Thursday, August 28, 2008

Random Thoughts

1. Yesterday, I watched my nephew J. playing with a stuffed Tigger doll.

We sat on the couch, with Tigger between us. He grabbed the orange and black doll, whispered to it in his broken baby English and then gave it an adoring hug, squeezing it so tight and smiling.

He then hurled the Tigger onto the floor with a thud.

We both stared down at the castoff toy.

"Oh. Mo." J. garbled.

He slid off the couch and toddled to Tigger, picking him up by the tail. Hugging it again, pressing the doll's hind legs to his face, he said "I Sorfy...I Sorfy."

J. climbed back up onto the couch, Tigger in hand. We sat for a second and once again, Tigger was hurled onto the floor.

This cycle of love, scorn, separation, atonement, and redemption continued for another five minutes until J. discovered that slapping a puddle of spilled juice made a great sound.

I hate kids.

2. Tuesday is the worst day of the work week.

Monday is the day everyone gets a pass because of whatever alcoholic dmage may have been done and the collective understanding that no one wants to be back from the weekend.

Wednesday is the "Hump Day". We're all in it together so let's just get through this day it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Thursday is the unofficial start to the weekend. There's a sense of hope for the Saturday and Sunday to come: time away, time to imagine a life where I can pursue what my innermost self desires or -barring that- drink myslef into oblivion with people I barely know but hope to sleep with.

Friday. IT'S FRIDAY...WE'LL ALL BE FREE IN 8 SHORT HOURS COMRADES! VIVA LA LIBERTE!


Tuesday is a day with no excuses. No fun lables. No chats about what you'll be doing this weekend. Just the stark reality of the week ahead and no alibi for your listless job performance.

3. When faced with a sea change - like the sort I've been experiencing this week - I have discovered that there is never a time of rest or completion. I can never sit back and think: well, this is it. This is how I'm going to feel.

It just doesn't happen. Every second is a new adventure in "How shitty will I feel now? How excited? How angry? How abandoned? How supported? How relieved? How sad? How hopeful?"

And the moment I think the waters have calmed, another wave breaks and I'm right where I thought I wouldn't be again. A stranger to myself...and, in many ways, to those around me.

I know it will pass. A tempest can't last forever. It's just hard to see beyond those white capped waves on the black ocean.

4. I am enormously grateful to those who have offered their support. It is humbling to be surounded by such thoughtful people. Thank you for even the smallest reaching out. You have no idea the comfort it brings.

5. Sometimes I play a game on the bus: If the other passengers and I were trapped on a deserted island, with whom would I most likely pro-create? Sometimes, the pickin's are slim.

2 comments:

Merge said...

The game I still sometimes play when I'm stuck around a bunch of strangers is "If everything attached to the ceiling - but not the ceiling itself - came crashing down right now, whom would I actually bother to try to rescue first?"

It started back in the cafeterias of my youth. Those big, industrial, behemoth air-conditions of the Southwest were scary enough attached to the ceiling, let alone unhinged. I was convinced it would happen someday, they were going to fall alright. I was slightly disappointed nothing exciting like that ever happened. I seem to remember giggling about it with one other disturbed friend, picturing who'd get sliced up like lunch meat in the steel grates.

Yep. My twisted sensibility stretches far into my past.

Of course, I found out later the school building was riddled with asbestos for a long time while I went there. I'll probably pay karmically for those disaster wishes, someday. Better go check out that cough, actually.

Tonight there were a couple of rowdy Cubs fans, speaking loud enough I thought they had a mic on them, and then bullying the entire train car asking for Sox fans. I was tempted, but found them annoying enough without having to talk to him. Thank God some kid next to them offered himself up, which they razzed him for "Only one Sox fan out of 100 here, huh?!" He said "Two words: World Series" to them. That eventually, (EVENTUALLY) quieted them down some.

Then a kid was rapping up and down the aisles for 5 stops about how he's making 22, making 22, making twenty-tooooooooo/this Sunday - so loud it was drowning out the stop names. I could see why he was so surprised no one had killed him yet. He was tempting fate, as I was not in the mood for a demo.

If I played your procreation game with my commute, it'd be "Children of Men" time.

MG

Henri Dugas IV said...

1. Got something new to pass the time during "We are srtopped momentairly..." THANKS.
1-a: Though I'm a guy so this game is gonna be much easier!
1-b: I believe the human race has run it's course, time for a roach or dolphin ovethrown and enslavement of the human race.

2. Dominos Pizza has named Tuesday... Buy one get one free! So bam! Take that rest of the week, free motherfucking pizza!

3. Wow, that short scene with your nephew had more meeaning and subtext in it than any of the last 5 movies I watched. That's not a statement about hollywood, I just pick shitty movies.

 
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