A Trip to the Circus

I had a case of High Life's, a pitcher of extra spicy Bloody Mary's, 2 bottles of water, sunscreen, the dusty box I stashed my balls in when I started staying home with my daughter, and an apple pie. I was ready, but I was going to be late. It was already 4:26am and I was still making my way up 275 to the rendezvous point. The goal is to get on the road by 4:30, so we can get into Indy by 6:30 and thus are in the infield by 7:30. If we missed the infield by a handful of cars, I was dead.

We were in line for the infield when things started to sour. First the Bloody Mary's ran out. Mental note - 1 full gallon next year. Then, the most devastating blow of all. We were denied the infield. It was full, and had been for almost an hour. Which is good, because that means it wasn't my fault. Its bad, because we're still shut out, and next year we'll need to leave even earlier.

The infield is a massive lawn party. A 2.5 mile oval chocked full of grilled meat, cold drinks and people....lots of people. This is my favorite part of Indy. Want to see what the college kids are up to these days? Come to Indy, but I'll give you a hint, it's not the responsible consumption of alcohol. Want to see scantily clad jail bait? Come to Indy, and while you're at it see 1998's jail bait trying to reclaim their former glory after 10 hard years of partying. See the subtle mating rituals of 19 year old studs in baseball hats and flip flops" "Hey....Hey You in the blue....Show Us Your Tits!!!" See 50 year old's try the same tactics. (Many of whom have bigger tits than the jail bait they are engaging.) Share food and drink with total strangers, make an ass of yourself or just watch everyone else. The infield is a teeming circus and in turn we are all spectators and performers.

But not this year. Denied and desperate to even get a spot, we sweet talked our way into Suite Parking. It sounded good because it was free and it was across the street from the track. But it was on the wrong side, so we were 2 miles away from our seats. Worse, Suite People don't tailgate, grill out or play games. To blend in neither could we. It was like taking a kid to Ringling Brothers and then sitting in the parking lot full of locked cars, but no people, hiding from the rentacops. It was less than ideal. It was...not so Sweet. We would have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. It was so bad we left for the seats early.

The long walk afforded us some time to play. We developed a game I call Big Dick. We go into the bathrooms separately. With the high levels of beer consumption, the restrooms are always full. They have these big long troughs that are 20 ft long, in multiple rows, so there's no real privacy. I walk up the trough and a co-conspirator slides in next me on either side. We then proceeded to violate every man-rule about urinal etiquette. They came progressively closer, until their shoes are touching mine, one looks to me, makes eye contact and says, "Hey....Nice Dick!" The other says, " Yeah, I couldn't help but notice the size of it myself." We have a conversation in high volume about my "massive" member, watching the response of people. Some got the hell out of Dodge, some pissed on themselves because they were laughing so hard, some craned their necks to try and get a peek (...disturbing). We must have done it 5 times on the way in, and it was funny every time.

We tried to talk our way into VIP tents, with no luck. When that didn't work we tried to get free stuff and badgered every poor track employee from here to our seats. When they wouldn't give it us anything, or were nasty about it, we told people ahead of us that they were giving out free hats. It didn't matter we didn't even have a hat. You should have seen the crowds converging on them. In the new car show area, we tested out the new model year Chevy's by piling in, arguing loudly as to whether or not there was room to have sex in the back seat, checking the trunk size by climbing into it, pretending to drive, and asking the cute sales girls ridiculous questions about PVC valves and Di-Forcal Modulators . We were 30+ year old punks. Like kids let loose in the Mall again. I'll see you out front at 9:00pm Mom....of course I'll be good.

We did eventually get to our seats, we sit right off Turn 4. We have a good view of the turn and the straight away. The cars are so fast, you barely see them as they come through the turn, and then they fly by multicolored blurs. Its very hard tell what's going on. The engines have such a distinctive, high pitched sound and are so loud. Once the pack spreads out, its a constant din of screaming engines. My ears rang for 24 hours after the race. You rely on the scoreboard to tell you how your drivers are doing, and in a word, mine did crappy as they always do. The race is the climax to the day, and while I have learned to enjoy it, thanks to various and sundry gambling games, it's really an excuse to come to the show, the Circus. Sometimes I leave halfway through and wander the infield mingling with the masses -many of whom have no interest in the race at all. They just come to perform.

By 4:30-5:00pm, when the race was over we headed back to the cars. We grilled out for the second time, started to rehydrate and sober up. By then after 12 plus hours, I was tired of the circus and ready for home, but I am already looking forward to next year. It's a great day, I'm not sure I could or would want to do it more than once a year. But once a year, its a great day.

