Almost Crimes (On Your Grind Mix)
Cash Money,
Danke! Thank you! Domo!
I really appreciate the gift. It’s perfect. It really is beautiful. I wish I could spend the time filling the screen with kudos and a list of “how this works so well” for this format and our little project. I can tell you, without trying to make this too much about me, that I am very proud of myself because I made a smart choice in partners. I can’t imagine doing this with anyone else.
And you know how I feel about being cute, man. It’s a good look. I prefer cute over clever. Clever just isn’t sassy enough; sassy is sexy. Don’t even get me started on naughty. Baby! Let your ass be out, baby. Goose. Liver.
And being cute is so important to me in the post-forty progression and career retrograde and parenting torrent. I half expected to be spun apart by all of the forces moving me about here and there by now, but I tell you this: Fuck it!
I feel you, though. Nostalgia has always been a bit of an isolation tank for me. But I won’t climb in now. The urge is powerful. Looking back can be an insightful and useful exercise, especially because nostalgia is an open wound. We sometimes have to put a little something on it before it gets nasty.
Year one of my fourth decade is starting out right. My parents have finally moved out of Harlem. They moved to Philly, so they are very close to my sister. We can visit them all at once. My kids are hellions, but I love the hell out of them. They are both so damn cute. Intense. Curious. Wifey is cool, collected, and cheeky. She holds it down. She’s a tightrope walker and acrobat. She’s does ballet around debris left by the children and work. She keeps me in check. I am back in school working on getting a PhD, teaching one class, and I’m doing this: I’m writing. I’m in a good place with all the right toys.
Goose. Liver.
At this point, I want to be like, “Oh. It’s never been so good” (Not to run the ball back over my words, but that’s all part of the perspective). But, yeah. It has. It’s been better. There may never come another point in my life where I will ever have as few obligations as I had when I was living in the Bay. I may never spontaneously meet up with friends at 10 pm for drinks, a concert, and Korean BBQ again. I actually had something like a birthday party back in the day; my thirty-first was pretty epic to me. I forgot my own birthday this year. Dead ass! I woke up on a Wednesday, got the kids ready for school, prepared myself to teach my class, posted my homework assignment, and then got the kids out the door. Around 10 am or 11 am, after handing out some photocopies of an essay, I looked at the time and date and said, “Oh shit!” My birthday wasn’t much of a thought in July or August since we were struggling a bit with money. It might have crossed my mind once early on in September, but I can’t be sure. Graduate school had started, and the kids’ schools were starting the next week. Everyday is usually like a Wednesday, but we sometimes call it Monday or Saturday. And sometimes it’s my birthday.
So what? This is just what my life is like now. I’m not given to feeling any other particular way about it. I know that I miss you and all of our shenanigans. I don’t miss the ass I have been so many times because I couldn’t process my anxiety and trust my talents and my judgment. Blah. blah. Belch. Remember that trip to Cabo? Remember our conversations about my feelings about being isolated and invisible? Do you remember me being Tomcat the Fool?
Pause: I do. I can’t tell how I rewind and replay those situations in my head and make different and better choices, trying to magically make my life now a little bit better and new: I try to change me then and now. It’s a stupid waste of time. It’s exhausting.
So it’s Sunday night. Tomorrow is a school day. I have to teach tomorrow. I’m going to finish this up and read one more chapter before heading to bed. I’m going to snuggle up to wifey; I’m going to wake up tomorrow and get to work.
Play: I enjoyed my day. I got a silly little story to tell; I’m putting a dog-ear on that one. There’s a great vegan bakery in downtown Jersey City, and I had a fancy chocolate donut. I got to be silly with my kids, which is really everyday. I got a little sexy time. I got inspired. I wasn’t a little bored.
It was a good day.
Goose. Liver.
Delete
