Book review? Sorta?

(Note! I started this entry a long time ago, but dang.  I just couldn't get it right.  So it dragged on and on. Now the timing is all weird.  But what are you gonna do?)

Plaid!

Hey!  What's up?  Nice to be back.  Was just hanging out.  Ran a marathon on Sunday.  So a little cripply today.  (Note: in October!)  Well,  a lot cripply, to be honest.  This one was pretty hurty.  So just sitting around today.  Healin'.  Hopesfully anyways.  But that's not either here...nor there!  Or they're, for that matter!  (Sheesh! Started this post at that time...clearly didn't finish same day.  Lazy bum!)

I wanna talk about readin'.  Books!  Well, a book.  Well, a novella, really. But a good one.  I thought anyways.  Which one? This one:

Yep, David Gilmour.

Not Pink Floyd David Gilmour (IIIIIIIIIIIII....have become...comfortably numb....!)

This guy!

Man! He's gettin' old!  Luckily I am staying the same age!

Anyways.  The "plaid" pic above.  Can't really tell, but I was a bawlin'.  Why?  Well, first thing is, I am  a crier.  Can't help it.  Wah Wah Wah.  That's me.  And the second thing is that the book was freaking sad, man!  Sheesh.

The plot?  This guy is home at night with his son.  Winter month.  The boy is six years old.  Wife is away on business.  It's evening.  Son in bed.  Guy goes out on porch to have cigarette, hears live music in bar down the street. Walks down there, watches band play and has a beer.  Heads back home.  He has been gone fifteen minutes.  Front door is open.  His son is gone.

(Tangent!  In this interview, Mr. Gilmour says the idea for the whole walking out part came from an incident where he actually did just that and when he came back, his son was actually standing on the front porch in his jammies.  Holeee efff, man.)

The neighbourhood is searched.  Nothing.  Police are called, neighbours interviewed.  No one saw anything, except for one witness who says they saw a child in pyjamas on the snowy front porch, but nothing else.

The rest of the book is how this guy deals with this.  (Hint: not well.)

Why am I bothering to write about it?  Because its the first book I have read in a year?  No!  I have read at least one other book in that period!  Pretty sure!  Although it may have had pictures...

So why, then? Well, I'll tell you.  The question of what you would do if something happened to your only child totally struck a chord with me.  Not 'cause I only have one, I have two! (Twice as many!)  But it wasn't always that way, right?  At first, there was just The Gabe.  E-Man didn't come along for three whole years after.

I have expressed previously that Gabe was a bit of a surprise.  I think part of that, at least from my side, was that I hadn't planned on having kids yet not just because I felt I "wasn't ready", but also because, to be honest, I don't know that I liked little kids all that much.  In fact, in a lot of ways, I feel like I still don't like little kids that much.  That is...except mine.

Look.  JJ is a nice enough guy.  Likes people.  And he's been in love too.  But parenthood.  Damn.  The way I feel about my boys? It's different.  Being responsible for this little human?  Seeing those first steps.  Hearing those first words.  It's different.  (I know lots of the folks who read this blog are parents.  Maybe you guys feel the same.  But I don't want to assume!)

Now, what I am talking about?  Well. Hmmm...  To tell you what it is, I feel like I first have to say what it's not.  The minute Gabriel was born, I have felt this responsibility to keep them safe.  Like, my duty, as a member of the human race is to keep the boys safe.  And if I do not do that, then my time on the planet has been a failure.  

When Gabriel was just days old, something happened.  There were a few seconds when he couldn't breathe.  He turned blue.  Wife's mom, staying with us at the time, nurse, takes him, starts rubbing him, stimulating oxygen flow.  Ambulance called.  Paramedics come.  They give the ok "He's fine!  It's all good!"  And that was it.  

But I can still remember standing there looking out the window watching for the ambulance to arrive.  And thinking about how if anything happened, if he was not ok, my life as I knew it was over.  I imagined my relationship dissolving in bitterness and blame (doh! that kinda may have happened anyways!), and the rest of my life clouded by it ("Look! There goes that guy who killed his kid!").  You can hear in those thought no little amount of selfishness.  I know it. "Look how this will affect me!"  I am sure I sound like a dick, really.  "Didn't you love your son!!!!???"  I dunno what to say.  I wish I didn't have those thoughts.  But I did.

OK.  So that feeling?  That's not what I am talking about.  With every day I spent with Gabriel.  Watching him develop.  Poop.  Roll.  Crawl.  Walk. Talk. I started to fall for the kid.  Further and further.  I found myself crazy about this kid.  And at some point I thought, "My goodness, what if something happens to this kid?" Not in a "ugh, its going to wreck my life" way.  But in a "Yikes, this kid has somehow become my reason for living" way. (I know my explanation is lacking.  I can't explain in a way that really hits it.  I tried.  Couldn't. Sorry!)  Before then, I never really had that feeling.  Scary.  My happiness dependent on the health of another human.  More than my happiness.  My everything.

So, when E-man came along, along with happiness and excitement and all that, I think, if you looked deep in my heart, I felt a little bit of relief I think.  Maybe it sounds strange, or lame, or whatever, but it was just so scary to have so much wrapped up in the welfare of one thing.  Or something.  

Anyways, man, have I posted a picture lately to jazz this up?  Hmmmm...

"....Ladies and Gentlemen...Bruce Hooooornnnssby!!!!!...."

Ok, that should do it.  Now, where was I?  That's what the book is about!  That very feeling!  Holla!  I am not alone!  Of course the guy's derailment after the disappearance could maybe be characterized as "too cool", like he's self destructing but still shooting off smart-alecky quips as he does.  I guess I could see that, maybe?  And maybe the whole thing is this big romantic tragedy so its kind of cool to imagine yourself in that sort of thing.  I dunno.  As ever, I am a self-doubter.  But I still feel the way I feel.

At one point, nearing the end, he calls his (now ex) wife and says:

    "I always thought that the great love of my life would be a woman.  But I was wrong.  It was him.     He was the great love of my life."  

Wahhhh....

I feel like I have made a mess of this post.  Oh well.  Gotta own it!

Last thing!  One other thing I really liked in the book?  The main character is sitting at dinner with his friend, her mom and mom's new husband.  The Mom's husband, Morley, is a total dick.  The protagonist describes him as:

     "...people like Morley had a developed skill, they go right to edge of things.  They hover there.  But if you call them on it, if you say, I know what you're doing and I don't like it, they shrug with bewilderment; they claim they don't have the foggiest idea of what you are talking about.  Even turn it back on you. Ask why you're being so aggressive, so quick on the trigger."

Man, that is a perfect description.  (I hate fucking people like that.  Why do they exist?) Does this jerk get some sort of comeuppance...? You'll have to read the book!

Finally...JJ out!