It rubs the lotion on its skin.

[fetching hose]

It's a balmy Sunday afternoon, and whimsy has taken me back to the Republic for some grub (I'll be goddamned if Noodle Town doesn't put smack in their Shrimp and Broccoli) and some good, old-fashioned effing-around time.

Out here in Bloomington, if you listen hard enough, you can hear a faint sound not unlike the sound that a Ziploc baggie makes when you seal it. That would be the sound of thousands of livers stitching together after a weekend of puke-though-your-nostrils binge drinking and debauchery that will leave a legacy of penicillin soaks. Indiana University was recently ranked the Number One Large State School in the U.S. by Newsweek Magazine, and heaven forbid the unofficial Number One Party School in the U.S. to not celebrate by hurling on its date's shoes.

I'm feeling a little old, truth be told. Twenty-five blindsided me a little bit. I got notification in the mail that my car insurance premium dropped by nearly half; while I was glad for the extra money for the second season of The Golden Girls I've been dying for, I also realized with a start that State Auto thinks I am a blue-hair driver now. I'll show them! 80 MPH in a 55 zone? You bet your sweet can, honey.

But mostly, I hear stories from some of my younger friends, and indeed, the internationals, that make me feel as though I need to go get some hasty innoculations:

"Dude, so I woke up the other night with this chick I don't even know next to me, and we'd -you know {wink and nod and elbow nudge}. My clothes smelled like gasoline and my eyebrows were shaved off. She has a piercing {gestures to pelvic mound} you know, down there, and a tattoo of Mothra on her left butt cheek. She said her name was Shri-Misralapartnatka, Queen of the Damned. Also, I can't find one of my earlobes."

Mostly, I find myself feeling old not because I would have ever done anything like that but because I find myself making mild judgement calls about it, whereas in the past I might have pressed for details about the Mothra art or whether the piercing was meant "for her" or "for him." I'm no angel (my readership speaks in unison: duhhhh), but damn. I guess the element of shock has re-entered my life and I am not so sure what to do with it. Does there come a time when you stop identifying with who you once were and are confronted with a newer, older incarnation who eats food specifically to stay regular and is in bed by 11 every night? Who turns off the news because "it's too depressing" and shops at Target in the $1 Sale Item section for a half-hour? Who listens to the oldies stations because they now play Foreigner, Steve Winwood and Phil Collins? (It's the total truth: when did the eighties become oldies?) Or am I, as my mother once said as she saw me reading a book about transubstantiation in the Catholic traditions in Mediterranean Europe at the tender age of ten, simply old before my time?

Do I now have more in common with the Greenwood soccer-mom, awakening to her spawn's shrieks to wonder how many can be fed on a Sam's Club X-Tra Cheez pizza and a two-liter of Dr.Thunder at 6 AM on a Saturday? With the sixtyish man in my neigborhood who strips to the waist and puts on a bandana made out of an old dishtowel to mow his grass with a riding mower at 7 AM on a Sunday, despite the fact that his yard is the size of a chinchilla's bladder? With the weary woman in the Dirt-Baby Kroger who animates her night-shift-workin' limbs out of sheer will as she drops a can of corned beef hash into her cart with the carton of Misty Light 100s and the six-pack of diet cola?

Am I going to have to rub the lotion on the skin? Will I have to do that whenever I am told?

Sucks to your ass-marr. <- movie? movie? (sigh)

Just when I think I am feeling a little too old, I am distracted by something shiny and I get it all back. All it takes is finding the stem of a broken crack pipe in the weeds to restore my faith in my inherent youth!

I bought a squirt bottle for Balthazar last night. I figure: he's old enough to start knowing right from wrong, and a little bit of liquid discipline never hurt anyone. I mean, look what the Squirt Bottle of Divine Intervention has done in my office! Here's a list of things that are OK for the wee one:

Eating
Sleeping
Taking a dump/peeing
Sitting
Playing

And the bad things:

Playing with moist logs of your recently extruded effluent
Gnawing on electrical wires
Sinking tiny fangs into Daddy's calf guerrilla-style from under the bed

These lists will surely grow as Balthazar matures into the tiny man-cat he aspires to be. And by "these lists" I mean "the second list, since at the time being he's confined to only one room of the house."

A steaming plate of butterflied shrimp in a rich brown sauce on a bed of broccoli awaits me at a dodgy-looking Chinese place across town; Balthazar with his newly-acquired Chinese cuisine skills would of course tell you it's Hong Kong-style. Duh.

I remain, as ever,

Dom