This might be why I hate dressing up

My mom sent me these. Presumably to hammer home the traumatic reason I do not want to dress up for Halloween. Notice the reuse of the clown costume from me to my sister. Also pay close attention to the Superman/ Batman combination I sport in the second picture. It is worth it to note though that this homemade red cape I wore actually made me invincible. Too bad I outgrew it.

Professor Norrie Weighs in on all the mistakes I made

Hi – Three things. First of all, that Fire Alarm event happened while we were living in Long Branch, not Palatine. I remember it clearly.

The second thing is if you won a creativity award for my design, then where is my trophy?!?!?

Thirdly, Winston Churchill was probably one of the greatest persons of the 20th. Century, and is one of the people I want to meet in heaven. He was a class act. When visiting with FDR at the White House during WW II, he would sleep until noon and then take a long bath. FDR, if he wanted to meet with Churchill would have to be wheeled into the bathroom where he would talk with Churchill while Churchill soaked naked in a hot tub, smoking a cigar, and drinking gin. Amazing the allies won WWII. He also made some of the most memorable quotes. About the Royal Air Force he said, “Never have so many, (the English people) owed so much (their lives), to so few (the airmen)”. When running for Prime Minister he said, “All I have to offer is blood, sweat, toil and tears”. When speaking of the resolve of the British people during WWII he said, “If the British Empire should last for a thousand years, men (sic) will still say this was her finest hour.” Good stuff. - Dad.

Trauma

Back in 1983, I was a kindergartner at Winston Churchill Elementary School in Palatine, Illinois. (Why a Midwestern elementary school was named after a 1940's and 50’s English Prime Minister is beyond me) Anyway, one day in kindergarten I grabbed a copy of Where the Wild Things Are, told the teacher to hold my phone calls, and headed for the bathroom to take care of business. (I like to think I announced going to the bathroom then, the same way I do it now.)

While I was in the bathroom the fire alarm went off. The effect was life-changing. I got up but could not get out of the bathroom. The door was jammed, the fire alarm kept blaring and I just pictured myself burning to a crisp in a kindergarten bathroom of all places. From that day forward I refused to go to the bathroom in school and still hate fire alarms. In that same kindergarten class they also forced us to try tofu for the first time. Why? I don't know, but the effect was equally traumatizing to the point where today Sabrina still needs to "sneak" tofu into meals just to get me to try it.

A quarter a century later here I am still hating fire drills and tofu. Well really I just hate the idea of them more than I actually hate the reality of them.

That brings me to the point of this newsletter: Halloween. I hate, hate, hate dressing up for Halloween. Or at least I hate the idea of wearing a costume. I have felt this way for awhile. The last time I enthusiastically dressed up for the holiday was in 6th grade when I went to school dressed as a cemetery. My dad took an old cardboard box and cut the sides in a way that made each face look like a different gravestone. I won an award for creativity. Since that day I have dressed up exactly 3 times for Halloween. Two you can read about HERE and the third was last year when a friend and I went to a party dressed as the guys from the "Dick in a Box" Video.

See, for tofu and fire alarms I can trace my aversion back to a single moment. For Halloween the reason is less clear. There must be a reason I hate the dressing up but I don't know it. But that is just it. Maybe like tofu and alarms I hate the idea more than I hate the actual thing. That is why this year I am willingly and excitedly donning a costume for a Halloween party! I am going as a railway worker! (I am trying to convince Sabrina to go as the actually train tracks. There are so many jokes for this scenario that I might explode). Does this mean I am growing as a person? I’ll still consciously pass on the tofu but slowly and surely the big guy is finally growing up. Happy Halloween!

Cheerleaders

A few weeks ago in my autobiography post I mentioned a possible title as “All the teachers are dressing as cheerleaders.” This elicited some responses asking for an explanation. Here goes:

During my first year of teaching I was clueless. My main concerns were not upsetting anyone and not standing out from the crowd. Being the only male (save the principal) in the school this made some aspects of the job difficult. I used to call it reverse sexism. There were tons of examples that I won’t go in to but Halloween was a challenge. At the time I was told that the principal expected teachers to all dress up for the holiday. What did I know? I had only been there two months, wanted to get tenured and didn’t want to be a rabble-rouser. The teachers came up with a theme for that year. And that theme was “cheerleaders.” What made this decision even more egregious and sexist was that they chose the theme while I sat right in front of them. I felt sick to my stomach. Cheerleaders?!

