I'm sitting in my basement this evening, listening to an MP3 file read aloud by Real Live Preacher. He's dictating an essay he wrote, inspired by Carl Sagan's book, Billions and Billions. That same book is sitting on the shelf just a couple steps to my left.
Neat.
There's a very pale green, transparent six-ounce Coke bottle sitting atop my computer desk, one of the few reminders I have retained from my trip to China 17 years ago. (Pronouncing 'Coca-Cola' in Mandarin translates roughly to 'female horse fastened with wax'. The actual adopted revision that marries both pronunciation and meaning comes out as, 'something palatable from which one derives pleasure'.)
My MasterCard and VISA statements are pinned to the plywood directly above that, not fastened with wax, reminding me that when my mortgage payment comes out of my account on Thursday later this week I will have to wait until my next pay-day before I can take that pin down.
I have a miniature 1984 Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup banner hanging from the corner of the cabinet just to my right, adorned with a tiny Canada pin, a Tragically Hip pin from the first of their concerts I ever saw, and a large red button with the bold words, THE HUNT IS ON, 3-2-90. That was the release date of The Hunt for Red October; I was working my second ever job at the Famous Players theatre in The Mall and got to see A LOT of free movies and got LOTS of free stuff. Some of the free stuff shouldn't have been free, but that's one of the rites of passage of first and second jobs in high school. Depending on how good you are sometimes determines what kind of third job you get. Or if.
You're also not supposed to lob 'Pop Bombs' when you're cleaning theatres between shows.
(I can do a wicked, "Vascilly, reverify distance to target: one ping only, please," in a Sean Connery accent.)
When the Oilers won their first Cup in '84, I recall my mother driving my brother and me downtown to join the thronging thousands gathered to cheer the motorcade of hockey players in their over sized sunglasses and sports coats with rolled up sleeves. It was just a few years after that when Wayne got married to Janet Jones, whom I most vividly recall from a brief bikini scene in one of the Police Academy movies.
My Boxer dog is upstairs, asleep on the couch and about whom I have very mixed emotions. My wife, reading some of the literature that came with her when we bought her (dangle THAT, you fucking participle!), announced last night that the typical Boxer will reach behavioural maturity between 18 months and two years.
**sigh**
At least another year of puppy. I asked her when Jack Russells are supposed to achieve behavioural maturity, since ours is three years and still shows no signs. It was a joke. She didn't laugh.
She hasn't been taken out for a walk since before Christmas. (Again, the Boxer, not my wife. She doesn't much like walking these days.) Both of our dogs get to run around in the back yard (frequently, thankfully, due to the unseasonably warm winter we've been having), but they haven't been outside the bounds of our property in almost two months. Unless you count the times that Jango, our Jack, gets under the fence and then runs around to the front door where he waits to be let in and scolded for getting out.
Stupid dog.
My wife is upstairs in bed, having just gotten off the phone with a girlfriend (one of her bridesmaids, actually) and is now likely firmly ensconced in the latter half of the new Diana Gabaldon book that I got her for Christmas. Her ribs ache, her pelvis is most often uncomfortable, I can sometimes see a limb transcribing an arc across the equator of her belly and she went to get a facial this evening just as soon as I got home. Sort of a "Hi!"... "Bye!" scenario since I was a little later coming home from work than expected and she was about to miss her six o'clock. Dex and I had macaroni, peas and corn for dinner.
After dinner I let the dogs up from downstairs (they have access to the outside via their doggie door), where they'd been segregated from their humans since noon, when Dex went down for his nap. That's six hours with just each other, food, water and whatever garbage they can pilfer from the basement and sneak out the doggie door to destroy on the lawn and which I get to clean up tomorrow after work before the sun goes down and I can't see it.
My domestic life is made of rituals; not all of them are good.
I spell dogs "gods" almost every time the first time. Very frustrating. D'you think it means something?
My wife gets up about five or six times between bed and breakfast these days. (I'm reminded of this now since I hear the floor creaking upstairs. That's one. That is a comment on the state of our floors, not on her state. Ass.) She either needs a tablespoon of Gaviscon to settle her stomach, or she needs to go pee since a tablespoon of Gaviscon is about all her bladder can handle.
We're both sort of hoping for an early birth this time around. And by 'sort of' I mean desperately. I get two weeks off work but fully anticipate putting in quite a few evening and weekend stints, at least from my laptop at home. I'll have to talk to my boss after the fact and see if it counts as 67% of my allotted holiday time for the year. I'll see what I can milk out of him. I'd prefer to take 'parental leave', but, you know.
Amy's been dropping what can euphemistically be called 'hints' at regular intervals throughout her third trimester that I just might want to start to think about making some sort of appointment... with a doctor... to do a thing... as concerns my vas deferens. 'Cause she ain't no how going to do THIS again!
She has also, in the past, proselytized on the merits of someday, relatively soon, getting a mini-van. I'm not sure yet which, in my mind, is more emasculating.
I also, just this afternoon, read a lovely little post on the topic of contentment. Which was sort of what indirectly led me to start the stream of consciousness that wound up here. Though these are somewhat trying times for our fledgling family -- with tightening purse strings, impending birth, gleefully active boy-spawn, chronically somnolent wife and spastically confined dogs (one of which gets ambivalence from me at the best of times) -- it's very hard to complain about much of anything when the whole house is asleep and I find myself sitting alone in the basement, finally relaxed at the end of the day and feeling more tranquil since, well, yesterday about this time.
My zen seems to come when I'm solitary and introspective. Now I just need to condense that and carry a spray can around with me for when things start to get a little too hectic and I lose focus and/or temper.
Or better yet, an inhaler. I could pretend like I'm taking a puff for my asthma when I'd really be inhaling a deep breath of bottled zen. My airways would open, the blood course hot through my veins, the ache in my temples recede and I could totally karate chop my hand through seven inch-thick sheets of ice 'cause Mr. Miyagi showed me how to do that dorky breathing exercise.
That would be totally sweet.
Very nice, and it read just like a monologue in an everyday conversation. It also made me wish I had a room where I could put up things like movie posters and other memorabilia.
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 07 February 2006 at 07:25 AM
After driving around with two kids in a station wagon, I'd go for a minivan in a second.
Incidentally, there was once a Kids in the Hall sketch in which a bunch of snobby academic types discussed a letter in which a person referred to "my god, Spot" (you know, the mix-up spelling of "dog"). It was quite a funny sketch, as I recall.
Posted by: Marc | Tuesday, 07 February 2006 at 09:55 AM
Simon, you write like a freakin' dog. Ooh,
I mean "god."
Promise me you'll never, ever stop.
You gave me a good idea for a post. Nobody would ever believe all the shit I have on the walls in my studio... Mind if I swipe your idea?
Posted by: Linda | Friday, 10 February 2006 at 06:59 PM