I know there’s going to be blah days. Today was one of them.
Days where the charge drops into the account before the deposit hits or you notice a small sliver of water poking out from under the door that houses your water heater or A/C, those are interesting days.
On those days, the hair on your arms rises and your pulse quickens as you go into crisis mode. That all too human flight or fight instinct kicks in. It's not some mamma bear protecting her cubs we fear or some starved tiger. In this modern life, with all its easy bells and whistles and gadgets and twenty-four hour fast food; it's the trouble of it all that bothers you.
Part of me thinks I would've preferred that kinda of day. I'm not asking for trouble here, that would be dumb. Since I don't believe in Karma or bad juju or hexes, I’m not tempting fate by saying it or writing it down.
It's a day where really nothing happened.
Like so much nothing happened today, it wouldn't even qualify for a Seinfeld episode. That’s how blah it was.
The ride with The Boy was quiet. He sat slumped in the passenger seat, lost in his own thoughts. Traffic was easy and light. Breaking the silence, I finally asked him about a homework assignment he had for class. He had needed to do some research on China for a presentation.
“Find anything about China,” I asked.
“Naw, nothing. I couldn’t find anything.” In my head I thought yeah, if I asked to find the lyrics to some rap song, I’d bet you find that. But I didn’t.
But it had already been a blah morning. I got up, let the dogs out for them to do their business, showered and dressed.
“Let’s go,” I told The Kid. He was ready to go with no fuss.
So no need to rock the boat, not this early anyway. I did talk a little bit. Told him what I knew about China; that China’s economy was in trouble due to their years of following their One Child Policy. Their workforce is pretty anemic now. Ended that policy awhile ago, or so I read. That they were still a communist country. China has a lot of people. A helluva lot of people.
As he got out of the car, I did make sure to tell him that I loved him. These days, dropping your kid off at school is a dangerous prospect. He said, “I do too,” not looking back.
For some reason on the way to work, I re-listened to Dr. Peterson tell Joe Rogan about his experience with the Carnivore Diet. It’s my forth listen. I like Peterson’s story. I like how he uses the word “bloody,” don’t ask me why. And of course, I like the progress he’s made. Sometimes your confirmation bias needs confirming.
Halfway into my commute I paused the video and just drove in silence. Maneuvering my car through traffic going south on Lamar. I take the long way to people watch and the scenery changes. Its not asses to elbows with break lights.
Then work happened. Same old calls. Same old e-mails.
I did get a text from Jerry pretty early. He had listened to the Joe Rogan and Shawn Baker podcast and he was tired of being lied to, so he was going Carnivore starting today. That makes four people I’ve converted to this way of eating. My worst fear right now is that I’ve done more for Carnivory than I’ve done for Christ. That’s a lie the feels true right now.
They did serve a lunch I could eat today at work. A make your own burger spread. I had two beef patties with two different kinds of cheese, a turkey patty, and several strips of bacon. Other than the turkey patty, the beef patties were - blah.
Later, I did make my first house payment. I had the teller take a picture of me. In my mind, I had those pictures people take of their kids on their first day of school and on the first day of their senior year. I’ll do that with the house, I thought, and if I die, I’ll just have it written my my will for someone to take a picture and put “damn” on it.
“Three hundred and fifty nine payments to go,” I told the teller.
“See you three hundred and sixty-five times,” she replied as I was leaving.
She either got the number wrong or she was a bruja and knows we’ll refinance or borrow against the house in time. I’ll know which is true later. Good thing I’m writing these things down now. I remember things better when I write them down.
I made more calls, left more voicemails.
Then, I drove home in some strange silence. I was quiet. Like the uneasy silence you hear when your head is underwater. That muffled deafening silence.
Closer to the house, I decided to call my mom. She had texted the day before, asking how I was getting along.
“How are you doing,” she asked.
“Okay, fine,” I said.
“Okay, now tell me how your really doing?” Mom had a gotten this feeing, she tells me. Like something was wrong. “So tell me what’s going on there…with you.”
“Nothing,” I say, “as far as I know, everything is okay.”
Mom gets these feelings every so often. Like she taps into some cosmic, grace filled stream, and the heaven’s speak to her.
When she won the Dodge Shadow back in ’89, she knew the car belonged to her the moment she saw the poster. “This is my car,” she said. “I’m going to win this car.”
When Mom got this strange itch on her left palm, she would go buy a lottery ticket. She never won anything big, twenty or fifty dollars here and there, but she had to feel it. I used this in a short film once, but couldn’t translate the itch to the screen, so opted for the main character to hit his elbow.
Mom once saw herself in New York and years later, when she chaperoned a trip, her vision was fulfilled. When she told the family of her dream we were barley making ends meat. Sitting there eating rice and ketchup, our go to poor meal, we all looked her (my dad, my brother, and I) and thought she had gone mad.
“Yeah, right,” my brother said. “Whatever.”
Years later, she called my brother from a payphone in Madison Square - back when they had pay phones. Surrounded by the throng of people milling about, the tall, massive buildings that block the sky, the bigger than life billboards, she asked my brother, “guess where I’m calling you from?”
“Where,” he asked.
“New York City!”
That was a good moment for her. A great moment. But today, thinking about it now I have to ask, what does she know?
What has the Holy Spirit told her about me?
We talked about the crisis gripping the church right now. She doesn’t know who or what to believe. She didn’t know about Cardinal Vigano’s bombshell testimony. The implications that had on Pope Francis and the future of his pontificate. “I don’t know either,” I said.
“It’s a pretty damn scary time to be Catholic,” I told her. She mentioned that they hadn’t addressed that or the Philadelphia’s sex scandal at her parish. Our priest had mentioned the crisis in his homily this week.
Finally, I get home. Made The Wife a cup of tea with honey and lemon to sooth her throat. She tells me the Missionaries are coming over. My wife is LDS. I say LDS because apparently their phasing out the Mormon moniker. That was the word from their man up in Salt Lake. Don’t ask me why, I’m Catholic.
I go pick up The Kid from the rec. Drive his friend to pick up some shoes at this apartment. Part of it feels like a drug deal, but I don’t ask too many details; plausible deniability. The less I know, the less I have to testify too. One thing that’s popped out with my son is the utilitarian views on footwear. These kids now a days - damn I sound old and out of touch - share shoes. They trade ‘em like candy. I shook my head the first time I heard this. I didn’t want to think of athletes foot or foot sweat or toe jam. This weird little quirk is about par for the course.
Again, quiet on the way to his friends. Semi-quiet on the way back. The Kid and I start talking about God and sin and did Jesus exist? The Kid doesn’t believe, he doubts.
Like his old man at his age, he wants to sin boldly, without reservation, without an All Seeing and Knowing God watching him with the threat of damnation hanging over him. I had that feeling back then too. Have it now sometimes. I told him such. Sometimes religion stinks, because yeah, sinning can be fun.
We listened to the missionaries and the guy they brought along from their ward (parishes in the Catholic vernacular). We watch a slick video of Joseph Smith receiving his revelations, but its a bit wordy for my taste. They go around the table and testify. The Kid and The Wife are quiet. Me too.
And that was it. This blah day.
Nothing lost. Nothing gained. If I hadn’t written about it and tried to gussy it up, then perhaps this day wouldn’t even exist. It’d be another day I breathed. Another passing day on the calendar. A day the slips my mind next week when I ask, “what the hell happened last Wednesday?”
And I would’ve forgotten.
It was a blah day.