In my seven years of teaching this still stands as the most frustrating and difficult decision I have faced (it’s been a pretty easy run). I didn’t even know, if I did dress up, how I would dress as a cheerleader. In the end I wore sweatpants, sweatshirt and prayed to god that no parent would ask what my costume was. Here is a picture I found of that day. You can see the effort I put in.

I only told Sabrina about this costume choice. What a mistake. She told a couple of my friends and I was left this message on my cell phone from my buddy James:

“Cheerleader huh? Nice job. I’m sure your father would be very proud. His only son, a cheerleader.”

In the years since I have come to my senses about dressing up for Halloween. I sent out an email this year saying I was dressing as “dignity.” For this costume I would wear my regular work shirt and tie and therefore maintain my dignity. (Last year I was integrity) That being said I didn’t learn my lesson quick enough about Halloween as evidenced below when the next year we dressed as crayons. I love teaching.

Other Holidays and Reader Thoughts

"I have one more for you. How about NATIONAL REVIEW YOUR WILL DAY. This is when you count up all the times your children have bad mouthed you in print and you reduce their inheritance accordingly. Love you! Dad"

- I made a mental note to remove my dad from the mailing list.

Brian C weighs in on holidays

I still can't figure out Groundhogs day. Does it really matter whether he sees his shadow or not? While a good movie it is an awful holiday.

There are several that fall in the "so we really only have to do this one day" category of uselessness. These include, but are not limited to, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Green Day and Flag Day. One of them is a band that stinks. The other are things we should do every day yet discourage by promoting one day of the year to do it on. So if I plant a tree on March 30 I am less of a tree lover than those that do it on Arbor day? If I recycle (pennies preferably) weekly yet do not on Earth day I am less green? Don't like it.

It's a celebration b*****es

If it were up to me we would only celebrate or observe two holidays: Thanksgiving and my birthday. Unfortunately the overly festive nature of this country precludes this from happening. We are inundated with contrived holidays like Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, etc. (A topic for another day is “How I Got My Wife to Eschew Valentine’s Day")

But of all the hair-brained holidays and reasons to “celebrate” THIS has to be the worst. Boss’s Day?! What brown noser came up with this you ask? THIS person, that’s who. I can't believe this got on any calendar. Only a governing body full of bosses could allow this to happen. What a collective kick in the crotch this is to the American workforce. A holiday like this makes me think we will celebrate anything. We actually observe it in our school. That is how I knew about its existence. My favorite part of the wiki explanation is how employees are encouraged to give a small gift and work extra hard that day. That made me literally laugh out loud.

In honor of this I have come up with some comparable holidays. By the way, creating an official holiday is difficult and time consuming. I know because I did some research on how to create "National Boss Stay at Home Day." It sounded like more effort than I was willing to put in. Just getting started meant calling a local congressman. Even that seemed like too much work. Anyway on to the list:

National Natural Disaster Day: Where we celebrate all of the joys brought to us by hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc. You could celebrate by coming to work, walking into a co-workers office or cubicle and breaking something that they cherish.

National Slow Driver Day: Where we thank all of the slow drivers that help keep our roads safe and us just 5-10 minutes late for that important meeting. We will celebrate by driving 45mph in the left lane, keeping our blinker on for 4-5 miles at a time and letting in every car from every parking lot we pass. Plenty of people in Jersey observe this holiday daily during my afternoon commute.

National Give it Away Day: Do not confuse this with some kind of charitable donation day. No, on this day you celebrate by going around to your peers and basically giving away the endings to books or movies they have not seen or read. My dad celebrates this about 8-9 days a year.

Autobiography Follow-Up

Got some great responses to the autobiography. Some people wrote some of their own and some added to mine. Most people just wrote to confirm how f--ing hilarious and talented I am. No real surprise there.

Additions to my autobiographical titles: (Again with The Doug Norrie Story attached at the end)

"I'm Sure It Will Turn Up Somewhere:" (Courtesy of my mom)
"What Makes You Think I Want to Talk to You Anyway:" (thanks Fuzz)
"I Never Really Liked the Red Sox Anyway:" (Mike Pac)
"How to Marry a Woman 10 Times Better Looking Than I am:" (backhanded compliment? from Nate C.)


People's own they sent in:

"I Really Wish I Had Thought About That Before I Said It: The Katie Carruthers Story"

"I Swear Officer It Isn't Mine: The Anthony Carsillo Story"

"My Book: The Michael Pacchione Story"

He explains: In case this title sounds stupid consider being able to say, "Well, in My Book" but its referring to your actual book title, not some fictitious book of opinions.

