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There are many joys of parenting, but ultimately we are robots training our own upgrades to replace us.
And I grew my second mustache for the same reason all your weird dads grew theirs: it is an evolutionary signal that says, “I’m all done.” A mustache sends a visual message to the mating population of Earth that says, “No thank you. I have procreated. My DNA is out in the world, and so I no longer deserve physical affection. Instead, it is time for me to turn away from sex and toward new pursuits, the classic weird dad hobbies such as puns, learning trivia about bridges and wars, and dreaming about societal collapse and global apocalypse.”
But leaving the garbage to steep and decay for months on end is my system, and I have a very good reason for it, which is this: there is no garbage collection in rural western Massachusetts; so you have to drive your garbage to the dump; and I do not feel like doing that.
As I have mentioned, I am an only child. This makes me a member the worldwide super-smart-afraid-of-conflict-narcissist club. And let me emphasize: afraid of conflict.
What kind of trouble was I going to get in? Worst-case scenario, I might see some provocative installation art.
If you are not convinced of what an easy time I’ve had of it, witness this: I took no loans and needed no financial aid. My parents had saved assiduously and I punished their good deed by studying literary theory.
“Nobody knows,” I said, meaning at least one person does not know, and that person is me.
Eventually factions grew out of a dispute over reincarnation. Followers of George Tabor Thompson, known as the Psychic Songster, believed in reincarnation. The faction that didn’t ended up dying out, never to come back. Thompson Temple, however, survives, even after a devastating fire destroyed much of the community. Both sides proved their point.
I opened the door and Professor Mark was just there in the foyer. He smiled and said a big “Hey, buddy!” and I thought I was going to be murdered.
Young people are such natural sociopaths.
Professor Mark emerged from the driver’s side of his pale tan Saturn (specificity is the soul of narrative) and let out a bright, “Hey, buddies!”
He said, “John, this is [name forgotten for the rest of my life] and his son, [same].”
Even as a grown-up, I love pretending to be a grown-up.
Now normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn’t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can’t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox News.
Once a raccoon made a latrine of our porch. That means it shat all over it. Why mince words? A raccoon wouldn’t. Raccoons are beyond fear, and they are assholes.
The vast degree to which my mental health improved once I had the smallest measure of economic security immediately unmasked this shameful fiction to me. Money cannot buy happiness, but it buys the conditions for happiness: time, occasional freedom from constant worry, a moment of breath to plan for the future, and the ability to be generous.
There is no peace in dying, but there is peace when it is done.
