Emptybottle.org: Unyoung, Unpoor, UnRabbit

I was making croutons for the ceasar salad, for the lunch I'd invited my new colleagues to at our house this morning, damp tea-towel flung across my shoulders, when I said 'f--k' to myself. Just before that, I'd been inscribing and addressing Christmas cards to a few friends, for what was basically the first time in my life. In a couple, I'd added as a postscript 'When the hell did I become this adult?' and now here I was, puttering and polishing the grime off the salt and pepper shakers.

I'm trying to age gracefully. I'm neither Updike's Rabbit, nor the amusingly and serendipitously named Charlie Stavros

...turning night into day and pally with gangsters and Presidents and that square gangster way of carrying your shoulders (Charlie Stavros has it) and Chairman of the Board and Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin before they dried out finally...

but I surprise myself sometimes, that a rough-cut boozehound like myself, all scarred and grizzled from mapcap adventures a-plenty, veteran of cliffhangers and close shaves galore, can find himself so happily domesticated, whistling the Montovani Orchestra's version of 'Uncle f--ka' as he whips up some salad dressing in the kitchen.

At least until he realizes what he's doing, balks briefly, and then as a sort of sympathetic magic, while the wife is off at the shops, cranks up Black Flag's Damaged, and continues his happy homely activity, with just a bit more animation.

About This Post

What is this? Why am I here? What does it mean? Where should I go now?

Well, this is a post to the personal website Emptybottle.org. It was posted by your genial host stavrosthewonderchicken on December 4, 2003, and is titled Unyoung, Unpoor, UnRabbit. It was published to the categories: Thoughts That, If Not Deep, Are At Least Wide. In any of those places you might well find other similar things that will bring you Super Double Happiness.

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Comments: You got fingers, right?

4 Comments | 1 Trackbacks

1
rocco said

I think aging gracefully is a process by which you continue as you always have been and then look into the mirror and suddenly realize you're 40. After taking a moment to think "what the fu'?" and/or "how'd that happen?" you carry on regardless. Having kids is also like living with a ticking stopwatch that started the day they were born. An identifiable t=0. You have no choice but to face the passage of time as they grow. But now and again we get to put the L7 CDs on or put a personal fave into the company band's setlist and get to jump around again like happy-go-lucky 32-year-olds ;-)

December 5, 2003 4:44 AM
2
stavrosthewonderchicken said

Rocco, my brother, I hear. Which is why I am eternally sworn against reproducing, unless some long-lost uncle or something bequeaths me enough money that I never have to think about it again, in which case I will be happy to raise a naked screaming tribe of mini-bosco's (or boscitas). Until that happy and unlikely day, No Children For Me. Which I may regret, I admit, but I'm willing to take that chance.

December 6, 2003 9:17 PM
3
stavrosthewonderchicken said

Day by day, I think of things I'd like to say And all the answers to the questions that are facing me But sometimes I just get pissed I'm never in time I'm never in the right line And I never go to the places that I should stay. I'm not quite right, my timing or my place And aggravation, it should show up on my face... Sometimes when I'm down, I think of you, my friend Ringo Like I have so many times before all through my life, my friend Ringo.

December 6, 2003 9:20 PM
4
dg said

Yeah, growing old sucks, but growing up would be even worse. If you have any doubt whatsoever about whether you want children, then you don't want them and should not have them. They will suck the life right out of you and never give it back. Until they do something like grow up and graduate from high school and you look and them and feel that lump in your chest. Is it worth it, though? Yes. And no.

December 8, 2003 1:31 PM

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