8:28 AM PDT - Apr. 24, 2002
ow. i coughed so hard this morning that i wrenched my back. you should see me. i mean, i am standing up at my desk typing this because i can't sit down. i wish there were a pigeon with a broken wing outside my window so that i could make up a clever metaphor about life and pretzels and the merits of a chocolate-covered donut but alas, it's only cloudy today and not very many animals are flying about. robert says i might have slipped a disc and i said great, i'm only 31 and already i'm showing symptoms of a mid-life crisis. he laughs. he's forty. he has two kids. he divorced last year and already found someone else to supplant his loss. he says his life is starting over again. we talked about his divorce alot when he went through it, the way he was inverting himself like a yellow t-shirt with the tag on the outside. machine wash warm. tumble dry. he worries about his two boys, the way they now have to shuffle around three days at mom's, four days at dad's, how the divorce may affect their vision of marriage. no Little House on the Prarie. more Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. i watch his face, the sadness in his eyebrow and mouth as he eats a donut. he says i did everything i could to make that marriage work. and i say you're a good father. not that i know if he is or isn't. hypocrite i am. i tell folks i tell it like it is and here i go speaking on things i don't know. but he brightened and walked a little lighter than before. and maybe tonight he'll play with his kids an extra hour with their yellow and red Legos and orange-flaming Hot Wheels cars, pop some popcorn, fingerpaint turkeys, and maybe someday his kids will be on a therapist's hot pink couch and say i have good memories of my dad or my dad let me play. i think that's what i'm afraid of. that when i die -- hopefully not any time soon -- that my kid will not remember me. my mother is often bitter because she says i do not have pleasant memories of my childhood. that when she reads my writing it's all bitter and harsh and unforgiving. that when i see her i don't hug her, that i only touch my forehead to her hand mano po, the formal sign of respect in the Philippines. she wants a relationship, a friendly one, one where i tell her my darkest fears and secrets and say mean things about my wife or my brother or my sister and speak of the sunshine about her. i say i tell it like it is. again, hypocrite i am. that we are family is not enough. she wants me to be my brother, all touchy-feely and kisses as if she could walk on water. i tell her i don't think we believe in the same God and she crosses herself, expecting lightning or a hurricane to strike me where i sit. evil child. i've heard it before. funny that when i feel back pain or any pain i think of my mom. i wonder what Freud has written on this. and if he could write me a prescription so i can at least sit down today.
