The Day the Game Changed

Today was one of those days when the only redeeming grace lies in the possibility that the leftover Chinese take out that I'm sloughing down whilst typing will kill me or tomorrow will be better. I'm banking on the latter but far too cynical to rule out the former.

When I was about Yael's age, nine-my dad and I used to have conversations where I-according to him, would intrigue him with my insightful perceptions of human behavior. I was always more of an observer than a contributor and much preferred adults to children. The adults had so much more to offer in terms of observation; the kids laughed or cried with sporadic hints of contentment. But the adults, they did all of those things plus, they lied and cheated and swore and even entered altered states of consciousness at times. A few too many times, but that's a whole other jeremiad. It was swell for a while, these times I shared with him, but as I grew older and more finely tuned intuitively, I discovered things I wish I'd never about my parents and their relationship, their peers and honestly about just about everyone in one way or another.

These days- much as a result of those findings, I come upon relationships with great trepidation. While I prefer children to adults, and cats to children-at the very core of my triune brain, I'm part of some overly complex social reptilian-mammalian tribe so, suffer I must. Making nice with the humans is part of the game. Well, then I ask, why is there no instruction booklet for the damn game? Like, okay, I pull out...I don't know, let's call the game "Concern". We've been playing this game for a while. Certainly we've been playing the game long enough for you to know the rules of the game and hopefully, unless you've fallen victim to some tragic frontal lobe damage-you do know it is Concern we've been playing all along. Follow? Okay, so I move my game piece. Sings. You move your game piece. Sings and then stops abruptly. "Well, why are you moving counterclockwise"? I ask. Then, you completely fucking lose it and tell me, "Well, because that's how you play "Animosity!", you didn't know? Gulps. Well, I guess not.

The next thing that happens, in the mind of a Reserved Analyst is an emotional kicking of one's own ass for not noticing all of the other times the game got changed up. See in the small world of my own perception, I would never see the game as anything other than Concern because that's the only game I play. I've seen Animosity, Greed, Jealousy, Envy played before-I even know the rules. I'm sure I've seen enough hands of it played to make a pretty damn skillful run of it as well. But y'know...I thought we were playing Concern. So now that you've hit me with this new piece of information, and as I sit back in the lab-one can't help but wonder, "Has it been Animosity that you've been playing all along"?

I'm going to play "Catch the Cat-nip Filled Cannoli" with my cats and wait for my intestines to give me the yay or nay on the leftover Chinese. If it is my last meal, it was pretty damn good. If not, then I'll start my tomorrow with yoga, a smile and a lesson learned. Peace. Oh wait, hang on...Mr. Rogers' song enters brain stage right. Sings. "I'll start the day tomorrow with a smile -for-you..."