Friday, January 08, 2010

I'll do something I rarely do in my blog, and follow up with something I mentioned yesterday. Just a few hours after I wrote the entry about wanting to be a chaperone for my son's Smithsonian field trip, his teacher got back to me and approved me to do just that. She said my son will be in group of people, and I will be in charge of watching over him and his group. The class will start at the Natural Museum of American History (which I can happily say I've taken him too already), and then if weather permits, they will visits monuments and other significant landmarks. I never had my parents oversee any of my field trips like this, so I can't draw on any real emotion of how my son may be feeling about my presence. But I'm young enough (in my mind) that I there isn't a total disconnect as far as how tenuous and delicate an on-the-brink-of-puberty son can have with his father--especially in front of his friends. The blog entry the morning after should be absolutely fantastic.

I got an email from my mother this morning, informing me that 1)there was a typo in the Gilbert Arenas story I wrote the other day and 2)her friend Lorraine from college had died. When she started going into greater detail about Lorraine, I realized that it was someone I met this past summer at Columbia University Alumni reception I attended. When I was living in Connecticut from 1984-87, Lorraine and her family used to live near my family, and I distinctly remember loud card games going down at their house. Once we left Connecticut, I never saw this woman again, until the aforemention reception.

When she saw me she was amazed how I had grown and how much I looked like my father, and she kept hugging me and then holding my shoulders. I was uncomfortable with that type of attention, and eventually I freed myself from her clutches, and that was the extent of our interaction. I had no idea she was fighting cancer, and I definitely had no clue that she'd be dead six months later. I'm not going to be dramatic here and type some b.s. about me wishing I had talked to her longer, because frankly, that's not how it was supposed to go. It was just an odd feeling to read that she was now dead of cancer.

It also reminds me of something my father said to me a few months back, when I inquired about his health. He said he was healthy and that he didn't feel or look old, but he still felt old for some reason. I asked him what he meant, and he said that several of the people he went to high school and college with had died of various diseases and ailments. He realized that he's at the age (he'll be 60 in August) where people start dying of those types of things, and it makes him feel old.

Ok this is just depressing, and its Friday. My apologies. So allow me to link a happy video from a late, great artist. Oh and if you can tell me what this man is saying betwen the :40 and :46 second mark, that would be terrific

1 comment:

a said...

you are right, the field trip should make for a great entry. go easy on him haha. sorry to hear about your Mother's friend. that reminds me of my entry yesterday.

oh and this is one of my favorite parts of the movie, vocally. i really need to see that movie again.