"How I Managed to Avoid Growing Up By Staying in School: The Nate Carlin Story"
Keep sending them in. I will put them up here.

A Doug's Life

I would love to write a book. The idea of having something formally published just seems so scholarly and advanced. I imagine the life of a writer to be spent drinking coffee and waking up late on weekdays while the rest of the world speeds by in a rush to go to work. (I guess I mostly just want an excuse to not go to work) I have even tried sitting down and writing some stories and or bits of a novels to no avail. Newsflash: writing is hard. Making it readable? That is even harder. I know my limitations. One of them is creativity when it comes to creating characters, setting, plot etc. I read somewhere once that these are fairly important elements of a story. Who knew? Anything I write comes out sounding or being about things I have done in my life or people I have known. I can’t step out of the box. This brings me to the conclusion that anything I write will be autobiographical. This presents its own set of problems but at least I won’t have to sit around trying to make stuff up. With this in mind I have come up with some working titles of my autobiography

(read each of these with “:The Doug Norrie Story” right after them):

“Balding in America , A View from the Top:”

“All of the Teachers are Dressing as Cheerleaders for Halloween:”

“It’s Cool as Long as I Don’t Need to Take My Shirt Off:”

“You Think You’ve Had Car Problems?:”

“Where’d All My Socks Go?:”

“What Happened? I Fell Asleep:”

Coming soon to the clearance isle at a Barnes and Noble near you.

(If anyone wants to send me the working title for their own autobiography please do. I can think of a bunch for friends of mine. Also if you can think of better ones for me feel free. No one can fake laugh at themselves and then hold a lifetime grudge better than me.

Penny Pictures

These are a couple of pictures drawn by my buddy Alex. This might be the most penny-inspired art in the history of the world. Good thing I didn't have him illustrate my "Naked Gym Guy" post from last year.

A Dollar for My Thoughts

5 things that have annoyed me the most since my last newsletter:

1. NJ.com's continued insistence on publishing all things Springsteen, including this little nugget . Thanks Boss!

2. The worthless Vice Presidential debate preempting The Office last Thursday.

3. The traffic light at the corner of Central Ave and Terminal Rd in Clark (ongoing)

4. The cats living in my neighborhood that use our garden as their litter box (also ongoing)

5. The announcement of THIS . - For those that don't get where I am going with this, it is the US issuing a commemorative penny. A PENNY!!! AARRGGHHH!

When I first heard about this I almost lost my mind. Ask my students. I railed about this for like 10 minutes to a group of shocked, and most likely terrified, fifth graders. I have been a penny basher for years. Any currency that most people would rather put in the garbage than in a piggy bank has no value. Right now it ranks only slightly above a bottle cap. (I bet on most college campuses it ranks significantly below the bottle cap actually).

Please send me a list of anything of merit you can buy for a quarter or less (gumball machine gum aside James) and I will happily send you the big rusty bag of pennies Sabrina and I for some reason still have in our basement. I would say that besides the TV game show "Hole in the Wall," the penny is the stupidest thing we have going in America right now. (Sidenote: When I first saw this TV show I turned to Sabrina and said, "This is why the terrorists hate us.")

I know my ideas aren't new here when it comes to the penny. Rational minds are arguing against it right now. So altogether lets just say "No" to the penny. If not, well then just save up 40,000,000 of them and you can buy a nice little cape in Cranford.

The Garden State

Oh New Jersey . Why do you do his to me? Sabrina and I always joke about the website NJ.com. For those that do not know about it is the website powered by the Star Ledger (by far the biggest paper in New Jersey ) and every other fledgling/dying newspaper in the state. Basically it acts as a one stop shop for everything Garden State . The jokes we make about it often revolve around how the site never seems to have enough content to sustain as a true - highly trafficked news source. Some days a headline will read "Major Drug Bust in Newark nets Gang Members" but then an hour later the main headline will read "Hey Jerseyans- Send us you shore pics!" Huh?! How am I supposed to take this site seriously? Send us pictures of yourself to put up? This isn't Facebook people. It is supposed to be a reputable site for news. I thought about this today as a I perused the front page (yes I still read it religiously mostly looking to see if my town is mentioned in any mafia related arrests ) . At the bottom is a section titled "New Jersey Living." Here is a sample of links to click on. Tell me which one seems a bit odd. Fashion, Shopping, Home and Garden, Travel, Springsteen. ??!! There is a whole link for a person. Here are some sample headlines one can enjoy when clicking the link:

"Bruce writes a song for new movie"

"Saturday's Milwaukee setlist"

"No Bruce at the Democratic National Convention"

All of these headlines are just from the last two weeks and believe me there are many more.

