Err...

the world has gone completely kooky. up is down... down is up... cats are sleeping with dogs... real Armageddon stuff.

Not really. For the fundies reading... I fart in your general direction.

It does seem, however, that the variable nature of life-as-a human is kicking in. My son has a B in his physics class. He has "A"'s on all of his assignments, and an "F" on his surprise quiz last Friday. Am I being too harsh that he got caught with his pants down? Am I being Hypocritical given that my GPA was lower (at the same point educationally) than his? Am I just too fuckin' uptight about pushing him farther than my parents could push me? Is my comparing him to my same-aged self even appropriate?

Being the parent of a 16 (almost 17) year old young adult sucks! I will trade anyone for a rambunctious lapdog.

I ran into an old elementary-school chum today. I was walking, just feet from my office door, when I heard, "Travis? Is that you?"
I turned to see a friend I had not seen in 20 years (Holy Shit that is a long time). He smiled and it took me 5 seconds to recognize him. He was taller, less-old, and more delightful than I.

He married my first high-school girlfriend. She is now a principal at an elementary school just 2 blocks east of my high-school house. Just one block from her childhood home as well. Yes... Utah is sometimes full of people who are NOT smart enough to move the HELL AWAY!!!

My chum and I sat in my office catching up. He is an Architect who works in offices just blocks from my own. The parallels of our lives are almost freaky. HI parents divorced, his father dated my mother (once), we both dealt with the fallout of divorced parents in similar ways, we both dated his wife, we both rebelled against our parents idiocy, and have distant relations with our families. He is close to his in-laws. I am close to mine.

I think of my childhood and he was a part of the happiest part of it. Now, he is a good father of two kids (boy and girl), happily married to a wonderful woman (same one we both dated), and went through hell because of his parents vast quantity of "dumb." That we would meet each other today, after all these years apart, but just feet in distance, is (to my mind) extra-ordinary. The odds were low, but not impossibly so.

So... today is a mixed day. I am furious with my son. I am hopeful about a childhood friendship that just seemed to fall back into place.

HH =)