I've Been a Distant Cousin ...

Tea: White Leaf Song Yang

Music: Jacky Terrasson, "He Goes on a Trip"

Time: Night.

My high school senior daughter got a dictionary tonight. Big deal, right? Yeah, it was.

Each year, through the Kansas Scholars program, the University of Kansas awards certificates and dictionaries to seniors who are in the top ten percent of their graduating classes. The ceremony for her district, which includes five high schools, was tonight. (For the record, I wasn't in the top ten percent of my class. I had the test scores. But homework? Couldn't be bothered.)

Late in the presentation for the last high school, I saw a young man in a blue shirt hurry into the line. I knew it had to be my cousin's son, who I hadn't seen in more than ten years. I was right. He almost didn't make the ceremony, because his soccer team was playing a makeup game (in a cold rain, I might add).

I think my grandparents would have been proud, to have two great-grandchildren at the same academic awards ceremony. I think it would have saddened them, the way I've lost touch with a lot of my relatives.

My cousin lives 15 minutes from me, and I've seen him only a handful of times since I moved here.

I know ... it's inexcusable. But it's correctable.

As I get older, more and more time goes by between blinks. Kids become fledgling adults. Friends find themselves at the threshold of grandparenthood.

And we have the best of intentions -- to keep in touch, to get together, to keep weeks from turning into months from turning into years. But we fall down.

As long as we have breath, though, we can get up again. We have chances to close the gaps -- or, at the least, to build bridges over them. It isn't easy, but it can be done.

Tonight's scary story: Christopher Blayre, "The Book"

Cup XLI:I Know My Inner Fan is in Here Somewhere ...

Tea: Keemun Concerto

Music: Franz Ferdinand, "Take Me Out"; INXS, "Don't Change"; Lee Rocker, "Rockin' Harder"

Time: Mid-afternoon

You didn't know I was functional before 5 p.m., did you? Caffeine helps.

I couldn't tell you how many high school football games I've seen since my 16th birthday. (Yes, they played back then. Yes, the helmets had facemasks.) I can tell you how many I've seen for fun since turning 16, though:

One.

I was a junior in high school when I started covering our team for the local daily. (I suited up for two years, then decided I might be better at writing about the game than playing it.) When I moved back to the same paper in the late 1980s, I covered both the 11-man and eight-man versions -- first as a general assignment reporter, then as the area editor, then as the sports editor (a one-man department, I was, covering 14 high schools in two states).

I went to one game as a spectator over that span. It would have been in the early 1990s, but I don't remember the exact year.

I moved on to another Kansas newspaper for a little more than one year in the mid-1990s, covering high schools on Friday nights and the junior college team on Saturdays. Since 1997, I haven't seen a high school game for any reason.

But tonight, I'm going to a game with the junior daughter and sophomore son. Their school's team has been bad all year -- until the district part of the season. And in Kansas, that's all that really counts. Short version of the situation (because I'm not going through the rulebook to explain it all to you): Win tonight, and it's on to the playoffs -- and the 2-7 regular-season record be hanged.

I don't know any of the kids on the team. At least, I don't think I know any of them. It's a huge school, and my kids run more with the performing arts sets. But I'm looking forward to it. There's an atmosphere at high school games that can't be found anywhere else.

Plus, there's a light show afterward. Can't miss that.

And beyond that, this is a chance to engage with the larger world. Journalism prizes detachment, not engagement. I've played by those rules for years (and still have to play by them from time to time, as journalism work still pays a good chunk of the bills). But that's no longer the only rulebook in my life.

Will I be able to watch as a fan, and not analyze every play? Maybe not this time. But there will be others -- and other situations like this, other atmospheres to breathe in fully.

It's all part of learning to live more slowly, I suppose -- and as I do that, it seems that life opens up. Funny how things like that can work.

Today's scary story:

Robert H. Benson, "The Watcher"

Cup XL: My Child Won't Fit on a Bumper Sticker

Tea: Pu-er Poe

Music: Selections for high school strings

Time: Night.

Disclosure: The tea was steeped, and consumed, this morning. But tonight brought the events of note.

First, the junior daughter (not the younger daughter -- junior as in eleventh grader) was inducted into the National Honor Society. Yeah, I'm going braggy dad here. I'm proud of her, because she's shown a lot more dedication than I ever did in high school. I might have been the only National Merit Scholar in history never to make the honor roll. It's an accomplishment of sorts, but not exactly the right kind of sorts.

Then, I came home after the ceremony to find that the sophomore son had applied his goofy brand of charisma to charm friend/colleague/fellow traveler Seánan Forbes into writing not one, but two ghost stories for him to recite to his drama class. She's a professional storyteller, so I'd suggested he ask her for help. A few hours later, she had done far more than that. Not that I've gotten to read them. He gave me an evil grin and ordered me away from the computer. I think maybe the ghost gets me in the end.

The eighth grade daughter was asleep by then. No doubt dreaming up uses for her dry wit, which she reveals more and more every day. (She has her cockeyed moments, too. She insists I'm a frog, but won't say why or which kind. Some game she and Seánan dreamed up, when Seánan hied her away to New York for a night at the American Museum of Natural History. Yes, that's where the T-Rex mug came from.)

There's much I'm discovering about the kids. It's a grace and a gratitude that what I'm learning is good.

Tonight's story (in which I know I do not appear):

Perceval Landon, "Thurnley Abbey"

Cup V: (But I Never Really Thought Everything Looked Worse in Black and White)

Tea: Ginger Peach with honey

Music: Paul Simon, "Kodachrome"

Time: Night.

"When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all ..." -Paul Simon

So today, dear Diary, I played teacher. Sort of. I sat in on a couple of senior Advanced Placement English classes and a fourth grade class at a local school. No, not at the same time.

Quite frankly, the prospect left me apprehensive. I know how to write, yes, but how to teach writing and critical reading? I pictured eyes glazing, rolling, looking out the window.

It wasn't so bad, even though the seniors were discussing Ralph Waldo Emerson instead of the Civil War book I stayed up until 3 a.m. finishing. Most of the time was spent in observation, interjection and familiarization. Good minds, although I wish some of them would dig in deeper to defend their points of view.

The fourth graders were a lot of fun (and I went in more intimidated by them than by the high school kids). Lively imaginations, for the most part, and they all seemed eager to get in on the story improvisation section.

So, I've been invited back. And I'll be going back. But don't start calling me "Sir" just yet.