I am beside myself. Amazingly enough this is par for the course when it comes to NJ.com. Sabrina and I will also joke that when their webmasters are in doubt the front page will give us some random news about the Boss (or if they are really hard up a quick note about Bon Jovi although he runs a distant, distant second).

As if New Jersey did not have enough stereotypes with the Turnpike, Parkway, mafia, pollution, etc we need NJ.com perpetuating them. That being said when you are ready to buy a home here let me know. What a great place to live!

Love and Marriage

Its been an interesting summer to say the least. Lets take a quick link and parentheses -filled tour through my summer before we get to the good stuff. It started with a bachelor-party-induced herniated disc. (Not as crazy as it sounds) Then I spent a couple of weeks here belaying this guy's son up and down a rock wall. Was able to squeeze in a quick wedding (slide show takes about 5 minutes) to Sabrina. Was the best man in a wedding two weeks later where I lost the best man speech 10 minutes before show time (found it in my back pocket later that night). On to another wedding in Boston where Sabrina got to see this place for the first time (from the outside at least). And it is off to sunny Mexico next week to cap it all off. Phew!

This summer got me thinking about how great it was to get married. Besides the love and lifetime commitment part (blah-blah-blah) marriage and the process of getting married fills a very specific purpose for me. I like to be good at things. In fact there are certain things I like to think I excel at. Baseball analysis. Scrabble. Bocce Ball. Excelling at these things allows me to do something else I love: Dispense unwanted and unneeded advice about them to anyone within earshot. And now I can do that about marriage. I am an expert. Like I said, this includes the actual wedding aspect and the role of husband. I hit grand slams in both. That being said I will offer you some advice on both. Read closely and remember its an expert talking.

Wedding ceremony/reception
- Think twice about planning outdoor wedding in the middle of July. Weather forecasters are not wrong about the heat. Tuxedo jackets do not cool you down.
- Go ahead and practice the vows beforehand. This saves you having to ask the officiant twice to repeat a line because you realized you weren't really listening.
- When your cousins fiance tells you he got the same wedding ring as you resist the urge to smugly tell him what a "deal" you got on it. This can end with him telling you sheepishly he got it for half the price.
- And finally: Pre-screen your vendors. This saves you from a Gallagher look alike showing up to videotape the whole thing

Being a husband:
- Do everything you used to do except occasionally remind your wife that she is married to you now, lest she think it is an easy get away.
- Dispense marriage advice to all of your single friends. They love it.
- When a disagreement occurs, take it from me there is nothing a round of rock, paper, scissors can't solve.

What's in a name?

When it comes to having kids I have two dreams. The first is to have quintuplets so I can have enough same-aged little tikes to coach them in basketball without anyone else’s kids corrupting my starting five with their non-athleticism. The second is less farfetched. In fact it’s perfectly reasonable. It is to one day have a son and name him Eirron. Many of you have heard me go on and on about the advantages of having a palindromic name. (Most of these reasons center on the “Wouldn’t it be awesome” argument.) If you’ve heard me make my point for this name, you have always heard my fiancé’s staunch stance against it. She wasn’t even able to get on board after I offered to drop Racecar as his middle name. She has never offered any reasoning behind her refusal. To me it seems a “no just to say no” defense.

This kind of disagreement takes me back to when we first started dating x years ago. At the time she flatly refused to partake in any celebratory moves when something exciting happened. These included, but were not limited to: high-fives, low fives, fist pumps or double fist pumps. Whenever I held my hand up to her to celebrate something she would smile, look at me pityingly, grab my hand and say, “Yay.” No return gesture. That didn’t stop me though. I never gave up. Even knowing the non response coming, I continued offering the hand or the fist and slowly but surely wore her down. It started small. After a couple of years she high-fived me back without thinking and I knew I had won. I whittled her down so much that now I even get random fist pumps from her!

Long story short that is my plan for my first son’s name. We aren’t having kids anytime soon so I figure I have time. Little by little we’ll get there and I can’t wait for the day his kindergarten teacher reads roll call, realizes what he/she is looking at, looks at my son and thinks, “Wow, that’s the best name I have ever seen.” Front wards and backwards.

(And if my plan doesn’t work I have a backup plan. His name will be Sammy C. Norrie. The C will stand for Claus and I will have little problem convincing him he is related to Santa. That should make him a legend until about 2^nd grade. After that, maybe not so much).