Kids, No Chaser

The Pope of Dirty Thirties

Monday, August 10, 2009 posted by Henri

That’s odd. Yeah I’m sitting here in my living room and it’s oh…10 am and I’m all alone. I don’t work Mondays and the kids are in preschool and the wife, she got called in to work today to sub out another doc. And I’m thinking to myself…when in the hell was the last time I had a day to myself?

Damn. Maybe 4 or 5 years?

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m kinda into this parenting/husbandry thing. But I’m sitting here in my living room with the leftover bone piece of a giant cowboy steak from the night before, a 7-11 cup filled with ice and black coffee, and I’m watching the Pope of Greenwich Village.

A giant steakbone, big gulp sized superblack iced-coffee, couch, empty morning, and the Pope of Greenwich Village.

I just had to repeat it again.

And in the middle of all this grace, I have to figure out what to do with the entire rest of the day.

This is good. Really really good.

It’s the kind of DIY grubby happiness that filled all of my college years. Usually a cottonheaded Sunday morning that was hot already, the first of many camel lights, a coke a coffee, some M&M’s, and big fat smile knowing I had to figure out what to do that day other than study. The heat in Los Angeles. My weak-ass little window swamp cooler. My ghetto apartment in oh-so-not-ghetto Brentwood, down the street from OJs wife.

Grubby happiness.

You really can’t let me out of my cage. I’ll devolve pretty quickly. I need some structure and deadlines and urgent tasky things to do to weigh me down. I could easily follow this morning with video games, 7-11 runs, assorted scratching and daydreaming until my wife came home to find college Henri sitting in the living room asking for more ashtrays.

Seriously WTF happened to Mickey Rourke? The Pope of Greenwich Village is such a great film. And don’t get me started on Barfly. That would be a great double header.

Some days when I miss LA I’ll watch Wassup Rockers, Entourage, and Quinceanera all together. It’s like those jelly belly combinations. It works really well, takes the edge off for a few weeks.

There I go…devolving. Thinking of weird random stuff.

I think a lot about the day when the last kid goes off to college, and before the first kid comes back home to slum it for a few years. I think me and my wife will look at each other and say….what now? Or more like….I’m bored.

It’s odd how we get there. Baby steps. Slowly going from independent individuals, to parents who don’t really function that great without their primary objectives tearing up the house.

And it’s odd how that chain smoking slacker that used to live in the Westside, that dude that would spend those awesome lazy Sunday mornings driving along the beach in his little Celica with the top down, would end up here. Gigantic mortgage, cool little neighborhood that the fifties forgot, a job, a wife, some kids, some happiness.

Kinda like those little precursor fault-line tremors that build up to the big one. I think today is a way to look back at slacker youth and smile and reminisce before I break down in 10 years and buy a Ferrari in true “the big one” midlife crisis fashion.

I just wanted to say that I got a lazy day off with my breakfast of champions watching the Pope of Greenwich Village. I still have the Celica. It’s parked right outside. Maybe I’ll go for a drive today.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A nice morning of reflection- and you actually wrote yours down- thank you- R.C. Oakes Jr.

9:48 AM

 

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