{"id":117,"date":"2007-08-21T09:08:01","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T09:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/08\/do-you-enjoy-a-nice-conversation.html"},"modified":"2007-08-21T09:08:01","modified_gmt":"2007-08-21T09:08:01","slug":"do-you-enjoy-a-nice-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/08\/do-you-enjoy-a-nice-conversation.html","title":{"rendered":"Do you enjoy a nice conversation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Me: <\/strong>I saw Mrs. Miller today after Mass. <\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>What did you talk about? <\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Our ungrateful daughters.<\/p>\n

\n(Pause. Double Pause.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>(tentatively) Really?<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>(shrug)<\/p>\n

\n

Me: <\/strong>How was school?<\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>It was great. I have the best lunch table ever. There’s Mona and Chloe and Logan and Billy and…<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>How were were your classes?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>Oh, first period is the best! Everyone’s in there. Nicole and Mona and Chloe and..<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>I mean the content. <\/em><\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>Oh fine. We have to write about Cry the Beloved Country <\/em>(the summer reading) tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Okay, what about second period?<\/p>\n

\nKatie: <\/strong>It’s okay. Only a couple of my friend in there. But the next <\/em>class….<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>(sigh)<\/p>\n

\n

Me: <\/strong>What did you do in school today?<\/p>\n

\nJoseph: <\/strong>I don’t remember.<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>What did the teacher talk about? Religion? Spelling? Math?<\/p>\n

\nJoseph: <\/strong>Rules.<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>What kind of rules?<\/p>\n

\nJoseph:\u00a0<\/strong>A lot <\/em>of \u00a0<\/em>rules. (sigh)<\/p>\n

\n

Chris: <\/strong>Do you remember back in 1999 when I asked you if I could go to a Korn concert?<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n

\nChris: <\/strong>And I came home from school and you had this page of lyrics <\/em>printed up and you said if I was man enough to read them to you to your face I was man enough to go to the concert?<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Yup<\/p>\n

\nChris: <\/strong>And so I didn’t go?<\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n

\nChris: <\/strong>Well, Korn was here\u00a0 the other night…and I went to the concert. <\/em><\/p>\n

\nMe: <\/strong>Uh-huh<\/p>\n

\nChris: <\/strong>And I didn’t have to read you the lyrics. So I won.<\/p>\n

\n(Please, no “Well, I never” comments. It was a joking<\/u> conversation.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Me: <\/strong>(in the middle of some conversation with a religion subject) Oh, please – that coming from you <\/em>whose faith rises and falls according to the outcome of football games.<\/p>\n

\nChris: <\/strong>What are you talking about, games? More like according to downs.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Me: <\/strong>(at the end of a conversation. David is graduated. This is not a school conversation, but about his leisure reading.) You know, David, if it bores you, just stop. The question of whether or not to finish reading Finnigan’s Wake<\/em> is not a big moral issue.<\/p>\n

(pause)<\/em><\/p>\n

David: <\/strong>Hmmm.\u00a0Are you sure?<\/p>\n

\n

Me: <\/strong>Now, you tell me if you have to use the potty, okay?<\/p>\n

Michael the Toddler: <\/strong>(No comment)<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Me: I saw Mrs. Miller today after Mass. Katie: What did you talk about? Me: Our ungrateful daughters. (Pause. Double Pause.) Katie: (tentatively) Really? Me: (shrug) Me: How was school? Katie: It was great. I have the best lunch table ever. There’s Mona and Chloe and Logan and Billy and… Me: How were were your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-life"],"yoast_head":"\nDo you enjoy a nice conversation? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/08\/do-you-enjoy-a-nice-conversation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do you enjoy a nice conversation? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Me: I saw Mrs. Miller today after Mass. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}