RecoverY!

There are few truly beautiful things in life: the birth of a child, winning the lottery, cutting stuff, etc... And when such an event occurs it is something to be savored—something to put in that little spot in the back of your brain unblemished by alcohol, pornography and reruns of The Simpsons. And there it stays with all the other truly beautiful things. Things like: pornography, Simpsons reruns and benders.

As luck would have it, such a truly beautiful thing has happened to me this very day. Something almost ethereal. You see, this weekend I hung out with some friends. We had adequate times and then everyone went back to their more decent, respectable professions: student, barista-librarian, nanny/slave driver. For my part I went back to being just your average Captain Toughguy with all the universal acclaim it entails. As luck would have it, most of the time this doesn't require the use of pants. During the work day though I make an exception for the sake of my 401K, but even then I still manage to pull off some sweet moves: lying about my workload, looking at pictures of designer handbags on the internet, making up jokes involving crippled orphans. After work though I am able to fully embrace a Captain's raison d'etre: I sit in front of the TV in my underwear swearing at the advertisements and demanding absolute silence during Smallville. All this is great. And even if it is not one of life's truly beautiful things, neither is it something to shake a stick at it. No matter how possibly cool that stick may be or how hot the person shaking it.

But even this basic great scene is occasionally shaken up. For example, just 2 days ago, the bottle of whiskey is suddenly empty and I have to physically leave the couch during a particularly horrible advertisement to get the emergency gin. But yesterday I had to interrupt everything. It seems my “mailbox” is so full of junk mail that the landlord told me either to clear it out or clear myself out of the apartment. Juvenile. Any hoo, this required putting on pants because of some complaints from the yuppies living next door. Well, I put on the pants, pants I had worn this weekend past only to discover a crumpled up 5-dollar bill inside one of the pockets. Oh baby.

And now, and for all the now’s to follow, Today: whatever day it is, 2006, I, Captain Toughguy whose never sweating it, had a truly beautiful moment. The only downside was that I had to forget a previously stored moment to make room for it. I’m sorry memory of night I drank a bottle of tequila and tried to fight 3 strangers just trying to get some sleep in their apartment.