the squibix family blog

(Oh, in case you're wondering, the energy assistance thing gives poor people a discount on their fuel bills. A family of four qualifies as a poor if they make under $60,000 (!) Half or my readers are now wondering if they too are poor and can cash in on this. Here's the link, though I'll warn you the initial application must be made in person and is a giant pain in the ass. But anyway...)

Staples. There we were standing in this awful airtight office cubicle of a store, and the easy listening is feeding this oldie by John Mayer through the speakers: "I want to run through the halls of my high school. I want to scream at the top of my lungs."

And I thought to myself, I haven't thought about that song in a decade. And then I thought: A decade? Seriously? A DECADE? Like TEN YEARS? Yes, well, I guess it's true. It's 2012 now and I owned "Room for Squares" in 2002. On CD. When all my music was on CD and CDs were things that I purchased rather than things that I encounter in boxes in the basement to throw away.

And then I thought, good Lord I'm almost ten years out of college. What good have I done for myself? With A DECADE of adult life behind me? With A DECADE of independence, wisdom and maturity, I am standing in the cubicle superstore wondering if I have enough money in the bank to clear the checks I've written plus nine dollars of printer paper.

Preach it to my soul, John Mayer. Tell me there's no such thing as a real world, just a lie I have to rise above.

I mostly love my life, I mean, the portion of it when I don't have to be shopping at Staples. What I hate is feeling the need to THINK about my life, or JUSTIFY my life, what I've come to in the last ten years when others have gone on to be movie actors and White House politicos and, I dunno, people who eat out a lot at fancy restaurants, judging by my facebook feed.

A related story: I was walking today past our local high school; it was part of our "scenic route" home from the playground, which is code for "I have no agenda for this afternoon and I want to kill an extra half-hour before Dada gets home." So I'm walking with the double stroller and the dog, and the extending leash broke last week so I have the short leash which means the dog is pulling me this way and that as hard as he can and I'm struggling to keep hold of him and the stroller. And also the baby is crying because we didn't get go to the library after the playground, and Harvey is screaming at him, "No Zi! We're going for a WALK in the COUNTRY! Don't you KNOW? This is the COUNTRY!" There were some high school students sitting outside on the steps who looked over as we passed. I wanted to scream to them, "Don't have sex! This is what happens!"

Which is to say, you may end up with yelly children. Not that you immediately get a dog who's a pain in the neck to walk; I don't want to perpetuate any false myths on our youngsters.

There are few things that make me so happy as those screaming children. Or so angry or so exhausted. So completely "in it" and so completely "over it" from one second to the next. I wonder if that's what Master Mayer meant when he sang "there's no such thing as a real world." The real world of life after graduation is every bit of wonderful and every bit of grindingly awful as you can imagine. It's not like you get to pick one life or the other, it's that every life you pick is both wonderful and awful at the same time.