I did it like this, I did it like that, I did it with a whiffle ball bat.

On Saturday this cool 5 year old I know was alone in a field wearing a helmet and hula-hooping. I learned a bit of steppin' and got a sunburn. Working the Glick Family Camp should bookend my summers from now on--praised for my block letter writing abilities, getting vicious bug bites, running after children with disabilities, and kayaking. This will be a regular thing only if I get assigned to the proud and spirited Black family and not to the hippie family, what with their long-haired and poorly behaved boy children, folk singing, and unexamined racism. They got on my nerves. More and more I endorse the parenting style that my father, in word more than deed, supported, something more in line with Black foster moms than vegetarian folk singers. My children will know that all they are is loved but that sometimes they need to shut up and listen and pull out a chair or say 'thank you.' We shall draw a line between precocious and obnoxious, and we may have a conversion van.

In other news, St. Renegade hitched up her woolen habit to reveal the Missy Elliot kicks and did, indeed, play whiffle ball. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed running around. That was never my thing, you know, I'm not some jock, I'm heavy and black and deep and sitting on the sidelines with the other malcontents. Now I'm nearly 30 and just getting to know the joys of whiffle ball. I was not surprised at how much I enjoyed my teammates, kids with speech impediments that make them sound Jamaican and, no joke, hearts that just want to have fun and be young. I dig kids.

The down side is that I'm not really present for work today. I'm elicting a lot of "How you doing, sweetie"s and "What's going on with you?"s, indicating that I look as far away as I feel. For whatever reason, I believe I need some David Foster Wallace, and printed off his address to Kenyon College and an article from the NYT about tennis. Why use fewer words when more would do the trick? Why work when there are no looming crisis and my supervisor went home sick? When even sexy young co-worker is losing his glitter it may be time to shut the door, turn on the R+B, and read the thoughts I wish were mine.

All my lessons came with some pain

Touch and Go had their 25th anniversary this weekend. Rock rock rock. Ted Leo was there and he did that song again, sans bleeding, and then closed with a Stiff Little Fingers cover. Awesome. I mean, they didn't chose the best song, they should have covered Alternative Ulster. You hear that? That's rock snobbery. I only had to deal with it on Friday, thank G-d, after which I pushed the offender onto the red line tracks and went to the rest of the shows solo.

I have heard about the !!! experience, their relentlessly danceable punk rock, and peeps were not lying. The thing with a sexy lead singer who is trying to be sexy is that, yes, I will usually think they are sexy. I am not a hard sell, I just says to them: thanks for trying. This guy, this Nic Offer, he has my hairdo and he slapped himself across the face, so he's in. What pushed it to the next level was how that little sparkplug made me think that I was the sexiest person there; it's an industrial park in Chicago filled with defensive and dirty childhumans, it's not Vegas, but still. Good job. Props all around.

The real transcendental moment for me was seeing Monorchid on Sunday, because I love Chris Thomson, not in some real way but in the way of wanting to own every record he every scream-yelled on, getting him to record my voice mail message, making him laugh. Standing in the rain in my favorite coat, thinking that I am awesome for seeing shows by myself, waiting for them to bring it on, I got to ride my personal time machine back to 1992. I was listening to Super Genius while cleaning an accounting office in Perrysburg, OH. "Mean Hot and Blessed" was the single sexiest song I had ever heard. I had to dig around for the cassette tape for an hour tonight but I found it and it is fantastic. Oh, to fall in love again. I listened to Las Mordidas and Let Them Eat and I hung up my custom-made "Chris loves Katy" poster. Further, further--because that's what we do, we push things forward--I am going to celebrate my renewed love for Chris Thomson as a heralding of sorts. Sweater weather returns. Irrational fears of tattooed hipsters die like leaves on trees. The humid climate of self disgust is washed away with a nice cold front and cleansing rain. There is no fear! There is only rock.