Messing with their heads

I'm going to keep harping on the adultery thing. Just a warning.

I've noticed that, as an only child, I'm actually well suited to adultery. I've already got experience negotiating the eggshell land between 2 married people. You know, I'd probably be best suited for polyamory. So there's my advice for the day, if you're looking to add someone to your marriage I suggest adding an only child. S/he'll fit right in and won't threaten the bond you already have with your spouse.

The only child thing also makes me perfect for some of the weirder situations I find myself in. For a couple of years I lived with Pony Express and her (now ex) husband. In our neighborhood it soon became clear that, depending on the orientation of the observer, some of the neighbors thought I was married to him and others thought I was married to her. Very few realized that they were married to each other and I was trying to be a good housemate.

Tonight I tagged along with MarkyB to a gig in a church cafe on Long Island. He had Music Baby for the night and a gig so I went to be the baby wrangler. (Let's try to get that term used more often, shall we? More accurate - one hopes - than baby sitter.)

The event was in a linoleum tiled fellowship hall. The gentleman who was hosting tonight's event was wearing a shirt that had 2 check boxes on the back, one labeled "Gun owner", one labeled "Victim". Guess which one was checked. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. The sound man was wearing a shirt that said, "Rehab is for quitters." I'm not exactly religious and even I wouldn't wear a shirt like that in church, even on an off night.

MarkyB worked his tail off for 45 minutes for very little reward. I was watching the audience and I could tell that they did like him but they weren't very expressive. Grins not chuckles and at best chuckles not laughs. He gave a great set, though.

Everyone, of course, assumed I was Felix's mom. Not wanting to seem defensive we just did our thing and didn't lead with the info that I'm not related in any way. This made for some fun conversations.

Every time someone asked me how old he was and, not having been there the moment it happened, I ballparked it the look on the other person's face was priceless. "You don't know your own son's age?" "Should I call child services?" One woman first got offended when I wasn't effusive enough about the fact that she has a grandchild and then asked me, "When does he sleep?" My response was to do my impression of a deer in the headlights. "Whenever we get out of here." seemed ungrateful. Right before his last song Mark asked how many people had been at a folk festival in the town this summer and had seen C-ann's band, Red Molly. Then he told them that he's sleeping with the base player (it was relevant to the song intro, I promise, he wasn't just bragging) and at the moment he asked every person who'd seen Red Molly started thinking, "She doesn't look anything like anybody in Red Molly."

So fun to mess with their heads.

More fun to hang with the baby, though. He's a treat, still. The only time he got cranky was when I tried to convince him to go to sleep and he didn't want to because there was too much new stuff still to see. At one point he kept keeling over on a couch and trying to sit back up - still a relatively new skill for him - but he was too tired to do it. Knowing this I was refusing to help him in hopes that he'd lie down and sleep. Boy wasn't having any of it. Just cried until I picked him up and carried him around.

And there we are at the reason that I'm typing this now for my Sunday post instead of tomorrow. The boy is big, total bruiser, looks fabulous and eats like a horse. And I've been carrying him around all night because I like to hold him and am stubborn and refuse to use the stroller. My arms are like jelly, by tomorrow I probably won't be able to brush my hair off my face unless I bend over.

Happy Sunday, go kiss a baby!