Blue bits

My laptop seems fixed, more or less. I may get back to writing my more typical introspective posts soon. For now, a few quick notes.

I stayed out until 4:00 a.m. last night. The usual goes by like a blur: playing video golf, having a deep heart-to heart with Friar about my current life situtation, and the guys ribbing Friar no end over that Kurt Vonnegut question from last week.

The Hangout has changed. For many years, the same waitstaff stayed on, a bunch of friendly, typical "indie" types. Recently, those mainstays all been cleared out, including my beloved AL (a mother-hen figure who came off brusque and unfriendly to strangers but is warm and friendly to those she likes). Now it's a bunch of young, muscle-bound guys (every one of them seems to train for mixed martial arts competitions) and extremely beautiful girls who show a lot of skin.

My father's neck and shoulders hurt from being rear-ended on Friday. I must skip work and take him to a doctor tomorrow. He's thinking of hiring a lawyer to make sure he gets compensated. I say, why not. This situation is worrying me more than the blog medium can appropriately express. It's hard to realize that your parents are not just mature, but elderly. And my father has always been a very stoic, tough, mentally and physically strong man.

I've been worried about him since before the accident. His driving has been a bit erratic, and he's terribly thin. His friends have remarked on it (depressing him no end), and even one of our neighbors, whose dog plays with my Dog nearly every day, said today that my father has seemed "more frail" to him in the last few months.

That neighbor's father has Alzheimer's. We talked a bit about aging, parents, responsibility and mortality.

I stayed a few hours at 74 and Zaftig's house while 74 tinkered with my laptop. he installed a new Microsoft brand anti-virus program. Their nine-month-old is a sweet, smiling baby. They're both well-employed and well-off. But oh, how they argued. Over petty things, really. It's unfortunate.

Maddening Angel called me, drunk and partying, from New Orleans. She's on some spur-of-the-moment vacation. Although she says she's dead broke, she does these things when friends make offers, and I'm sure there's a guy in it somewhere. I really am over mooning about her, though what once might have been jealousy has been replaced by an irrational twinge of resentment that she's out being young and having fun while I'm a grumpy old curmudegeon with no life.

Joy called me as well. She and her common-law husband, she says, are no longer in any relationship other than friendship. That's sad; they've got two kids, the youngest only one year old. I made plans to see them next week.

It's like Friar says. No job, no spouse, no kid is a sure-fire fix on your life. Everyone has problems.