The Love Parade

I come from an emotionally reserved, some might say stunted, family. We love each other, but its not something you really talk about. Its expressed more in deeds and a long term presence rather than words. Tough, Stoic Love is a fine art and the best and most often tool used in our collective toolbox. "Deal with it." "Life's a bitch and then you die." "People in Hell want Ice water but they haven't put a fountain in yet!" and my personal favorite: The Deadline for being upset over loss of a girl/boyfriend, cat, etc. "You have 24 hours to feel bad, and then move on." Those phrases and others like them have become the voice in my head and are quick to my lips with my children. I think this served and continues to serve to prepare us all for what is undeniably at times a tough, cruel world. A world where pussies need not apply, especially to our family. Which is interesting, because I would say the members of the family are all sensitive souls in their own way, but we all have a somewhat M&M like exterior to protect us. Otherwise we might melt.

I was shocked when I first started dating my wife. Her Mom and her Step Dad hugged her all the time. They said I love you, like some people say, "Hello." Trying to go anywhere was insane. It was a ritual of multiple hugs with hand patting, kisses and "I love you's", and that's if we were were just going to the movies. It was complete culture shock. It drove me crazy then, and to some extent it still does. Overtime, I have come to accept it and realize that its well meaning. Its just not my way.

It is however, my son's way. He used to kiss me all them time and I put the brakes on that. Now he tells me he loves me at least 30 times a day. He says it when he runs out of other things to say. He says it if he thinks the room is too quiet. "I love you" is my son's go to phrase to pass the time. It drives me crazy. No doubt, he was fawned over by my wife's parents, and so inadvertently they have created this Sensitivity Monster to torment me.

To make it worse, those hippies at Preschool taught him to sign "I love you," which makes another fun, multicultural way to torment me. " Hey Dad!.....Look....I (Eyes wide open, earnest. hand pointing at his chest)....LOVE (Arms crossed, still full eye contact)...YOU! (Both hands exultantly project forward and pointing at me, big grin across his face.)

I finally snapped last night, after the 27th verbal and non verbal "I love you" since he had come home from school.

"Dude. I know you love me, you told me 27 times already and probably more than that that the day before. Its driving me mad! You don't even know what love is. The more you say it. The more you cheapen it. Once a day is fine, maybe even too much, how about once a week. Whatever. But I need you to give it a rest!"

He walked away shoulders slumped. What kind of asshole Dad tells his kid to stop telling him he loved him? I felt bad for a minute, and then I could hear the collective voice of my ancestors living and deceased, "Good Job! That's Tough Love Baby! And he's got 24 hours to Deal With It."

And it was also right about then I knew I was screwed because he would and did tell the In-Laws on me. And boy did I hear about it.

"Why that's the most beautiful thing he can say..."

"How could you...."

I stuck to my guns

"Its the most annoying thing he could say, when he says it often as he does. Beside, I didn't ban the phrase, I just asked for a brief moratorium so that all the extra, surplus "I love you's" floating around my happy home will have time to settle. Once the air is safe, we'll impose a ration system and Casanova will be issued a stamp card and as long as he doesn't over do it, the Love Parade can begin anew."

I could tell she didn't approve, but he's going to school soon and he needs to get the M&M shell going like now, otherwise his ass is going to melt.

Responsibility is Bullshit.

I remember in my college days, I had a serious affair with Eastern Philosophy. I was seduced by its decidedly non-western views regarding materialism, our place in the world and the focus on the moment before our eyes. I can hear the haughty sophistication in my voice, "People should really live in the now, who knows what tomorrow will bring. All this consumerism, possessions, the rat race...it distracts from the beauty of life."

Such bullshit. Fast forward 10 years. I live in a big house with a pool, I drive a new SUV, I have 2 kids and I have a 401K I monitor religiously. And I like them all. And I'll tell you something else, I don't feel empty.

I run the financial numbers in my head all the time, "Lets see, X dollars in this account, Y in that one, Z in that one, compound interest........I should hit 1MM by the time I am 60."

This too is all total bullshit on my part as no one knows what the market will do, what my contribution rate will be over time or if the magic 1MM dollar amount will be enough. This misses entirely the point, that by the time I am 60 most of that million dollars will likely be earmarked for future acquisitions, really exciting shit like dentures, a new hip and a shower handlebars.

Even so, we take our pretax deductions giddily like schoolboys hopped up on pixie sticks. We have an alphabet soup of 529's, FSA's, and side IRA's. We set aside a percentage for cash savings. We monitor our equity and wait for the day our student loans are paid off. We pay the bills. We see the money come in like the tide, and just as quickly roll back out. And let me tell you, when that tide rolls back out, it doesn't leave a fucking drop on the beach. My bank account's like the Sahara on the 30th of the month. My Dad couldn't find a freaking penny on my financial coast with his best metal detector and a shovel. And that's bullshit, my friends because he has some nice metal detectors!

