green door

apparently i haven’t been much of a writer lately.

so what have i been up to, you might ask? good question. both lots and little.

i am reminded of family dinners long past... the seven or eight of us gathered around the dinner table... dad had just come home from a trip... all he wanted was to catch up on the current events of the household. there was the inevitable question. it wasn’t a difficult one, and yet for some reason, i could never really think of a suitable answer:

‘so patrick, what did you learn in school today?’

‘nothin’

this was of course a source of endless frustration for my father, because ‘nothing’ was not an acceptable answer. it did not even come close to the intent of the question. of course, at the time, my mind was truly obscured with the fog of puberty, and my world extended approximately to my fingertips in all directions around me. i did not realize that a more suitable answer would have been:

‘you know dad? at my current phase of development, i am mostly overwhelmed by the unstable social foundations inherent in the hormone-saturated environment of my high school, and that tends to take the majority of my daily focus. instead of daily homework and class discussions, my concentration floats more around whether or not it is too revealing to sit next to a certain girl that i may (or may not) be interested in. then, if i do decide to sit next to her, i have to try to use my highest order of problem solving skills and non-verbal cue recognition to determine whether or not she thinks i’m making an ass of myself and whether i should be more overt or more covert in my emotionally charged yet highly directionless undertaking. so while you are most likely referring to what stage of modern world history my test is on tomorrow, realistically, i have no clue... because i gave her a note after lunch and have yet to receive a reply.’

instead... i would say:

‘nothin’

and focus dilligently on my mashed potatoes and chicken breast... hoping the question would go away or be passed on to the next person down the line. it never worked.

but WHY? you might ask... WHY did you just sit there when all of that was running through your head?

like i said; fog and friction. those were confusing days, and besides, those battlefield decisions were such an everyday fact of life that they seemed trivial... both unworthy of discussion and embarrasingly raw at the same time.

which brings us to today. what have i been up to?

nothin