Stomp Rocket

From back in January, a moment of play with a favorite Christmas present. In this one you can catch a look at the old front yard.

Length: 0:53

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Bird Feeder

Thinking we might want to move this.

Length: 0:35

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Chris' Home Movies at College: Laura

Long post, short video.

Length: 1:02

Flashless? (Click to view.)

When I arrived at Northwestern University in the fall of 1986, I was in a place of intense grief. I had left behind a community of close high school friends (and a girlfriend) back in California, and was more invested in maintaining those relationships than in creating new ones. And of course I was entering a place (college) where all my freshman peers were bouncing off the walls with excitement at their new found independence from their families, their towns, their high schools, everything associated with home.

All except one.

Just a few doors down the hall from me was a girl named Laura Allen, from Oak Park, Illinois. She was also having trouble detaching from her close-knit circle of friends back home. Some were still in Oak Park, and several had headed to school up in Madison, so they were occasionally accessible on weekends. But in the rhythm of day-to-day life it was still too far away.

Laura and I found each other pretty quickly, and we would stay up late together swapping stories of our crazy friends, and showing each other photo albums of high school memories. We also hung out, shared meals, and spent time exploring the campus and town together. Our intimacy was intense, but it wasn't romantic, or sexual (Laura was starting to date, and I was still preposterously attached to my girlfriend back home). We clung to each other I think because when we were around each other we could be homesick. In other social settings you had to put on a good face, pretend you wouldn't rather be someplace else (and with somebody else). Other people asked you to live in the present.Together Laura and I let each other live in our separate pasts.

As I was editing this segment together late that fall, I was struck at how I had failed to record any hint of our actual relationship (I didn't realize at the time that its hidden-ness was part of its function). As I showed these brief video moments to my family and friends back home, I had to work to explain how important Laura had been to me, to THEM. Because in the footage there's no evidence.

Looking back, I can still identify my friendship with Laura as one of the most significant of my time in college, and yet after that first quarter we drifted quickly apart. When we got back to school after Christmas break, something unspoken had changed between us. Of course what had happened is that over the break each of us had experienced collisions both large and small between our expectations of home and the realities of it. So that as we returned, our shared homesickness habit was less able to deliver the fix it had the quarter before. And in clinging to each other a little less, we were each free to find a few more things about the new place that could help get us interested in the present (and ultimately the future). In a way I needed to let go of Laura like I needed to let go of home.

Red Light

Because who wants to come to a stop?

Length: 0:44

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Story Time #10: Hyperlexia

[VIDEO REDACTED]

I hadn't originally intended to do seven videos about the boy this week. But on day two, Josh left a comment asking me to explain where such a little guy was going on a school bus. This video attempts to answer that question. But for those of you (like Josh) who've only ever met the boy through this videoblog, this may leave you with more questions than answers.*

I knew it was going to take me all week to put together this one, so I filled the remainder of the days with unpublished videos from the past. I think it does create a bit of an arc to the week, and it's perhaps fitting that with this video I cross over the 100 video milestone.

Length: 4:16

Those of you following a link about hyperlexia can click in the right column on the video category "hyperlexia" to see more videos of the boy reading/reciting.



That'll just about do it for Videoblogging Week 2007.

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*In the video I ran down a list of common behaviors and other signifiers of hyperlexia in young children, featuring clips from earlier videos. I also shared the boy’s autism diagnosis from our school district. As I (and the boy) have grown in the years since, I'm not entirely comfortable with how I framed the situation in the moment. If I update the edit I'll relink it here.

Pillow Fort

Cuteness in low light conditions. (Some people on older monitors or on PCs won't hardly be able to see a thing, here. It's all in the audio, anyhow.)

Length: 0:41

Flashless? (Click to view.)



Made it to Day Six of Videoblogging Week. Tomorrow's a traveling day; I may need to post #7 early.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Scary

"Is it scary?" is what we've asked him in the past, so it's what he says himself when he's feeling scared. Especially when he's having fun.

Length: 0:31

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Day Five, still alive. It's Videoblogging Week.

One Shoe On

A frequent morning stalling tactic, in which the boy demonstrates some small amount of rhythm. Until, that is, he attempts to talk and walk at the same time.

Length: 1:19

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Barely made it in under the wire for Day Four of Videoblogging Week. The first two posts were same-day videos, but these last two have been dug up from the archives. I may need to keep doing that for the next couple of days...

Story Time #9: In the Night Kitchen

Another bathtime recitation, this one from the Maurice Sendak classic.

Length: 1:26

Flashless? (Click to view.)



This is day three of Videoblogging Week.

Bus

Today we put our three year old onto a school bus.

Maybe you should read that last sentence again.

Length: 0:50

Flashless? (Click to view.)



It's Videoblogging Week. We're two for two.

Gym Tumbler

From the boy's weekly gymnastic class.

Which at this age pretty much involves: jumping.

And being hurled.

Length: 1:05

Flashless? (Click to view.)



Well, it's Videoblogging Week again. We'll see if I can post seven videos in seven days. Without just digging into my unused video archives.