Today is one of my favorite posts here on Summer Vacation since after many months of thinking how fun it would be to have someone write a guest post and even dropping occasional hints about it to see if anyone would take the bait, I finally have a guest writer who’s taken me up on the offer! Some of you know him very well, but I’m fairly sure that anyone who takes the time to click on the Summer Vacation Facebook links would be familiar enough with my other Facebook activity to recognize his name: Paul Carlson.
Some background context for those of you who only know of him though his unique combination of slightly off-the-wall commentary and particularly insightful perspectives: My cousin Paul is a handful of years older than I am and has lived in or around southern Arizona since I was in college. He stayed with my family for a time when I was in high school after finishing college and looking for employment in the Cities before deciding to go back for some more schooling and pursue the education degree that often seems inevitable for so many in our family. He’s now beginning to explore his options in education administration. (Better him than me, for so many reasons.)
Our shared history is too extensive and sublimely ridiculous to elaborate on here, so suffice it to say that we’re good friends beyond our blood ties. One of the things about 21st century social networking I enjoy the most is how it allows me to stay more connected with the people in my family like him that I don’t get to see as often.
Enough of my prefacing -- take it away, P.
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I have known Tom since way before he was a flesh-and-blood 15-year-old who may or may not have meditated on what his inner 3-year-old thought about his latest Matchbox car. We may have even had an argument or two about whose car that really was. We have always been and will always be cousins, and we share many points of connection, including an affinity for music which at times borders on obsession, an appreciation of exquisite descriptive writing, a tendency to embrace our sarcastic side, and some kind of strange metaphysical preoccupation with tacos.
Recently here Tom mentioned the inertia of life, and my mind went into cloisters. I looked up the word so I could be relatively certain that I knew more or less what it meant (the wishy-washy “relatively” and “more or less” were used because with Wikipedia, you can never be too sure, right?). Basically, it boils down to “keeping on doing what you’re doing”. So, inertia accompanied me on my usual 2.77-mile walk, as did my dog and Led Zeppelin, Edvard Grieg, Paul Simon, and a dozen other people. I don’t have any recollection of having taken any actual steps, but I must have, right?
Then, as it is wont to do, my mind took a leap (whether forward, backward, or sideways, who’s to know?) from the concept of inertia to the psychological phenomenon known as the empty nest syndrome. Today I find myself at T minus 104 days to the day the fledglings are scheduled to take wing. The youngest begins his undergraduate studies, and the eldest begins her graduate studies.
It is highly unlikely that I will acquire the syndrome (because I am much closer to the water-runs-off-my-back end of the personality spectrum than the uptight end). Still, I find myself thinking an inordinate amount about what will and what will not change after they are gone, which kind of brings us back full circle. Major changes in one’s lifestyle disrupt inertia like the walls change the path of the racquetball. Here is my Top Six list of things that will change after August 24th:
*I must bid a fond farewell to Robert Downey, Jr., Christian Bale, and Will Smith. (It’s either that or go to the movies by myself)
*I won’t be watching silly YouTube videos, except for the ones that my kids bring to my attention on Facebook.
*I won’t have to worry about getting punched, wrestled to the floor, or unobtrusively shoulder-bumped as I walk through my own house.
*I won’t be eating any more Takis (not that anyone ever forced one down my throat, but....)
*I won’t be joining in a chorus of primal screams whenever “Kashmir,” “United States of Eurasia,” or “Because” comes on the shuffle. It will fall to me alone to do all the testosterony bursts from now on.
*It will be much harder to foment discord between my offspring because one will be 300 miles away and the other will be 1200 miles away. I’d have to do it through a 3-way Skype session or some such.
And as for what will not change:
*Working 50+ hours a week
*English practice and garden/house projects with my wife
*Walking the dog
*NFL and March Madness
I don’t know . . . Maybe I should dig out the sax and try forming a band?
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Me again, with just a couple of points I need to respond to:
*I have to admit that at this point I’m a little burned out on tacos for awhile.
*I really liked the phrase “the inertia of life.” Was that me or was that you encapsulating the post? Either way it’s a good line, and at least in my head it’s kind of the thematic subtext to this “posting every day for a month” stretch.
*There is no rule that says you can’t go to movies by yourself. That’s how I do it most of the time. And as sad as it might seem to some people, that’s how I’m currently planning on celebrating my actual birthday.
*Thank you for introducing the word “testosterony” into the blog.
*Takis, Paul? Seriously? Seriously?
