I definitely was not feeling it. Just finished rolling, all stiff and achy. I'm out of practice. No technique at all. Distressing. I'm very limited, and get by just by having long bones. Ah well. My nephew came by for a few BJJ lessons. He is very very skinny. Six two, maybe 145 pounds? He said that a few months ago he was 130. Emaciated. Boy needs to eat. Of course, he'll be 31 in a month. My family is full of very slow starters. Failure to launch. It's a parenting failure. The job of parents is to prepare children for successful adulthoods. This includes but is not limited to a capacity for happiness. Also important is character, and contributions to society, and stability ... being not worthless ... you know, being a full and rounded human being. Not my strong suit, but I'm pleased with my own son.
That's why I was glad he went into the Army. As soon as he graduated high school. I'd have liked to have talked a bit more with him about it -- he went with his mother to sign up ... that was odd, her an old lefty hippie and all -- but it certainly broke the dysfunctional H family pattern. Frankly, the Curse. My father actually talked about it, lectured us when we were kids, my brothers and I, all set down in the livingroom listening to his hellish sermons for hours and hours. How he had been cursed by his father, and we were cursed by him, and we would curse our children. You know, poisonous and stupid. Under the circumstances, I knew I was cursed. But I also knew I would not pass it on.
N came with a lovely young woman, who did the workout as well. Same woman he was with last week, at the competition. I was a judge there. I always have nowadays in the back of my mind the question of when N is going to get married. When I was his age, he was three. I loved being a father. I expect to love being a grandparent even more ... no, just as much. But it's not my style to push. Pushing doesn't work anyway.
My father is on my mind. I can't think of a way to visit him. He's old and pathetic and crippled and fading pretty fast, but I just can't be his savior. I'd visit him if someone came with me, or if it were not at that mausoleum of a house. Yes, I know, a lot of ifs. My love is conditional. I said to my nephew that I didn't really know him -- I'd probably spent 50 hours around him in his whole life. Then I launched into a philosophical disquisition about love. Hope I didn't curse him. But I was the sane one in his childhood, trying to council his moronic parents into responsible effective parenting. I mean, I'm an expert, for real. You recognized that of course. Everyone knows that Jack may be hard to hear, but he's right, and if he's not right, he's honest.
Ah well. Politics is in the air, but it hardly seems worth while. The Resident of the White House is proving to be corrupt as well as incompetent. Quelle grande surprise. Chicago rules: don't bring a Bible to a Koran reading.
And the rest is silence.
J
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