He's just about to hit 40, ostensibly happy home life, but I'd got the impression that he was going through a rough patch. So on pint 3, I finally worked up the courage to ask him how he was.
Turns out he is utterly, crushingly bored. Endless domesticity, folding clothes, a well paid job which has long since ceased to offer much intellectual stimulation, weekends occupied feigning interest in a bunch of 6 year olds running around badly playing football, or 4 year olds badly acting in a pantomime, making lunches every single morning day after day. All the usual stuff.
I guess this is a universal part of the human experience for people who have kids? Basically spending their 40s in a depressing, exhausting domestic grind.
I suggested a sportscar, but the mortgage gets in the way of that. Mentioned it was a common response (but I couldn't in good conscience recommend) to have an affair with his secretary. He assured me that wasn't on his agenda.
Sometimes I'm grateful for my peripatetic existence, m9s.
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cmon saillers was there ever a different point?
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Yes back when I left uni and started work I had ambition and played the game to try and get promoted but then a few things opened my eyes to there being more to life and finally worked out what I really wanted.
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My first tun since about 2010!
A long time between drinks, m9s.
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Alan, I sent that poem to my m8. Substituted the name of his kids. Made sure I clarified that it was not a declaration of love.
Maybe he'll appreciate it.
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(in terms of droughts - that was second only to the Melbourne Football Club - since 1964. Almost want to start singing!
It’s a grand old flag
It’s a high flying flag
It’s the emblem for me and for you
It’s the emblem of the team we love
The team of the red and the blue
Ev'ry heart beats true
For the red and the blue
And we sing this song to you
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Keep your eye on the red and the blue!
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Girkl, you may be thinking of the quote someone made on the death of Rupert Brooke
That he was " magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life"
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Yes Bernstein, that's it. Thank you.
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God knows who said it, but I've always remembered it
Close to home maybe
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5kYW3cq3XM
now I can't get this out of my head, dammit.
tbf, to the extent i have a second team (or even a team), the Ds are it. As I'm sure 3-dux would appreciate.
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On Rupert Brooke
A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life.
Frances Cornford
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The Grand Old Flag is slightly less depressing, girkl.
If you're not careful I'll get in to Cheer, Cheer the Red and the White...
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Heh! ok I'll match you:
We've got the Power to win
Power to rule
Come on, Port Adelaide aggression
We are the Power from Port
It's more than a sport
It's true Port Adelaide tradition
We'll never stop, stop, stop
Til we're top, top, top
There's history here in the making
We've got the Power to win
We'll never give in
Til the flag is ours for the taking
POWER
(I so fooking hate that song!)
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I was about to say that's the genuine, no.1 worst song in the league. But I see you kind of recognised that yourself.
My only soft spot for that mob is after Port v Lions 2006, when Mark Williams did the choke.
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Great stuff Girkl
That's me! That's me!
Need to look up this Cornford woman
Not to be confused with Cornpone, Jackies humiliating nickname for Lyndon Johnson
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I just looked her up on wiki. Quite the pedigree.
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Oh lord Rufey, boykl had the closest thing to a conniption I've ever seen when that happened. It is the thing that still stabs his heart whenever mentioned, so best not to.
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I thought this was what triathlons, ultramarathons etc were for?
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Can I just point out that Bermuda is a long old swim from the Caribbean?
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Iggers, please do. I was wondering if I'd make some dramatic geographical faux pas.
Oh good grief. Stabs his heart in a good way, if there is such thing? Or is Boykl a Lions fan? Or for the other mob and der Feind meines Feindes and all that... ?
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This is why i'm moving to Madrid in a few years. School fees a third of the price, property a third of the price, i'll live off my investment income and me and the missus (and the brats) will just have a really happy life.
never understood why people stay in the rat race, when they could just jack everything in and live like kings in a far-off land.
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What Stru said.
If he wanted excitement badly enough he'd have done it.
If he doesn't want it that badly he should shut up moaning and get on with the lunches.
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"This is why i'm moving to Madrid in a few years. School fees a third of the price, property a third of the price, i'll live off my investment income and me and the missus (and the brats) will just have a really happy life."
your kids will be basicaly Spannish.
eww
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I don't have much sympathy with your m9's mid life crisis Rufus. Imagine, if you will, your fit and healthy spouse being transformed almost overnight into someone who can hardly get out of his armchair, only to fall over if he moves more than a couple of paces; then there's your beautiful, intelligent 15 year old daughter taking an overdose of paracetamol and being unable to attend school from the start of year 11 because she is so afflicted by anxiety and depression. This was just the beginning of my mid life crisis. There has followed 5 years of gradual deterioration in the spouse and lengthy hospital admissions for the daughter. We limp from one crisis to another on a daily basis. I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE AN ORDINARY LIFE WHERE NOT MUCH HAPPENS.
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It doesn't work like that tho does it. If it did no one in the U.K. in good physical health with an adequate income would have depression or be suicidal or anything like that
sorry for your troubles obvs
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Indeed it doesn't Miss Hoolie. I think the point I'm trying to make very clumsily is that a mundane life can be transformed into awfulness in an instant and that we need to appreciate the mundane while we have it.
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gwen has it
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Sorry Rufey FAOD yes boykl is a mad Power fan. I got confused by your post - the Mark Wiliams choke gesture was the 2004 Grand Final against the Lions - that's fine to talk about.
The fact that Port kept choking up til then is the thing that must not be named.
Completely rational of course... if you follow of team of grown men trying to stop another team of grown men from kicking a ball down a large patch of grass in between white posts.
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Pray tell, what was he like before this domesticity lull? Probably still boring I'd wager
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