Friday, August 27, 2004

bring on the funk!

yes, it has happened. last night, no. 2 woke up at two am, and didn't want to go back to sleep. i did what i always do, which is stick him in his swing in the living room, tell him to shut up, and go to sleep (during the day i may consider myself a fairly good dad, but at night, well, that bastard that takes care of them at night is only barely keeping it together). he continued to cry, and i went back to bed.

my wife chose this very moment to decide that we shouldn't pick him up at night when he cries, that he shouldn't go to sleep in his swing, that she should yell and holler, louder even than no. 2. the result; no. 2 stood in his crib screaming his fucking head off for two motherfucking hours!!! (predictably) every half-hour was punctuated by my wife on a stomping trip into the kids' room to further yell at no. 2. (also, predictably)

and of course, no. 1 got up at his usual time of sevenish, so needless to say, i am wiped.

now, i have noticed that the english language does not provide for the kind of bone-weary, please-god-kill-me tired that is discovered by stay-home parents. all of you working parents (who aren't probably reading this anyway, who is really?) like to think you understand, but there is nothing like the singularly exhausting task of being up half the night and not being able to wake up and drop them off at daycare, but instead wake up to their continued whining and crying and looking at your sagging, battered face in the mirror and thinking, "oh my god, these children are sucking out my very life!"

my brain has shriveled to a dried date, and all the newly emptied space has been filled with throbbing pain. i awoke covered, and i mean COVERED in bedsheet scars, like i had not been sleeping so much as fucking wrestling with the mattress (and losing, apparently). i stood in front of the open refrigerator for ten minutes trying to remember what i opened it for in the first place (oh, yeah, creamer).

and lurking just around the corner, just behind my drooping eyelids, i can feel it, the funk. that's right, any moment now i will be reduced to a self-loathing, self-deprecating chunk of pathetic, pitiful humanoid glop, who alternately hates his life, and hates himself for hating what is most definitely a beautiful and wonderful life. if i can have a big huge bawl (yes, i am a man, yes, i cry. i cry at some sad songs, i cry at sad movies, i cry at happy movies, i am not afraid to admit it.) i will get most of it out of my system, but it's trying to convince the kids to let me watch "the green mile" uninterrupted that's the trick. i have trouble even listening to five for fighting's "superman" without them hanging off of me like growths.

but i've got to try, it's the only way to stave off the impending dark cloud of doom...

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