At the time, i was still only 47. I took my (then) 6 year old to Toronto's lakeshore for the celebratory fireworks for Queen Victoria's birthday. It was crowded and full of people. And I remember the (if not confidence) nonchalance with which I walked through the crowd with my boy.
As a teenager I'd have thought about how much of a pimply, short, scrawny fuckwad I was.
As an "adult" of 18 ("Hey!" shouts my 18-year old self) I would have agonized about all the possible love affairs I could have pursued amongst the many nubile females present, if only so many of those females wouldn't have sneered at my advances.
In my mid-20's, I would have thought about the boyfriends of the nubile females or the guys who were just looking for trouble, and would I be able to stand up to them? (I'd once taken the best shots from a guy six-foot-five to my five-foot-six and was still standing, jaw intact.)
In my thirties, better looking, more experience under my belt, I would have thought about second chances to do it all right.
But as it was, at 47, carrying my heart-breakingly handsome 7 year old in my arms (it was getting late and cold and we'd walked a fair bit already) all I knew was that I didn't give a shit about anything or anyone. Nobody was going to hassle a grey-haired guy carrying a kid No teenage or twenty-something dream was going to even notice me. My thirty-something looks and life-experience were both irrelevant. And i simply didn't and don't care.
I had a decent run, and everything turned to shit in the end, and I don't care. My adult idealism (the reason why I started this blog seven years ago) has likewise been defeated by the crushing reality of the shittyness of the world i live in and my own incapacity to change things.
So, whatever-the-fuck-ever.
As a teenager I'd have thought about how much of a pimply, short, scrawny fuckwad I was.
As an "adult" of 18 ("Hey!" shouts my 18-year old self) I would have agonized about all the possible love affairs I could have pursued amongst the many nubile females present, if only so many of those females wouldn't have sneered at my advances.
In my mid-20's, I would have thought about the boyfriends of the nubile females or the guys who were just looking for trouble, and would I be able to stand up to them? (I'd once taken the best shots from a guy six-foot-five to my five-foot-six and was still standing, jaw intact.)
In my thirties, better looking, more experience under my belt, I would have thought about second chances to do it all right.
But as it was, at 47, carrying my heart-breakingly handsome 7 year old in my arms (it was getting late and cold and we'd walked a fair bit already) all I knew was that I didn't give a shit about anything or anyone. Nobody was going to hassle a grey-haired guy carrying a kid No teenage or twenty-something dream was going to even notice me. My thirty-something looks and life-experience were both irrelevant. And i simply didn't and don't care.
I had a decent run, and everything turned to shit in the end, and I don't care. My adult idealism (the reason why I started this blog seven years ago) has likewise been defeated by the crushing reality of the shittyness of the world i live in and my own incapacity to change things.
So, whatever-the-fuck-ever.
7 comments:
Sayonara, Thwap.
Vios con Dios.
Say "hi" to Robin for us.
Bon Voyagee!
Is this a backhand way of saying it was your birthday? Is so then happy birthday while the appropriate expression normally doesn't fit the tenor of your post. It would though mean we are less than a year apart in age, and wow, we have very different ways of seeing life and the world. I don't kid myself about the ugliness in it and around me but I still see the positives out there too, because if I don't then all the bad and dark would have swallowed me up a long time ago given all the hardships and nasty things that have happened in my life.
If this is your way of saying you are giving up blogging, I'll miss your voice, because while I have not always been one of your biggest fans I have generally found you to be worth the time to read for the consideration value of what you say and how you've said it. I was particularly impressed with your recent three parter on prostitution and had wanted to respond to it in a timely manner, alas after I left that compliment in the most recent post and said I'd be back I was unable to do any blogging reading/commenting for an almost 2 weeks extent (until this past week-end, where I have been trying to catch up on my reading) for one quick one-liner at DDs as I was taking a 10 minute break to quick-read a few things while I had a chance.
So I leave this comment not exactly sure what I am responding to but hoping it is the former, not the latter possibility.
Just read the birthday post. I turned 48 in May. The post sounded a little ominous, like you were going to do more than quit the blog.
greg,
I've been bitter and cynical and cold for almost my entire life.
I'm used to it by now.
I can be fairly entertaining when in my cups, but sometimes I raise some eye-brows.
So how do you keep going if you don't care. I spend a lot of my time scared and I wonder how I will keep going. . You seem to go on anger and that might propel you. I have no idea actually, I only know myself and barely that. I guess having a son is a huge motivator to get up in the morning.
greg,
Well, I've gotten used to it. And I now have two sons. One is 21, the other is 7. So there's been many years I've had to keep myself going for someone else.
And there were also things that I hoped for over the years. Political idealism was one of the. But you've seen how that turned out.
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