Wednesday, June 13, 2007

More Midlife Crisis Thoughts

13 June 07

Doing the single dad thing while my wife is away on business has given me too much time to think. Of course, that leads me back to the whole, “Holy crap I’m 40!” business.

I was putting my kids to bed last night and, as usual, my oldest asked me to play guitar. He requested my shortest song since I let him stay up WAY past his bedtime to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Spike TV.

Don’t tell mom.

The shortest song I know is My Grandfather’s Clock:

My grandfather's clock
Was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half
Than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn
Of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering,
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
His life seconds numbering,
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
It stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.

Great. Another song about mortality.

Random other thought. I was picking up lunch last week, and I was in uniform. I started chatting with a young man at the counter. He was in his 20’s and was curious about military life. When I mentioned that I’m headed to Iraq, he was visibly stunned. “I don’t know what to say. Good luck, I guess.”

I thanked him and kind of casually said the first thing that came to mind. Here is my reply:

"I’m kind of resolved to the whole combat thing now. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. In the end, life is all about experiences, and this should be one hell of an experience."

It was a throwaway sentence, but it kind of rings true, no?

PS. You are a serious geek if this comic makes you laugh. I nearly busted a gut.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had to take a mental break - you're right, the comic was awesome. Almost funnier is the disclaimer down below though, about advanced mathematics and liberal arts majors - glad you're my math geek, baby!

TripJax said...

Just like the young dude, I'm not sure how I would have responded to your note about going to Iraq. And I'm 10 years his senior! It's something to think about, so I'm glad you posted it.

And the comic was hilarious, but I think I laughed for different reasons. I just laughed cause he dropped a soul crushing moment via IM. Good stuff.

Matt Silverthorn said...

XKCD is easily my favorite webcomic. Of course, if you don't read the alt-texts to the images, you're missing half the jokes!