Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The rest of the way
This morning, at 7:45 a.m., I reached the exact halfway point of my life. I know this because, on her way out the door, my daughter said this to me:

"Peace out homeskillit, f'sheezie, yo."

This seems like an impossible-to-miss signal that from now on I'm gradually going to devolve until I do not understand anything anybody says. This is good to know because now I know exactly how long I'm going to live and can plan accordingly; also I can stop pretending anything makes sense.

I immediately went to urbandictionary.com to translate her message. Apparently, it means:

"Good bye, friend, for sure. Oh, and by the way, I'm pretending to be black, despite the obvious fact that I am as white as Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia's inner thighs."

So here's how I think the rest of my life will go:

The next ten years will be similar to the past decade, during which I will be mildly irritated at all times, yet somehow naively optimistic that, despite the evidence, the world is going to get better. Just because I will have a crabby look on my face won't mean I don't want you to get the hell away from me.

The decade after that will be similar to the decade before last – a period marked by mysterious uncontrollable urges and bouts of giving a shit. I will find a need both for baby car seats and lumberyards. I will wax poetically about exotic foods but end up ordering the Szechuan shrimp.

During the ensuing decade, I will devote all of my time to caring about me, to the exclusion of anyone else. I will consume copious amounts of drugs, and wonder why I haven't done so sooner. Christmas will be fun again, especially that warm, candlelit part when it's mostly over and everybody keeps repeating a joke that really isn't funny but makes us feel clever and alive. I'll wear the same jeans for days on end but nobody will notice because I did that last decade, too.

The following decade will be marked by nonsensical exclamations, possibly including the word "f'sheezie." I'll become fond of wearing football jerseys and listening to R&B. I'll borrow lots of biographies from the library (if libraries still exist) and admire their smell almost as much as the information they contain. Despite my stampeding fragility, I'll be quite popular among my peers, who will admire me for my tendency to forget they owe me money.

After that, drool, baldness, and a tendency to scratch myself by accident.

Peace out homeskillits, f'sheezie, yo.

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