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You might not know this, but I think about death way too much. It's a huge part of who I am. It's flickering in the background of almost everything I do. Fuckin' death. When I was 27, I was fond of saying that manhood begins at 27. I think that's basically true; most of the shit you did before that, if you really think about it, was kid stuff. I don't want to hear about your early 20's -- not the girls you seduced or the awesome band you were in that sold 10 million records or the life-saving vaccine you created. You know and I know that you were just a reckless kid who was looking out for himself when all that happened. The problem with becoming a Man* is that once you're there, that's it. You don't become a Man-plus at 32 or anything like that. It goes right from Man to Old Man to Corpse. With each passing year you see bad signs: opportunities missed, once-effortless feats of physical prowess falling beyond your reach, huge decisions looming everywhere. You basically start dying at 27. And once you start dying, you start grasping at things to prove that you're not. On my 30th birthday I went out and played basketball in Tompkins Square Park and I dunked on the low rim closest to 10th street. It wasn't pretty, but it gave me a chance to pat myself on the back and convince myself I hadn't lost a thing. My friend JP dunks on a ten foot rim on every birthday. He's still going at 36. I turned 36 this weekend, too. I had a lot on my mind, so I walked home from work on Friday night. Around Union Square I started to cry a little bit. Just a bit. And I was in a good mood, too. I just don't think it's possible for me to walk from one coast of Manhattan to the other without getting emotional. Anything can set me off, too. A couple in their 80's walking slowly down the street, arm in arm. A diner full of police cadets, all eating in their uniforms, segregated completely by race. A guy with really bad stains on his pants. A Dunkin' Donuts with no customers in it. A hopelessly overweight lady jogger shuffling along in brand new workout clothes and carrying an iPod mini. And the thing is, I love all these people. I love this city. And it breaks my heart that all of us are going to die. It really breaks my heart that some of these people will be dead before the scaffolding on their apartment buildings comes down. That's an insult. When the scaffolding outlives you. Since I hit 36 this weekend**, I decided to play some sports, in a desperate attempt to turn back the hands of time. But I failed. I looked 46 on the basketball court and 72 on the softball field. I'm dying, alright. And at a pretty brisk pace. But there were some very bright spots among all the harbingers of mortality. It was my birthday, and I got treated very well by the people around me. My lovely wife took the baby and I out to dinner on Saturday night at this joint. Pretty good place, very lively. I got the Welsh Rarebit, which was a huge mistake. I have no explanation for that order other than I was pleasantly surprised to discover it had no meat in it. The wife had the cheesesteak, which was absolutely the correct order -- breathtakingly delicious. So I betrayed my vegetarian oath and had a few bites of her meal. My Dear God it was perfect. I also had some nice fries and a cold beer. Then we walked home through the old East Village. They're still kickin' it live down there on Saturday nights, I'll tell you. Packed bars and tons of young folks milling around. Nice. Then we got home and she had bought me two really nice birthday presents that I don't deserve: This tripod (#343E), which I aim to use as often as I can for my cheesy digital snapshots, while trying not to look like a complete dork. This reasonably priced set of iPOd speakers. We actually got 'em for 100 bucks at B & H. The thing could really use a remote, but I guess I can get an iPod remote for skipping songs and whatnot. But even then, I won't be able to control the volume without touching the unit itself. Still, nice to finally have a place to play music besides my computer. Very excited about this gift. Sunday I went to brunch with mom and then the wife took me to Barnes and Noble for a little gift card shopping spree. What fun. I bought three more DVD's***:
5. White Men Can't Jump I also bought four books****. Two of them were published in 1971, one of them was published in 1992, and one of them was published in 2003. For ten points each, can you tell me the names of these books? You can enlist google, I suppose, but to paraphrase Wooderson, it'd be a lot cooler if you didn't. Then we played some good softball on Sunday night. I had a couple of fine, cold, refreshing Budweisers. They don't call it The King for nothing. Rob M., we miss ya. Joe Monkeyweb will have the recap for us sometime this week. For now, I will tell you that I slid and was out and it was a huge mistake. My pajamas are sticking to my scabby leg right now. It's definitely gonna get infected and I'll probably lose the leg. After softball, Deion and the Kissel brothers treated me to a nice dinner at Tavern on Jane. We talked about nothing but baseball. Players/topics we touched on were:
-Palmeiro: Hall of Famer before the steroids story broke? How about now? That's about half of it. You can really sit and talk about baseball forever. What a great game. After dinner, I came home and washed down some of the stress of these 36 years with my sixth 32 oz. Gatorade of the weekend. Only three loads of laundry, though. We'll call it $$$ Super Triple Cash Money. Sure I'm dying, but I'm enjoying every fleeting minute along the way. Especially because I just found out McDonald's now offers gigando cups of blue Powerade.
* We are not discussing transgender operations here today, merely the general
maturation process of those who were born XY. |
