My car inspection had unexpectedly taken a mere 30 minutes, I didn't have to be at the church for bell choir practice until 5, and my wife and two daughters were at my youngest's 2 month-old check up.
That meant that for about an hour I would have the house to myself, and what's more it would actually be quiet.
Allow me to describe the magnitude of how awesome this is for those of you who don't have children (or three very loud, rambunctious dogs, which is not a bad approximation): it is as if you came home to find a giant pot of gold just sitting on the porch, and on that porch, sitting next to the pot of gold, is your "one", who informs you that they've done all the dishes, folded all the laundry, made the bed with freshly laundered sheets, and they are now ready fucs your brains out.
I'm assuming that everyone also understands the concept of "the one". If you don't know, it is the one person with whom you would demand that the sacred bonds of marriage be dropped, the one person, whom, if he or she walked into the living room, you would have to fornicate under the consent of the spouse (fucs).
Typically the one is a person who moves in a parallel universe, so that there is no chance that your world and their world might intersect; as a rule it's good to have 4 to 6 degrees of separation from your prospective fucs buddy. The cute yoga woman who lives across the street or the Starbucks man with the chisely chin and deep blue eyes are bad choices, as they are within the realm of sexual possibility and such stones are best left un-turned in any marriage. Mila Kunis, Benedict Cumberbach, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are all, on the other hand, excellent choices for the average person. Even meeting anyone of them is rather unlikely, and if one of them were to walk into the bedroom of a Joe Schumkatelli or Jane Grabowski and inform said average person that they are wearing expensive and rather flimsy french underwear, well, by laws of probability alone one must grab the bull by the balls and just....just go to it.
Of course, if I happened to come home and find that Christina Hendricks was sitting on my porch with said pot of gold and informed me that she had done all the dishes, folded all the laundry, made the bed with freshly laundered sheets and now desperately wanted nothing more than to, as Samuel Peyps would say, "place my Sir Daniel Davidson betwixt her Chumblewuzzlies" I'd probably be more happy about the chores being done then I would about the money or anything else. Those of you with kids understand...if you don't have children imagine your life with 10 rascally rabbits who need constant attention and you'll get an idea of what I am talking about.
Anyways, when I got home to a quiet house my little introverted soul did a few back flips in excitement. It was real quiet, actual quiet, the kind of holy silence that makes you afraid to turn on the lights, lest the sudden movement of electrons through wires and filaments disturb the cosmic equilibrium at which you stand at the center of. It was awesome.
That meant that for about an hour I would have the house to myself, and what's more it would actually be quiet.
Allow me to describe the magnitude of how awesome this is for those of you who don't have children (or three very loud, rambunctious dogs, which is not a bad approximation): it is as if you came home to find a giant pot of gold just sitting on the porch, and on that porch, sitting next to the pot of gold, is your "one", who informs you that they've done all the dishes, folded all the laundry, made the bed with freshly laundered sheets, and they are now ready fucs your brains out.
I'm assuming that everyone also understands the concept of "the one". If you don't know, it is the one person with whom you would demand that the sacred bonds of marriage be dropped, the one person, whom, if he or she walked into the living room, you would have to fornicate under the consent of the spouse (fucs).
Typically the one is a person who moves in a parallel universe, so that there is no chance that your world and their world might intersect; as a rule it's good to have 4 to 6 degrees of separation from your prospective fucs buddy. The cute yoga woman who lives across the street or the Starbucks man with the chisely chin and deep blue eyes are bad choices, as they are within the realm of sexual possibility and such stones are best left un-turned in any marriage. Mila Kunis, Benedict Cumberbach, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are all, on the other hand, excellent choices for the average person. Even meeting anyone of them is rather unlikely, and if one of them were to walk into the bedroom of a Joe Schumkatelli or Jane Grabowski and inform said average person that they are wearing expensive and rather flimsy french underwear, well, by laws of probability alone one must grab the bull by the balls and just....just go to it.
Of course, if I happened to come home and find that Christina Hendricks was sitting on my porch with said pot of gold and informed me that she had done all the dishes, folded all the laundry, made the bed with freshly laundered sheets and now desperately wanted nothing more than to, as Samuel Peyps would say, "place my Sir Daniel Davidson betwixt her Chumblewuzzlies" I'd probably be more happy about the chores being done then I would about the money or anything else. Those of you with kids understand...if you don't have children imagine your life with 10 rascally rabbits who need constant attention and you'll get an idea of what I am talking about.
Anyways, when I got home to a quiet house my little introverted soul did a few back flips in excitement. It was real quiet, actual quiet, the kind of holy silence that makes you afraid to turn on the lights, lest the sudden movement of electrons through wires and filaments disturb the cosmic equilibrium at which you stand at the center of. It was awesome.
How did I spend this god given gift? Did I read a little poetry by John Donne? Try to work on a short story? Pour a finger or two of scotch and stare at the ceiling? Run over some piano scales?
Nope. While all of those would have been worthy of my time, I decided to dive deeper into Frank Underwood's Machiavellian rise to power.
I'm well into season two, and find that where before I might have forgotten who certain people were, I now seem to be having trouble remembering the whys and whats at the core of the story, such as as:
What is samarium?
What does this damned bridge have to do with anything? What do the Chinese care if we build it or not?
Why does Frank Underwood hate Raymond Tusk? After all, Tusk served in the US Marine Corps and raised three beautiful daughters, and managed to hold together his marriage to a liberal journalist who was, in most things, his complete opposite. He came from the Gulf War, went into the energy business, made billions of dollars. Major Dad is an American hero. So what if he has the President's ear?
What is the deal with this Seth Grayson guy? Is he a double agent, or....
I don't know. I don't know any of these things.
I heard it once postulated on NPR that the average IQ of your meat and potatoes American is probably on the rise just because TV shows have gotten more complex, and we watch so many of them we consume a lot of brain power trying to keep everything straight. I don't know if you can argue that there is causality (i.e. the more complex shows are driving up IQs) or if one thing manifests another (Americans are smarter on average then they used to be, and more convoluted TV dramas are better received), but I can definetly see it. Compare "The Andy Griffith Show" to "Lost" or "The Americans" and I think it's probably a no brainer that the latter have a more sophisticated audience in mind.
It is perhaps a sophistication I lack...after all, I don't know if I could consider House of Cards to be particularly brilliant, especially because of all those stupid times that Frank breaks the fourth wall and drops some sort of Sun Tsu Art of War type witiscism on us. And yet, for its faults, I find myself having a hard time following it.
I can only conclude that I am one of the below average, stupid people out there who prefer the compartmentalized plots and clever allegory of a Seinfeld to the fast paced, twisty turniness of a current day political drama. I suppose I should also be commended for being able to extract what I have been able to thus far from my rather feeble mental faculties, and get ready for the long but rather pleasant slip into ultimate vapidity as I continue to fall behind the curve. They say it is quite nice, like easing yourself into a hot bath: hurts a bit at first, but eventually becomes quite delightful.
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