Just In Case

My wife reminded me this morning about Our Last Shopping Trip.  You know, before she popped out Twins A & B.  She had read in numerous (really, there were numerous) pregnancy books that, prior to opening up the bomb bay doors, please, Hal, one should go on a shit-crazy shopping spree, purchasing seven dozen rolls of toilet paper and sixteen tubes of Mango/Orange Tom's of Maine Mint is the Antichrist toothpaste, just in case the creation of twins results in a chaotic situation that does not enable one or one's psychotic spouse to ever go to the supermarket ever again.

So, we did that.

And it's a good thing, too, because, while we were eventually with it enough to venture out of doors (it took us approximately two months or so) on an errand or two, you don't want to be brushing your teeth with a twig covered with old shoe polish or wiping your ass with the Anthropologie skirt you got your wife for her 24th birthday.

As hurricane or tropical storm or nor'easter or federal pound-me-in-the-ass storm Sandy approaches my 'hood, which is thoroughly unaccustomed to bracing for meteorological events any more fierce than a couple days of swamp-ass inducing humidity, I felt the need to write.  Just in case the power goes out for a week.  Just in case a tree limb falls on my head as I go out to check the storm drains and I incur a traumatic brain injury that turns whatever remains of my writing prowess into apple sauce.

Just in case.

Facebook wants me to confirm my phone number.

The computer wants me to restart so the latest version of Norton can self-install.

Richie Havens wants me to come downstairs and listen to him sing to the babies on my wife's iPad.

"Don't mind me, 'cuz I ain't nothin' but a dream."

Everybody wants something, don't they?  Narcissists must have it real easy-- the only thing they're concerned with is what they want.

(I'm jealous.)

I want my family and I to make it through this storm okay.  I want my supervisor at the hospital to text me and say, "Don't be crazy-- don't come in tomorrow", but she's not going to.  She said, "If you can make it in, great, but if not, I'll be here, so no worries."  But that's not explicit enough.  She's basically saying, get here, but, if you can't, don't sit at home fretting and worrying and brooding.

Which is, you know, what I do besides eat, digest, breath, and excrete.

On Saturday, we went to Longwood Gardens to celebrate six years of marriage together.  The babies stayed with my father, but we weren't completely untethered-- my wife had to pump in the Longwood parking lot, and then driving home on Route 1, which must have been quite a sight for anyone pulled up in the lane next to us.  Autumn puts on one hell of a show, as does my wife at a red light, and being out in the crisp air surrounded by amber and gold was just right.

Just like our wedding-- just right.

Today, we shut ourselves in with the babies.  During still moments of naps, I watched some old interviews on YouTube, because I'm weird.  I enjoyed William F. Buckley telling Noam Chomsky he was going to "sock you in your goddamned mouth".  I wish he'd done it.  I guess people talk a lot more shit than they actually sling-- especially people in neckties.

I've been looking for jobs, for around half-a-year, and I spent some time doing that last night.  This non-profit and that non-profit.  Time to be a desk-jockey again.  I'm done getting assaulted and slammed up against walls and fighting for my life for no reason, and a pittance of pay.  I wish someone would pay me to write-- I think that's really what it all boils down to, in the end.  Every wish takes a route, however circuitous, back to that.  Back to where I feel most at home.  Behind a monitor, hitting keys, making them dance for me.

Dance, you qwerty motherfuckers.  Dance.

Either it'll happen or it won't, and I expect I'll be alright either way, really.  The winds are kicking up out there and the rain is coming down.  A storm comes and then it goes.  People try to outwit each other on Facebook-- where everyone is Oscar Wilde-- and my trashcans are tucked away inside the garage.  I'm rambling, of course, but you knew that.

Don't mind me.