Tuesday
Jan212014
The birth of the 10-second clip
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 at 09:43AM You know why I'm up and writing at 5 in the morning? Because my brain is pissed at me. I used to think my brain hated me, and we still have our moments, but I've realized that my brain is like a Louis Gossett, jr. character who's only yelling at me because he wants me to be better. So I'm up at 5am because I haven't written in two weeks. That's not healthy. You're not condoning sanity if you write only work emails and Facebook posts. It's the unexamined life that's, well, worth living but just not in any kind of happy fashion. Screw it. It's not worth living if you're not happy. Fuck off modern feel-gooders, makers of positive kitchen quotes and head patting encouragement. If you're not examining and reprocessing you might as well be a fucking goat. A goddamned animal gnawing on some garbage.
My boy, Otto. He's as white as you'd imagine an Otto.
this lady.
Jesus, brain, a little aggressive I'd say.
There are several things i need to write:
1. Continue my thoughts on climate change and how today's living adults can avoid being the biggest losers ever to walk the earth.
2. A tribute to Otto. I penned one for Quin, and O really needs some blog time. Honestly, he could probably give a damn, but you live in the same house with two growing boys, one for whom you've written a blog post and the other you have not.
3. The stories. There are so many stories.
My boy, Otto. He's as white as you'd imagine an Otto.Of course there's the baby, too. She's pretty cute. Right now she's in the "I don't give a damn phase" which could be a far greater and more profound attribute than the "innocent" label we dabble on their bright foreheads. What greater gift than to think, "I'm hungry right now. I'm going to scream my head off until someone feeds me," and only gain affection for it? Of course we're not always sure if it's hunger, as Eliot struggles with the specifics of her communication. So therein lies the struggle of newborns and the parents of newborns. We can title it simply, "What in the hell is wrong with you/us?"
It is during these times that the life examination becomes less voluntary and more necessary. To what purpose it serves is a decent query because there is nothing you can do but lurch forward and hope that lack of sleep and caffeinated sugar doesn't do too much damage. It is also here where you're sitting on the couch with your loved one, the egg in the reproductive potluck who, not many years ago, was not a "Mooooooooooooooom," but a cute girl at a Taco Bell. It is precisely at that moment when you remember the one thing that humans have cornered on the evolutionary market: channeling menacing issues into humor. So you're on a couch that needs replaced and feeling the bloat of lethargy and poor diet decisions. Compound that frustration with lack of sleep, insecurity over hair loss, and doubts about your career, and you come to a corner where it would be a big, fat gift to be an empty-headed animal gnawing on a sock. But you're not, so you need to construct something out of the mess and I swear to all of the stars and past war heroes that the only way out is to communicate.
I took a mental picture of my frustrated self and then, throwing words out into the indifference, I asked my wife, "Wouldn't it be funny if before marrying me you were offered a ten-second clip of our future and this was it." There was laughter. If I recall correctly at that moment the ten-second clip would have included my rubbing my bald pate while my occupied cognition left me choking on my spit.
this lady.And the ten-second clip persists. Later that evening, Sarah would turn to find me rubbing lotion on my belly. I have dry spots. But that's not what a young Sarah--the most tolerant woman known to man--would have wanted to see in her mid twenties and on her way to the alter. Not to say that our wedding day didn't provide enough calamity to make most women set fire to themselves, but seeing me across our cluttered kitchen counter two-fisting my cheeseburger gut with handfuls of lubricant would have been enough to gift the world with another lesbian.
And so we have it: another meme. Another massive, self-throttling concept spun like the Arc of the Covenant into the convenient package of the ten-second clip. It's a simple idea, our own infantile cry into the dark, but bring it up when you might need something to break through the rubble. You'll find that you're not alone.
