I have a 10 day-old baby, so my wife and I didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving. Instead everyone came to us. My parents and my wife's parents are out of the country, so the guests were mostly friends instead of realatives. It occured to me while I was sitting there -- we all got freakin' old when no one was paying attention. Some would rejoice at what we all had become (responsible, upstanding members of society for the most part). Maybe I'm just a depressing motherfucker, because the situation reminded me of that Jim Carroll song, "People who Died." In a sense, the people I knew were dead. I had trouble sleeping the night before, feeling anxiety over the dinner, whether everyone would get along, what everyone would be like.
Some examples: Jamie the former punk rock drummer showed up with his wife, Candace, and their two kids. I knew Jamie from elementary school, and met his wife before he did in college. Jamie used to like to fight, fuck his girlfriend, and smoke weed (in that order). He lived on my couch for over a year when he was too poor to afford rent anywhere. His former girlfriend, the one just before he met Candace, was a freaky, black haired, pale skinned beauty who was seriously crazy but fun. When they broke up she fucked two of my other roommates, in the same night, to get back at Jaime. She claimed she came into my room for the trifecta, but I just rolled over and started snoring. When Jaime found out he beat one roommate up then kicked him down the stairs. The other guy climbed out a window to get away. He put an old golf club through my closet doors for good measure, mostly because I (truthfully) claimed to have no knowledge of the event. I was locked in the closet and pleading for my life, or at least the future integrity of my facial bones, at the time.
The first time I met his wife, she was drunk and hanging off another friend of ours who had been in the army. She told me, before I knew her name, that she was there solely to fuck the army guy when he came to town. She liked to drink and drop acid. She was incredibly irresponsible, picked up two DUI arrests in a year, but somehow got out of them both. I once saw her attack another girl with a pool cue. She had a pierced nipple, before they were common, and would show it to anyone who asked. She met Jaime shortly after his golf club episode and they've been together ever since.
Anyway, now they are married, parents, and both hold responsible-person jobs. As far as I know, they are no longer proponents of physical violence. Jaime wears long sleeves to cover his tattoos most of the time. He talks about soccer practice, about elementary school. He has a short haircut and a pot belly. He wears polo shirts his inlaws got him for Christmas. His wife wears fleece vests from L.L. Bean. She and my wife were discussing private school tuition and macrobiotics. It was bizzare.
Another college friend showed up with his wife. He is an accomplished author -- you have probably read his stuff in Rolling Stone or Blender. She was in a popular band that you may have heard of. Now they are a web marketing analyst and a lawyer, respectively. I stare at them, and I can't figure out what the fuck happened. It was the same with the other guests: My old high-school girlfriend and her husband, who's an executive recruiter; a lawyer friend of mine and his wife, who was a Hooters girl when they met; a friend who is a chef. The dinner was also surreal. No one drank to excess, pot was not smoked, coke was not snorted. We discussed sports, the weather, the food, personal trainers, and music.
I'd like to think I am the same. I was always the responsible member of the group, the one most likely to have enough cash to bail one of the others out. I was the wolf in sheep's clothing. I dress like I always have, I look like I always have. Yet here I am, married to an ex-model who is now a professor (seriously) and having abandoned a law degree for a seemingly more reckless (but actually more stable) financing job. I did not produce joints, Black Jack, or absinthe at dinner, and I didn't suggest we go in the backyard, shotgun beer, and shoot at the cans with my .45. I sat, wondering at the staid scene in front of me and wondering if the exact point could be plotted where all of our lives took a turn for the normal. I wondered if my mind was freewheeling me into a serious mid-life crisis.
I asked my brother, who is almost 10 years younger than me, if he noticed the change and if it freaked him out. I asked him if I had changed in the last few years. He called me a moron and laughed at me. My dad called from Innisbrook, where he and my mom are spending my child's inheritence. I told him what I had spent the evening thinking about. "Getting old kind of sucks," I said.
