cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are as smart as you will ever be about women when you are 16 as you will ever be in your life American Graffiti. Dazed and Confused. Superbad. You know what's missing? That movie for the 90's. Hell, I had so many days and nights that are like outtakes from all of those movies when I was in high school. After school, junior year, we would jump the tracks in Andy J0nes' pickup truck. Lars and I would crouch in the bed of the truck and Andy would gun it for about 100 yards towards the asphalt ramp over the train tracks. The truck would fly up and get air, and we in the back would also fly up into the air and come back down on the other side, safely in the bed of the truck. He had a bit of an issue with the shocks pretty soon. I worked at the dollar, second run theater that year. A former Vaudeville theatre, there were enormous old props up above the audience space. We spent the night in sleeping bags on the stage with our girlfriends with us and Rob Roy running on the screen over us. My son is 16 now and he has a Jewish girlfriend. Thank fuck for that. She's nice enough. Her mother is a professor of Jewish studies at UV@ and she attends temple every Saturday. Her whole identity seems to be theater. She isn't especially interesting from my standpoint, but at least she's Jewish and therefore civilized and not Pentacostal or some such shit. And as a theater kid she's super into the drag queens of the 90's. It's fun to watch my son run around in the same landscape that I did and have at least as idyllic a life as a teenager as I did. I was only a year older than he is when I got engaged. My daughter is 19. She has been with her very nice boyfriend for over a year. He reminds me so much of me. Id@ is so much more powerful as a force than either I or her mother was. Luke, the boyfriend, goes along with whatever she says. It is nominally what any father would want for a daughter. They have decided to move into a barn owned by Luke's grandmother. It has no bathroom or septic. This is not for me to adjudicate. Id@ and Luke could announce an engagement tomorrow. Or my son and his girlfriend could. They literally don't know anything more about any of that than anyone who is 27, or 37. They have just as much of a shot as anyone else does. I was entirely ready to commit myself to my wife when I was 17. And I remained so for 17 years until she left me. I had no control over her leaving me. I didn't want that to happen. It broke my heart. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with the woman whom I had committed to when I was 17. Part of me has still waited, trying to go back to that. A 19 year old, like my daughter, or a 16 year old, like my son, is no less able to decide on one person than someone ten years older than them, or twenty years older. They are possibly better at it. If you can't find everything in common with someone when you are 16 years old then you are probably fucked when you are 46. So far, the people whom they have decided on are very nice. Luke should come out of his shell, and probably I should take him fishing a few times. And S0phie should come with me to hang out with my new friend who was a club kid in the 90's and did hair and makeup for Ladybunny and RuPaul. I feel like I have a pretty chill and settled idea of dating at this point. I wish that Alex would show up. I would like to bring her flowers. I would like to fix her tractor. I would like to have someone to bring flowers to. I know now all of the ways that men fuck things up. I will not do any of those things. I have also sworn off of using OKCupid, Tinder, and any other dating websites. Swipe culture is just fucked up, and I don't want to think about other people as disposable. I don't want to say no to someone else as a human being. I haven't used any of that shit for most of the past year. My hope was that I will meet actual people, in person. In practice, I've met nobody. I'm incredibly, painfully alone. It is actually painful. Like, I'd rather be dead than experience this for any longer. When you're 16, you have the clarity of mind to stay with the woman who wants to be with you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping her close to you, and doing whatever it takes to keep her happy. Nobody twenty years older has anything more to add to that. You are as smart as you will ever be about women when you are 16 as you will ever be in your life. 2:37 a.m. - 2023-05-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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