Today I am a Man

No, not really. My bar mitzvah was 45 years ago, in a temple that no longer exists.

But now, at age 58, I think I finally feel like a grown-up.

And... it's not so bad. I'm still the same nerd I've always been, and I can still reel off obscure pop culture references like the worst of them, but I've got other things on my plate now:

D. just started third grade yesterday, and I'm shuttling him back and forth from school, taking him to the library around the corner and to the Strand bookstore in Manhattan. He's devouring chapter books now, and I can see a future filled with intellectual discussion. (If he's still talking to me at age 13....)

I own a house. The plumbing drives me nuts, and now the city has ripped up the streets in my neighborhood to replace the water pipes. Well, yeah, they're 200 years old and need replacing, but jeez. The water is off from 8 to 4 every day now, which tends to put a crimp on normal... functions. But the problems are mine, and I wouldn't go back to my old apartment for anything.

My "temporary" job at the bank is now the longest employment stretch of my entire life. I have more responsibility than ever before at my "home" branch and I fill in at branches all over Brooklyn when they need me. And they do need me.

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I bought myself a birthday present:

DOOM PATROL Book One, 18 months of Grant Morrison and Richard Case's surreal superhero series of the 90s--the only comic book I know that name checks Maya Deren and Jan Svankmajer. The plot of the first four issues is a direct lift from Borges' "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius"-- and Morrison deserves a freaking genius grant for making that work. The last story in the book ("The Soul of the New Machine") might be the funniest comic book story about Cartesian dualism ever printed.
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The wife and boy are taking me out for fancy dinner Saturday night.

So yeah, I'm good.