All I’ve written so far is the title, and I’m already cracking myself up. So it goes in the world of I Hate Cheesecake. Or maybe it’s a result of the hiatus. What hiatus? You know, the I Hate Cheesecake hiatus. No, I didn’t Not Hate Cheesecake for a while - that’s gross. I just haven’t written in a while - which you would know if you were my reader. To be fair, even if you were my reader, you might not know, because after the hiatus, you might no longer be my reader.
So why am I already cracking up? Cuz the title. I get a lot of mileage out of the self-referential thing, especially in the bowels of my own head. Like, a LOT of mileage. And also, to a lesser extent, some mileage in the outside-world. It all started one night in Albany, many years ago. Did I already write about that night? I don’t remember, mainly because of the hiatus. Eh, I’m not gonna let that stop me. Maybe this one will be even better than the first. Or maybe this one is the first!
O wait, I did write about it, in a post about (obviously, of course, you guessed it) - the NFL draft. To summarize: One night in Albany, I held up my finger in the rain, but got shut out of a Dead show at which I would have seen my only Comes A Time, but instead went to my friend’s apartment and did some stuff, during which one friend from Cleveland did too much stuff and also my brother was laughing and reading a book about, among other things, self-referential statements, for example “This sentence has no”
And also, much more recently, I wrote a song called One Night in Albany, about that night in Albany, and about missing the show and the Comes A Time, and about the friend who lost his mind, and about the book and the laughing and the self-referential statements, and the song also has no
And then I wrote the title to this blog post, which I guess in a way also has no
See? Lotta mileage.
So where were we? Oh yeah, an ending and a begi…
Recently, my life has seen its fair share of change. About a week ago, my dog died. That’s an ending. And then a few days ago, we dropped our son off at college. That’s both an ending and a beginning. And since he’s our only child, that makes us “empty nesters.” But not yet - because after we dropped him off, we didn’t go back to the nest. My wife and I are currently spending a couple of days alone in Arroyo Seco, which is a cute little town outside of Taos. Today we’ll go visit our friends in Santa Fe, whom you might remember from their brief mention in my earlier post about my wife’s 50th birthday, and also about shoes. Or, you might remember them because you ARE one of them, because A Reader Is You.
Anyhoo… we’re going to Santa Fe for a few days, and then back to Denver to see some Phish shows. I say “back to Denver” because we were in Denver for a minute when we got off the plane and rented a car and drove to Boulder, which is where we dropped our son off at college. The college drop-off went something like this: we went with him to his dorm room, helped him make his bed, didn’t meet his roommate but did see two pairs of his roommate’s shoes, walked outside and one of these two things happened:
1) We all spent the day exploring campus together, had a nice dinner together, brought him back to his dorm room, met his roommate, and said goodbye with heartfelt hugs and just a few well-timed tears.
2) He said, “uh, I kinda wanna go meet people” - followed by a couple of quick hugs, some photos from a friendly passerby, and that was it.
Yeah, it was #2.
So in a few days, we’ll be back in Denver for four Phish shows, which is a lot of Phish shows for this middle-aged body. And maybe we’ll get to see our son while we’re there, which would be nice, because we already miss him - probably more than he misses us.
And after the four Phish shows, we’ll head back to the nest. Just over a week ago, my wife and I lived in a house with a full-size teenager, a dog, and a cat. But when we get back home, it’ll just be us and the cat. He’s a great cat - and a champion drooler - but it’s just not gonna be the same.
So like all empty-nesters before us, we’ll have to figure out what life will be like after all of that change. I think we’ll do ok. Things change, right? And that’s a good thing, because life would be pretty boring otherwise. But change can be hard. It’s the end of an era. And also the begi…