Half a Beer and Home

I woke up in a pissy mood, related, in part I'm sure, to the fool's errand we're running on Monday, taking the youngest nephew back to Georgia so that his father can take him back to his mother in North Carolina. This is part of some elaborate plot on the part of my parents to seem as nice and helpful as possible so that when the kid's mother and father get tired of being parents, they will leave the kid with my parents instead. My parents believe that, if you do the right thing, eventually, good things will happen. Annoyingly enough, I sometimes believe this as well. But, when it comes to my nephew, I want there to be authorities called every half an hour and courts and judges and lawyers and superheroes to swoop in and save him. I don't want to wait around for people who've never shown the inclination to do the right thing to suddenly start. So, I got up and I felt pissy and I took the dog to the park, as usual, but I was in such a bad mood that I kind of felt like turning around or hiding in the woods for the rest of my life. But I kept walking and, after a while, I was glad I was walking. The dog was happy and things were in bloom and I saw these tiny spiky purple flowers all along the side of the road. We went slowly, because I didn't really want to be out there, and it ended up being okay. I got home and had some lunch and watched TV and got ready for this birthday party that the Professor and all her friends were supposed to be at. No one I knew well was there, so I tried to start a rumor that the Professor was off having a scandalous affair with Kenny Rogers, but no one bought it. I drank half a beer and came home. But I'm too unsettled to sleep. Here are some things none of you know about me: 1. When I was younger, I had this shirt that I loved, this awesome brown plaid button-up shirt with gold in it. I loved it because my grandma bought it for me and my cousin had one just like it. When my Brownie troop went to some shin-dig at Lincoln's grave, a Boy Scout turned to me and said "Are you a boy? Because, you look like a boy in that shirt." That bugged the shit out of me for many years. 2. My favorite daydream is that I'm dating Ludacris and that he will come to my office and take me some place exciting for lunch. 3. When the Man from GM and I were in band, I would always purposefully fuck up the auditions because I didn't want to be first chair, for three reasons, one of which I've never told anyone before: 1. I didn't want to have to tune the tympany because I was self-conscious about playing. 2. I wanted to sit next to the third-chair trombone player because he was hot and he was never going to be good enough to be any competition. 3. The Man from GM was clearly the better player. If it wasn't some kind of walking bass line, I just couldn't be bothered. There was always a chance that I might beat him for 1st chair because of some fluke, but it wouldn't have been right. Hmm. That worked. I was going to tell you ten things, but after three, I'm starting to finally nod off. Good night.