Another Routine Life Search

Growing old sucks.  There's no way around it and no reason to sugarcoat it.  The older we get the more we worry about boring and dry stuff like the economy and politics and just why, for the love of all that is decent and holy, reality television shows are so popular (seriously, American Idol is just Star Search and The Gong Show thrown together in some kind of horrible amalgamation that must have been the result of a bet between two businessmen, one of whom seriously underestimated the stupidity of the masses). 

And as we age, we become victims of routine.  It's so sad knowing exactly what you'll do every day.  But it's even sadder knowing you've known just about every damn thing you would do in a given day for seven or eight years worth of given days.  It's... well, it's boring.  It is mother-grabbing mind-numbingly boring. 

And the more I get used to being boring, (the more I watch CBS cop shows and read mystery thrillers and fall prey to the same sexual positions) the more I feel like an old man; and the more I feel like an old man the more boring I become.  It's a self-fulfilling cyclical kind of gimmick.  And it's as depressing as Matlock reruns and adult diapers. 

My girl (Lisa) and I have also fallen into boring routines. For example, I never see her on Monday nights or every other Friday.  Tuesdays I spend the night at her place, Wednesdays at mine and Thursdays we deal with on the fly (ooh... it's Thursday and I don't know where I'll sleep tonight--I'm fucking edgy huh?).  And this morning when we woke up we followed another routine: her being a total morning bitch. 

Now I love Lisa but she hates mornings.  I'm not a morning person per se (which is to say that I hate waking up) but I've always been one of those people who wakes up the second his eyelids open.  I am as awake as I'll ever be right when I wake up.  Lisa needs time, preferably hours worth of time, to get with it. 

And so every morning I antagonize the shit out of her.  It makes for good fun.  It really does. 

And this morning, as we were both leaving for our jobs, before we kissed each other goodbye and drove off to make money, she told me she had to stay at her house tonight and asked if I would be coming over. 

"I don't think so.  Today's the first college football game of the year," I responded.  "That's like the first robin of spring."

She rolled her eyes, laughed at me and then examined my facial expression to make sure that I wasn't kidding. 

I wasn't kidding. 

I love the first college football game of the year.  It really is like the first robin of spring.  And as we age and the years seem to get shorter and shorter, well that first game seems to come faster and faster.  And so I guess what I'm saying (after all that) is that sometimes routines aren't that bad. 

So long as they involve football.