Today’s Music: The Shook – Window
(Because how often do you hear a banjo on a wah-wah pedal?)
Days Til Spring: TWO!!!!!
And if you can, please help out Merbear.===========================>>>
Tomorrow I’m going to step way out of my comfort zone. I’m going to an orientation for Big Brothers Big Sisters. They are an organization that pairs mentors with children who, for whatever reason, could use one.
It’s not a tremendous time requirement – they ask for four hours every other weekend. They want the mentors (Bigs) to provide support, counsel, friendship, reinforcement and constructive examples.
(Fortunately, I have a whole bag of GOOD LORD, DON’T DO THIS!!! examples.)
Like this.
But completely different.
I don’t know if I can clearly articulate why I want to do this. I don’t see myself as particularly altruistic, or someone who thinks “I must give every last bit to help everyone else!!!”, and there are those who could probably put forth good arguments that I’m a dick.
I don’t know. I’ve always thought of myself as “just this guy”, and that’s enough for me.
I’ve had my struggles, but overall, my life hasn’t been overly difficult. As a Straight White Male, I live on what John Scalzi calls the easy setting. But I know that’s just because of luck. Spin the wheel in either direction, just a little, and either by birth or consequences of a myriad stupid decisions, my life could have been a lot harder. I don’t begrudge anyone else their success, and I’m not competitive enough to want to keep anyone else down so I can do well.
I think if you do well and I was there to help you out along the way, that’s enough for me. So why not lend a hand to a kid that needs one?
At the orientation, they’ll give us an idea of the kids we might be dealing with, of what we can do with them, and I probably what the boundaries are. They’ll pair me up with someone that shares my interests – hopefully the kid will like science fiction, (good) music, food. Maybe I’ll have something useful to the show the kid.
I have no idea.
But I know that however it goes, it will be worth the effort.
Who knows, maybe he’ll even have a thing for Hawaiian shirts!
Guapola 