My dad, said, "You know what really sucks? Getting old enough to hear your kid complain about getting old. Get a grip."
I looked at my son and wondered if, in 34 years and 11 months I would get a similar call. I went back to the party. I started arguing with my brother and Jamie about the Iraq war. The whole thing suddenly became kind of funny. I didn't have any trouble sleeping that night.
Some examples: Jamie the former punk rock drummer showed up with his wife, Candace, and their two kids. I knew Jamie from elementary school, and met his wife before he did in college. Jamie used to like to fight, fuck his girlfriend, and smoke weed (in that order). He lived on my couch for over a year when he was too poor to afford rent anywhere. His former girlfriend, the one just before he met Candace, was a freaky, black haired, pale skinned beauty who was seriously crazy but fun. When they broke up she fucked two of my other roommates, in the same night, to get back at Jaime. She claimed she came into my room for the trifecta, but I just rolled over and started snoring. When Jaime found out he beat one roommate up then kicked him down the stairs. The other guy climbed out a window to get away. He put an old golf club through my closet doors for good measure, mostly because I (truthfully) claimed to have no knowledge of the event. I was locked in the closet and pleading for my life, or at least the future integrity of my facial bones, at the time.
The first time I met his wife, she was drunk and hanging off another friend of ours who had been in the army. She told me, before I knew her name, that she was there solely to fuck the army guy when he came to town. She liked to drink and drop acid. She was incredibly irresponsible, picked up two DUI arrests in a year, but somehow got out of them both. I once saw her attack another girl with a pool cue. She had a pierced nipple, before they were common, and would show it to anyone who asked. She met Jaime shortly after his golf club episode and they've been together ever since.
Anyway, now they are married, parents, and both hold responsible-person jobs. As far as I know, they are no longer proponents of physical violence. Jaime wears long sleeves to cover his tattoos most of the time. He talks about soccer practice, about elementary school. He has a short haircut and a pot belly. He wears polo shirts his inlaws got him for Christmas. His wife wears fleece vests from L.L. Bean. She and my wife were discussing private school tuition and macrobiotics. It was bizzare.
Another college friend showed up with his wife. He is an accomplished author -- you have probably read his stuff in Rolling Stone or Blender. She was in a popular band that you may have heard of. Now they are a web marketing analyst and a lawyer, respectively. I stare at them, and I can't figure out what the fuck happened. It was the same with the other guests: My old high-school girlfriend and her husband, who's an executive recruiter; a lawyer friend of mine and his wife, who was a Hooters girl when they met; a friend who is a chef. The dinner was also surreal. No one drank to excess, pot was not smoked, coke was not snorted. We discussed sports, the weather, the food, personal trainers, and music.
I'd like to think I am the same. I was always the responsible member of the group, the one most likely to have enough cash to bail one of the others out. I was the wolf in sheep's clothing. I dress like I always have, I look like I always have. Yet here I am, married to an ex-model who is now a professor (seriously) and having abandoned a law degree for a seemingly more reckless (but actually more stable) financing job. I did not produce joints, Black Jack, or absinthe at dinner, and I didn't suggest we go in the backyard, shotgun beer, and shoot at the cans with my .45. I sat, wondering at the staid scene in front of me and wondering if the exact point could be plotted where all of our lives took a turn for the normal. I wondered if my mind was freewheeling me into a serious mid-life crisis.
I asked my brother, who is almost 10 years younger than me, if he noticed the change and if it freaked him out. I asked him if I had changed in the last few years. He called me a moron and laughed at me. My dad called from Innisbrook, where he and my mom are spending my child's inheritence. I told him what I had spent the evening thinking about. "Getting old kind of sucks," I said.
My dad, said, "You know what really sucks? Getting old enough to hear your kid complain about getting old. Get a grip."
I looked at my son and wondered if, in 34 years and 11 months I would get a similar call. I went back to the party. I started arguing with my brother and Jamie about the Iraq war. The whole thing suddenly became kind of funny. I didn't have any trouble sleeping that night.