the autumn of our unease

feeling a little blue today. scratch that. feeling a little blue-haired. feeling old. feeling like i got one foot -- hell: most of a leg, one teste and two ass cheeks -- deep in the grave. i am ancient. i am tired and ugly and shriveled and irrelevant and unnecessary. here, in a nutshell, is why:

1) this weekend we took the kid to the museum. the line was so long that we decided, on a whim, to become museum members. just like that! to the front of the line and, boom, off to the exhibits. one exhibit was freakin' awesome. seriously, if you're in the tri-state area (or if the exhibit is coming to a town near you), you really should check out the work of ron mueck. the dude makes giant (and teeny) photo-realistic mixed media sculptures of people. these things are amazing and uncanny. the kid went nuts -- she made her "hey look at that!" noise which transcribes roughly as OOOOOOOUUEEEEEEEE!!!! one of the sculptures is of an unkempt, bearded, naked, uncircumcised 14 foot wild man. she ran up to it in the middle of a crowded gallery and shouted "DADDY!" but this is not what has me blue (on the contrary, i thought it was funnier than most of our fellow museum-goers did, even though it made me wonder if there's something mrs nice guy isn't telling me).

what made me blue is that not only did we acquire a museum membership ... we also canceled our gym memberships. we had to look deep into the mirror and ask ourselves: who the fuck are we kidding? shelling out $70 a month to reserve the right to work out? when we're buying a house? so. we traded gym for museum. i have not the words to describe how useless that makes me feel.

2) last weekend i was home doing nothing on a saturday night. my bride was getting ready for bed. a bachelor friend of mine gave me a call and said, basically, "hey man, we're going drinking and we're around the corner. come out." i replied, "oh, dude, i'd love to ... but it's too late. i mean, it's already 10 o'clock!" he informed me that he would never speak to me again. rightfully so.

3) my knee hurts. when i walk a lot, when it rains outside, when i've been carrying the kid around, when it's sunny, when it's tuesday, when i'm asleep, when i've eaten too much rarebit, when the radio is on, when i type: jagged yellow pain.

4) i need a new pair of jeans. my current pair has a giant gaping hole in the crotch. i knew that when i put them on this morning and wore them to work. i just don't care any more.