struggles

Hi internet.

Can I get a collective sigh for the long-awaited arrival of Friday? Good; good job internet. Without jinxing it, I wanted to mention that tonight is the fourth night Keaton’s gone to bed “big girl style.” For you barren folks, that means she goes to sleep without the aide of a pacifier. This is an awesome milestone for us. At this point, she’s going down for both naps and bedtime without much protest. In fact, Sharaun actually packed up and mailed her pacifiers to her sister (who’s about to pop herself), and let Keaton help pack them. When I put her down the other night, she said, “Paci mail to baby Hobson.” Yup, the pacifiers were mailed to baby Hobson. Goodbye pacifiers.

All day yesterday guys, I was struggling with myself to make a choice. I’ve written before about how I tend to worry most over the little things (I know I have, but it’s getting harder and harder to find entries in this mass of writing), and this is a good example. And, since it’s foremost on my mind, I’m going to gestate and give birth to this decision right here, laid bare, in front of the blog. Here we go.

The setup: I’ve been invited to a “pub crawl” with a group of upstanding fellows. These fellows, while not the normal crew I run with, are all birds of a feather and of like age with me. For those unaware with today’s modern street-vernacular, a “pub crawl” is a walking outing centered around moving from bar to bar whilst having one drink or so at each. The idea being that you get to check out a bunch of new bars, hang out with friends, and drink alcohol.

The problem: I can’t tell if I want to go or not. Deep inside me, I bet it would be an awesome time and I think I’d have a blast with the guys. In some other way, though, I feel like this is not my bag. There are a couple factors at play here, but I can summarize it plainly by saying that 1) I’m typically not the guy at the bar, and 2) I’m not sure, but I think I kinda feel “too old” to be crawling pubs. Now, I know both of these things are rubbish, but they are indeed the psychological blocks I’m dealing with. Let’s take them one by one.

First, it’d be fairly accurate to call me a “homebody,” at least as a generalization. If it comes down to the choice between “going out” and getting some drinks or staying home and drinking some beer with friends – I’ll usually choose the latter (by the way, neither my homebodiness, nor my propensity to go out, is tied to alcohol consumption, I’m just framing this in the context of a “pub crawl.”) Some part of this is built into my Scrooge-logic, where I realize that socializing at home with friends is cheaper than socializing at the local overpriced watering hole. Some of it is just my nature.

Second, a “pub crawl” makes me feel old. In fact, most bars make me feel old these days. Unless they’re the dank, cavernous, dreary kind, they’re usually glitzy-trendy hotspots filled to the brim with fancy-smelling youngsters all looking to shack up for the night. Me and glitzy-trendy just don’t work, I just feel awkward and out of place. In fact, the whole concept of a “pub crawl” seems to shout “wasted college kid” to my subconscious. And, while that may have been OK when I was actually in college, thinking about it now makes me feel a bit like the fat, old, balding guy who’s just posturing.

Anyway… there it is. Still not sure what I’m going to do.

Goodnight.

Also written on this day...

• displacing fever & weariness - 2011
• what godless monster? - 2010
• crumbelievable - 2006
• i know because i know - 2005