The net effect....I have no goddamn money for me. I still sweat the bills as much as I did when I was busing tables, reading bullshit Buddhist tracts and trying to make the rent. I drink cheaper beer now than I did in college. That's bullshit, it's tasty...but it's still bullshit!

We work hard. I want to spend my money, its what we've been trained to do as Americans. Work hard, make money, spend it all, have lots of kids....and repeat. The less "free" money we have, the more compelling the urge is to spend it. I am like a dog straining against his master's leash. I am caught between logical discipline and genetic/culturally implanted urges of wild financial abandon. I want to single handily prop up the sagging economy buy going on a capitalistic bender that would make Warren Buffet blush. I want to roll into the mall and swipe my card so many times it bursts into flames in some poor shop girl's hands.

But I won't. And I think that's bullshit. Because when you work hard, and you do the right things, you want to feel like you're getting ahead. I'll be honest, paper statements don't get that job done. After all, money on paper isn't real. It's bullshit too.

That's where I am at. And I hope that last bullshit's not true. And that's no bullshit. Otherwise, what's it all for?

Changes

I am nearing the point in time when I will begin returning to the office a couple days a week, thus beginning the process that eventually lead to me returning to work full time. I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly find myself wishing I had more time. Staying at home with Emma has been a life changing experience. It is hard for me to describe the connection I feel to her. I also feel that in many ways, the experience has changed me for the better. I am given daily instruction it humility, patience and anger management. I know when she's tired, when she's hungry. I know how to make her laugh and I know when she just needs to be held. But not all the lessons and changes are necessarily good things.

I leave the house regularly and venture into public in spit-up stained shirts. Once you've been barfed on for the 500th time, you just stop noticing. Unfortunately, the people at the bank or the grocery look at you like you're freak. On inspection in the mirror though, a good size glob does look Lewinski-esque.

It is very hard to be taken seriously by anyone when you always wear a pacifier as a pinkie ring. As I walk through the house, if I see a pacifier, I slip it on my pinkie. I do the same thing with rubber bands, if I see one, I put it on my wrist. I don't why, but its apparently a pretty common affliction with office workers. I see plenty of guys and girls with rubber band wrists. I have never seen any other men with pacifier fingers.

I shave maybe every three days, if I had a garment care tag, it would read, "wash when needed." Which is apparently every 2-3 days. I wear pajamas until 10:30 in the morning. I go the grocery store and look at the mom's wheeling their brood through the store, and I think. "Jesus, make an effort. Do something with your self and burn that velour track suit!" Then I see myself in the reflection of the freezer door. Hmmmm perhaps I shouldn't be the first to cast stones....

I stopped to watch a scene from When Harry Met Sally, and then almost cried during it....

I saw a snake in my yard this week and danced around like a girl until it slithered away. It was a foot long for crying out loud!

I had to change the station on a Discovery Channel program, because they were dissecting people. Something that never bothered me, but this time for some reason really affected me.

Now, I am not one to subscribe to gender roles (obviously), but something is going on here. Perhaps going back to the office for a few days a week might be a good thing. Perhaps there needs to be a bit more balance. I got plenty of maternal things in my life. I cook, clean and baby sit. Maybe I need some more masculine things in my life. Go back to work, eat lunch at Hooters, talk sports at the water cooler. One thing is for sure. I need to get out of the house a little before I grow boobs, my dick falls off and I buy a velour track suit in an amazingly unflattering color.

Chris Tries: Farming

While it was all cold and snowy this winter, I became nostalgic for the days when I was a young child and we always had vegetable gardens. I decided this would be the Spring that I brought the garden back. I envisioned my son and I working in the sun, picking beans into woven baskets and chasing each other around the tomato plants a la Don Corleone. Only I don't have a massive heart attack and die.

Living as I do in the suburbs, I don't really have the room here for a respectable garden, so I used some land of a relative. It really is a great spot, good soil, good light. However it's 20 minutes away. Which was somewhat a strategic blunder. Guess how much time a day I spend working the land? I get out there about twice a week. I wonder if the cost of vegetable saved in the end will equate to gasoline consumed?

After my first day of working on it, I was dirty and sweaty from being man handled by a rented tiller. That stupid thing jerked me around and drug me all over the place, but didn't seem to make a dent in the heavy grass. After I finished or gave up, however you wish to define it, I walked into the local gas station. I am ashamed to admit I walked in with a little swagger. Like I was this full time badass farmer who scratched out a living from the earth with his bare hands. I cut off this pussy in a golf shirt and khaki shorts to get in line and sighed heavily as I paid for my four dollar bottle of Evian.

The clerk asked me if it was a tough day.

I replied, "Getting ready for planting time!"

He nodded his head, and I nodded back as turned to leave. Needless to say, I didn't tell him my planting would consist of less than a 20 x 24ft plot. I'm a retard.