Vintage Seven

Guess who’s back in the motherfucking house? My son!!!

Well he never left--after all, he is only seven, but he’s not been featured. I’ve been writing about the adults and boring myself to tears. In real life though I’ve not had a moment’s boredom because my child’s like a rocket ship of revelations, milestones, quotations, memorable moments as he tears into his seventh (and in his words, best yet) year. And here I was failing to catalog all this shit. I’m going to take a crack at it and commit to doing this regularly because if there is a legitimate rock star in my life whose every move should be depicted Us Weekly style (“Stars: They’re Just Like Us. They Suffer From Unrequited Love!”) it’s my son, and not me. I know, I know, shocking I could say that. But I bow only to true idols. Episodes below.

Episode 1: One is Never Too Young To Play Love’s Fool

Today was a strange day Mama
Why?
Chelsea spoke to me
(Chelsea—the girlfriend of first grade, whom he imagined was his girlfriend is a Mean Girl. The sort of creature so foul for her young years that she appears airbrushed in the morning and airbrushed at the end of the day when the normal girls have frizzy hair and flushed cheeks from playing at being children. She’s an ice queen latina barbie—hence her first name. A creature whose unpleasantness is only outdone by her mother’s and who airs she puts on almost bring me to a verbal throwdown beginning with the words “Bitch, I know you didn’t just” until I realize she’s seven. Seven going on seventeen. But her hair is golden. Read: light brown with some blondish streaks that could very well be highlights but ain’t hear that from me.)

Doesn’t she always speak to you?
No, this year, since school started she never speaks to me
Excuse me?
Yep
Doesn’t speak to y ou?
Nope
Like she doesn’t know you, like you guys were not friends last year and almost boyfriend and girlfriend??
Yeah, she just doesn’t look at me at all or talk to me.

At this point my child emotes and starts to tear up. I realize that the past few days of home therapy where he’s been crying out his anxieties about second grade and learning the meaning of the phrase “welling up”—a mistake I made in explaining that shit to this Shakespearean thespian!—had much more to do with Chelsea than with Mrs. Anisco’s purported evil ways.

Hold on, look don’t cry. Well how did you feel when she did talk to you?
Weird
Well that’s because you were probably happy right?
Yeah…
But upset at the same time because she was mean before.
Yeah…
That’s the weirdness…. So do you think she’ll be nice from now on?
Yeah.

Yeah, but are you prepared for the fact that the bitch is likely to do that shit to you over and over again, even perhaps for the duration of ten formative years of your youth like a leech that sucks the blood while making your head woozy enough that you don’t actually notice you’re slowly dying while waiting for her to treat you like a decent person?!!
Well, rest assured. I did not say that to the child, I just said:

Well just take care of your feelings. She could still be mean again because well, people sometimes do stupid shit.
Ok.
But I hope she’s not.
Me too!
You know, why don’t you think about all your other friends who are nice, you know? Focus on them. So many cool girls are your buddies, why don’t you want them to be your girlfriend?

Mama, duh, hello?! We love the ones we love.

I’m thinking to myself, what the fuck? Did I do this or do they (we) come wired with a stoopid ass unrequited love propensity chip? A child is a profoundly self-interested, needs oriented, selfish creature. He has to be taught that if I buy the candy bar maybe it should not pain him to give me a little piece. But here when it comes to love, the self interest crumbles like a cookie and we “love the assholes we love.” What is this? I tell you what, this is a game we lose before we even know how to play it, that's what.

Now I segway into episode 2 with a disclaimer which is that I am sure my son watching General Hospital (yes, the soap) with me is not appropriate. I know this because it’s not appropriate for me to watch it, frankly. But the bonding is unbeatable you know? We watch it and it’s borderline inappropriate so it makes him feel really special—I have clear, clear, very fond memories of those moments with my mother. Did I say “fond memories” and “mother” in the same sentence? Now I know why I can’t stop the GH ritual in my home; it feeds a little hole in my heart called “nice shit that happened when I was a child with my mom.” Awww. But anyway, yeah, not okay. But funny.

Episode II: Soapy Love Mess

I told you a million times that I cannot explain this soap to you without drawing up a chart.
No, no. I get it. You mean that Sonny the bad guy with a good heart...and Jerry the bad guy with the bad heart, they hate each other… but they have to work together now to battle the bad guy that's like a really really bad guy, which that guy that maybe poisoned Kate works for? I can totally follow this without a chart.

I was in awe of the accuracy and succinctness of the summary. I felt emboldened: maybe I could tell him more!

But this is what you don't understand, when Sonny was your age, that bad guy Trevor was his evil step dad and accused him of trying to kill his mother only because
Oh you mean falling down the stairs, yeah I know about that.
How do you know about that?
I watch GH with my dad. He watches it. He likes it. Behind your back. Sonny's your favorite but do you know who my dad's favorite is?
No
Jason

(So your dad’s favorite is the brooding emotionally challenged painfully loyal right hand man of the mob boss who sacrifices his happiness for that of all others? Figures.)
Then later--when he could rip himself away from a pivotal seduction scene in the hot tub, ("is that a Jacuzzi or a hot tub?") long enough to see the Elizabeth/Nikolas talk, he said:

Wait wait wait a minute. Did she just say she cheated on Lucky with Jason?
Yep
So Lucky is cheating on her with Sam right now in the hot tub which she doesn’t know BUT she cheated on Lucky with Jason first?
Yep
Oh my god. This is crazy.
I wanted to say, You don't know the crazier part--do you know who Jason's girlfriend used to be? SAM! And I also wanted to say, "Son, the word you want to use here is not crazy, it's... soapy", but I stopped myself short of causing permanent damage to the child.

Episode III: Virtuosity Reality
This episode I heard from my friend E who experienced it first hand; I apologize for stealing the story for the purposes of this record. So in this case, he’s the adult not italicized,not me.

So have you made up your own music to play yet?
(Silence, piercing look, silence and then)
What? You don’t know about me and my keyboard?
No, what do you mean?
You don’t know I’ve been rockin out?
Uh, no
Cause I’ve been rockin out. You want me to play you something?
Yeah, of course.
Are you ready?
Yes

And so he set his keyboard to record and played what he thought was an amazing piece of pop rock piano music with some “drums” programming in there. And then went to sit next to my friend E, to brood and listen to the replay. Replay plays.

You know, for some reason, it sounds better when I do it then when the keyboard does. Do you hear that? Do you hear how mine’s better? I’m not sure why that is.

Update: he’s now moved on to hate the piano classes, the keyboard and rockin out in that sense and believes himself an electric guitar virtuoso. He suggested to E that maybe E’s roommate (a real life musician) and him could have “you know, a guitar play off?”

Appendix: Newly Acquired Skills and Stuff
His first real suit for my friend's wedding: E took him to get it at Brooks Brothers and he took him to the taylor. Speaking of, he wore the navy blue perfection that was that suit with his chucks. And he looked sexy. There I said it. There's no other words for it. It was a hot ass look.

His first watch. From the gap. Digital though. He can't tell time very well so I think we start where we can. Also can't tie shoelaces and I got him fancy school shoes with velcro straps under the leather buckle. I think maybe I am an enabler.

The appropriate use of "air quotes" and of the tool of sarcasm as in: "you never get it when I am being sarcastic". Which is a shame because he does it well. But it took a while, it's a long way from telling me he was "just being sarcasticated."

A really sophisticated skill at self-conscious manipulation of adult feeling, emotion and the truth. A friend of mine says that Jung (the shrink) said a child had two fundamental rights: masturbation and lying. My kid's versed on his fundamental rights, both of them.