures are happening, but they happen. Happened, past tense. I think life is better that way.

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Is “homophobia” really homophobia?

Welcome to Valentine’s Day, Singles Awareness Day and Day Before 50% off Chocolates Day 2014. (If you celebrate all three of them, you may have some explaining to do.) This year, I’m in the latter two categories, but that didn’t change the fact that I started thinking about love this morning. So many couples out there celebrating together in romantic fashion and not intentionally rubbing single people’s noses in it, but doing it anyway, which is really, really annoying. But I digress.

I know a wide range of people who enjoy Valentine’s Day with their partners: teenagers and great-grandparents, married and unmarried, straight and gay. I’m happy for all of them. But what I thought about this morning (and I honestly don’t know why it popped into my head) was the concept of “homophobia”, the fear of gay people. And maybe there are homophobes out there who are afraid of how they might be celebrating: giving each other Valentine’s Day cards, going out for a nice meal at a restaurant, cuddling while watching a romantic comedy on Netflix… pretty scary, isn’t it?

I understand some phobias. Arachnophobia: fear of spiders. Those fuzzy little things that squirm around in your hand and could crawl inside your mouth while you’re sleeping, whereas gay people… wait. Okay, maybe not a good comparison.

But a spider can bite you, inject you with poison and kill you. Acrophobia: fear of heights. Because falling down a really long distance can kill you. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: fear of long words. Because it’s a really long word and anyone who can pronounce it properly on their first try is probably a psychopath who plans to sneak into your bedroom tonight while you’re asleep and kill you. Lots of scary things out there.

So arachnophobes don’t want to hold spiders in their hands because they might get poisoned. Homophobes don’t want to shake a gay person’s hand because… they might get queerness on their palm that could kill them? No, they don’t want to shake hands because they hate gay people.

It seems more along the lines of sexism and racism: some people are beneath you and you want to treat them like second-hand citizens, if not worse. That’s not a phobia; that’s being an asshole. But trying to call their behavior “homoism” or “homocism”… those words don’t make any sense. And calling them assholes is both non-specific and kind of ironic, if you think about it. So what are we stuck with? Homophobia, which sucks. And not in the good way.

But I don’t want to cast a pall over the day. Valentine’s Day should be a happy celebration, even for us lonely folk because we get to smother our sorrows with half-price chocolate over the weekend. So to all of my friends who are spending the day with someone special regardless of your lifestyles, I’ll be enjoying the rest of today vicariously through you, especially since I don’t have a subscription to Netflix.

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I make writing blog entries way too difficult.

Yep, that’s the story with me and shawnbakken.net. I love telling stories and I love elaborating on said stories, including all sorts of juicy details, but when it comes to writing stuff down on paper (or typing on keyboard—using a pencil on my computer monitor gets messy after a while), those details can scare me off a little. I can tell a story in ten minutes, easy, but when it comes to blog entries, I might stop after an hour and be halfway done if I’m lucky. That’s how ridiculous I can get when it comes to fleshing out stories.

I usually lean toward something like “I saw water pouring from the faucet, then felt a warm sensation in my bladder as it released, the leg of my khakis beginning to adhere to my inner leg with moisture and a massive flood of shame rolled over my body” instead of just “I peed my pants.” And that’s not a story, it’s just a random example. Yep, just a random example.

So unless the situation demands it, I might want to rein myself in a little. If I ever get into another car crash (God forbid), I’ll take the extra time to talk about the intricate details, especially if it prevents other people from getting smooshed in their own cars. That was a big deal; that deserved a long entry. If something isn’t as big of a deal, I might want to at least leave out the part about the khakis adhering to my leg, which is still just a totally random example.

That would make it less of a chronological and emotional investment. That would also probably include cutting back on some of the editing, which could be painful for me: the Grammar Police can go fuck themselves, but when it comes to word choice and phrasing, I’m the guy at the firing range who’s willing to stay until closing time, blowing hundreds on ammunition until I hit the bullseye.

And besides, it could be enlightening for the readers as well. I’ll admit that there have been a few times I opted not to write anything because it was late at night and I thought no one would get the chance to read it, but seriously, am I writing this blog to enlighten the masses? Well, sometimes. Sometimes the world needs a reminder that Joe Bastianich is a total douchebag. Plus I’m sure the number of people who had ever pondered the existence of an entire cookbook devoted to cooking goat testicles increased exponentially. But for the most part, the blog entries are essentially a type of self-satisfaction. And if you can connect to the Internet with your phone, a type of self-satisfaction you can get in the middle of a department store without being arrested.

And I think that’s enough for now. Given that I’m trying to loosen my standards a little, I’ll do a quick spell-check, then let this entry stand as it is. Plus I may even go back sometime and finish writing some old blog entries that got started and never made it past… there were a lot of details I was going to add that would have taken me a long time to write, so I ended up bailing on them entirely. They might be entertaining, they might be enlightening or they might be worthless and merely take up space on the Interwebs (like there isn’t enough worthless shit out there already). But fear not: if nothing else, I promise that none of those stories involve goat testicles.