Last night was a trip. Managed to drink enough wine that I got to see what it looks like coming up the other way. My buddy said, "Note for next time, stop about halfway through the big bottle instead of drinking the whole thing." My reply, "Ha! Maybe I should stop halfway through a small bottle. That would be even better." Anyway, it's been a month or two since I indulged and I came out relatively unscathed. A little hungover but basically all in one piece. The last time I almost broke my nose when I tripped over my own winter boots and face planted in the icy snowbank. Nose bled for an hour and I cried to my bestie for longer because...oh, for so many reasons. Questioning my choices, worried about my kids, wishing things were different. I was in shock because the ground rushing at my face was reminiscent of my bike accident in May when I broke various parts of my body, including my face, which I'm rather fond of, so the experience was traumatic.
My girlfriend came by around 7 and we got right into it. She's more of a friend of a friend, but it was a good time and we had lots to talk about. Seems to be an epidemic of men who don't take their parenting responsibilities seriously. Men...take heed! It's easy to let you wife do it all because she will naturally take on each new task, feeling like it's her duty. But just because she does all those things with the kids, doesn't mean she's happy about it and you can sit around playing video games with your hand in your pants. A word of advice (I might still be married if I'd insisted on this): take your kid(s) completely out of the house for a couple hours EVERY week. I know, you might be thinking that is just a crazy fucking thing to suggest, but trust me. I don't give a shit if you just drive around with them, take them to the park, the mall, to work, I really don't care, but get them and yourself out of there. This serves two purposes. 1) the obvious one is it gives your wife a pause in her busy life so she doesn't go on a psychotic break and drown all of you in the tub one day and 2) you will get to experience HOW MUCH FUN it is to wrangle one or more children in an uncontrolled environment like the mall. I liken it to herding cats with a string. And maybe, just fucking maybe, you will realize that hauling those kids around everywhere, all the time, isn't, like, oh my god, such a fun job!! It's stressful and people judge you in public if you aren't the perfect parent and your kids CONSTANTLY ask you to buy them things and you have to say no all the time and then you say yes and your mother looks at you and says, "You spoil those kids!" Even though you said no five hundred previous times and just had a tiny weak moment. Or you are at the pool and one kid is hanging off you like a koala bear the other one is shouting, "Look at me mom, mum, mum, MOTHER! Look at what I can do!" EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS. If men experienced that constant pulling in every direction for even a couple hours a week, they would be more sympathetic to their wives.
So yes, in my humble opinion, marriages everywhere could be saved if men would just take their kids out of the house once a week. Oh. And without fucking being asked to do so. A little voluntary action on your part would be the bomb. Pretty simple eh?
Anyway, last night I had a surprise visitor from my way back past which was amazing. Funny how 15-20 years can pass and you are still buddies the way you always were, no matter how life has changed you. And he's still the same good guy I always knew, tucking me in on the couch when I passed out! I wonder how many times he's had to do that? Not much has changed! Still sitting on the same couches in my mother's house, shooting the shit about fights and tattoos and our ridiculous mutual friends who have not changed either. The only difference was my mom wasn't there smoking with us and we had to go outside to smoke. Good times.
