Hell of a fucking month, man. Hell of a fucking month. My folks’ birthdays are this month. Mom ‘n pop a day apart from one another. Isn’t that something? Think that played into them getting married? Grandfather died this time last year. Wasn’t going to go to Thanksgiving last year but showed up on account of his death. For my pop, you know. Man’s more vulnerable to that sort of change than he admits. We’re alike in that respect. He’s got more religion than he used to. Cares less about material things like his cars, which is natural, seeing as I just now got into that stuff. We’re just not synced on anything but the weather and work. How’s work? he’ll ask. It’s going, I’ll say, knowing he doesn’t quite get what I do. And yours? I’ll ask. Great, he’ll say, and he’ll explain again what it is he does.

I’m thinking of books for them. A book on grief and a book on life in middle age after your kids don’t need you any more, even if they do. The latter’s like losing a job of thirty years, I figure. I learn more about this stuff from reading than I do from life.

Been reading many blogs every month or so. I sit at the harbor bar with the fishermen and Giants fans and catch up with a hef and the ipad. Usually the last page or two. It makes me happy when any of you succeed or find some measure of fulfillment in your lives. When things’re bad I want to pick you up by the armpits and tell you to it’s not as bad as all that. You’re alive and capable. What’re you complaining about? Get to work.

I don’t think I’ll ever break away from allowing others to influence me that way. If I cared to look inward, at my psychological type ‘n such, I could probably explain why, but the analysis gives me a headache. If someone wrote a story of a character for each type I might gain a better understanding. It’d make for an interesting book, but only if the stories weren’t overt. In stories, unlike in the rest of life, you shouldn’t be overt. Be complex. Explain without explaining. “And the lesson was…” is the worst thing you could do.

I do things to get women to kiss me and bend over and plead. I have a look, even, which is news to me. Sometimes I’m just not sure what to say to someone I’d like to get to know a little better at a slower pace. We’re sitting at Starbucks and the country music’s playing and we talk about work as a makeup counter girl at Sears and as a grown man playing video games for a living and then. And then.

Which is to say I’m 30 next month and the opposite sex still mystifies me on certain levels. Which is to say sometimes I’ve got nothing to say except lines that get women to kiss me and bend over and plead.

“Have you attained a heightened state of awareness? From yoga?”

A polite laugh.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, no.”

“I hear it’s somethin’ else. Like weightlessness. Like your mind is just released from this mortal coil. I’m jealous, you know.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

“That you can do yoga. That you can focus your mind and body like that. You’ll reach goals most people won’t ever get to, I bet. I can’t do it. No way. My mind’s a mess.”

I’ll have written a shitty novel by the end of the month and purchased books that I’ll have given to people who won’t understand why I gave them books. Think of the weak “Thank you” you gave for every gift you didn’t like or understand. If I was the type, I’d know enough to give something more natural. You might call it a heartfelt expression or thoughtful.