Caught up with a friend from high school and his wife over break.

So over Christmas break I caught up with a friend from high school and his wife, who actually used to be a neighbor of mine growing up.

They had asked up when it was up with me, I mentioned taking Hebrew, because it's academically necessary, and it's a plus with the tough job market, etc., and then my friend's wife, who's a social worker and has a great sense of humor, was like, "That's so abstract! Most people I hear say stuff like, 'Tough job market, I should learn the latest version of Word,' and you're like, 'Tough job market, gotta learn Hebrew,'" and then she just laughed some more.

My friend also is switching jobs; he's a high school math teacher at the Catholic school where we went, but he got a job mid-year at public school since they didn't renew a teacher's contract last-minute in September, and had made do with subs till they could fill the vacancy... The guy had sexted a student, and was let go.

"He was a weird one anyways," my friend was like, and explained how the guy had lived in separate towns from his wife for over a decade and go visit her every once in a while, and how the guy lived near them, and during the late summer he'd have all these recent undergrads over and there'd be drunk 19 year olds walking around and speakers set up in the driveway booming bass till late at night.

"We called the cops on him a few times," my friend was like, "We didn't want to put up with that bullshit."

They then started saying how their youngest son is in kindergarten, and how it's tough for him, since he tells everyone he's good at math since his dad is a math teacher at the same school (it's all in one building, K-12), and how he goes in in the morning with his dad and sometimes run into him during the day and plays in his room afterschool, and all the seniors know him and give him high-fives when they see him.

"Did you try explaining the difference in benefits to him?", I joked.

"Actually, yes!", my friend's wife was like, and she said she told him everything on a very simple level, and how there were adult things like benefits that allowed you to go to the dentist, and how you don't think of them everyday, but they're important to take care of the family.

"How'd that work?", I was like.

"Oh," she was like, "He burst out crying, and was like, 'If I get all As on my next report card, can you buy dental insurance online?'"

They also said that their youngest son is like the Mad Hatter, where if you tell him to put on boots he won't, but then you tell him not to and he's like, "I want - To Put -ON MY BOOTS!".

With dinner, too, they said that he obviously hadn't eaten anything this one time, and they were like, "Honey, won't you have some of your dinner?", and he just looked at them and was like, "But I have... Can't you see, I've had - Seventeen bites."

They also filled me in how the Catholic school we went is getting "really Catholic". They converted a classroom into a chapel, make the kids go to Mass weekly rather than monthly, and say prayers several times a day.

"They made the kindergarteners memorize the Angelus," my friend was like. He said that he and his wife don't mind it, since it's memorization and they tell the kids how crazy and wrong some of the political stuff they hear at church is, but it is kind of weird since it's all this past stuff that's nostalgia, that's applied really without thinking whether it's appropriate.

He then said that there's a 28-y.o. priest who gave them a book about Fulton Sheen.

"How relevant would that even be?", he was like. "It's before Vatican II!".

He then said that the high school had a book club, and he thought they were reading the same stuff.

Too, once they caught their kids making a crucifix out of blocks, and then turning around a chair in front of it like a kneeler.

They also said their kids have a game where they play "Ghost Hunters" in the basement, where they go down and turn the lights off and their oldest son uses this little watch with a short tape recorder in it, where he tapes voices and then uses a notepad to 'jot down' what he hears.

"That's different!", I was like. "What do the ghosts say?"

"Oh," his mom was like, "Stuff like -

we are here

come with us

we are cold

we are angry..."

"Ummm," I was like, "Maybe you shouldn't have them play that game," and I told them about all the Catholic exorcism books I read, and how a lot of them were made up, but you shouldn't fuck around with that.

"You're right," she was like, "That game ends tonight."

Another Christmas vacation story: Basketball.

So over vacation I caught up with my one friend's 2nd-wave feminist muu-muu-wearing mother, who is raising her other daughter's young children.

She was telling me how the 4th-grader is in basketball now, and how she went to the 1st practice with the girl's little brother who's in 2nd grade...

"I couldn't help it," she was like, "But with her red hair, it was like an I Love Lucy episode!"

She then told me how they taught her how to dribble a ball and not to look at it, but then you could see her eyes go over to the ball, which would then fly out of control and she'd go chasing after it, while her little brother grabbed his head and was like, "Grandma, she's so bad!"

Adulthood.

Like last month, I suddenly realized that I feel like an adult, and that I can hold my own in any social situation and am looked to by people of all ages as a peer.

I think it's my professionalizing through becoming a tutor, and also an early 30s thing, where I know people in all walks of life and people like investment bankers and lawyers and doctors aren't something of older cohorts, but are my peers.

I also feel like I can handle most life situations responsibly and independently.

I don't know what it is, but I feel like I just walk around with confidence and no fear, every moment of every day.

I bet that makes me even more scary intense.

Gifts for my parents.

They were last minute but I think good -

- A very very nice soup thermos, that's stainless steel and holds 18oz. and has a spoon built into a compartment in the lid.

- A Godfather-era paperback about Lucky Luciano that I found on my bookshelves (got it at a booksale this spring) after a conversation with my dad where he said he's always been fascinated by that gangster and wished he knew more about him!

The soup thermos was inspired by the party gift I got at the party I went to with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend's sister.

Dream.

I wear house sandals, and like four months ago I stumbled and the strap on the rightfoot of the pair I've had forever got pulled out, and I had to throw the pair away and pull out a new pair from the closet.

The old pair was black, the new white.

The other week I had a dream that I was looking at the white sandals from the back, and I saw that by the heels they were so worn down that they were almost worn through.

And then I woke up.

Christmas vacation of my friend's husband.

vSo after my one friend from high school picked me up from the train station, I got to hang out with her and her husband, who's this laconic affable (white) guy who's an athletic director of a high school in a small town north of their house.

After I got in, we were hanging in the living room watching tv, and so he started telling me how the other week he was taking their golden retrievers out, and he noted something funny after one pissed, so he called the vet and the vet told him it was probably blood in the dog's urine and to get a sample in a jar he boiled and bring it in.

"That was fun," he was like. "Standing there holding the jar and having him piss all over my hand, while he looks back at me like, RRMMMMM?".

As it turns out, he said, nothing turned up in the urine, and the vet said that dogs can have blood in their urine sometimes since many breeds have sensitive penises, and if they get a boner and whack it on something, the blood vessels in their can rupture and blood temporarily comes out in the urine.

"So that was from his boner," my friend's husband was like.

Bar #s are slipping away from me.

The impossibility of perfect knowledge continually amazes me.

For example, how many bars have I been to for my project? I have a number in my book, but it doesn't necessarily match to how many bars are continually open - and my ultimate goal is to at one time have been to every bar open in the city.

Right now, I know that I've been to at least 3 bars that have closed down:

- the pizza place with the Moldovan waitress (though it's re-opened under a different name, and looks to be largely the same bar; I'll have to re-visit it).

- this non-descript cavernous Irish place next to a movie theater I go to (walked by it the other day; it's closed down).

- this shitty gay place with an older crowd and go-go boys (walked by it the other day; it's closed down; I had read that there was some legal dispute over it and it was still open, but I guess it's not).

So, I might go to 500 bars within a year of starting my project, but I won't be certain how many bars I've chipped off of my goal, since some of those bars have closed down or been re-named and are thus deserving of another visit!