It’s been too long since I prodded these bitten-nail fingers over the plastic squares my dears, partly as I’ve joined a cult and partly as I’ve been floating in a sea of indecision. Without so much as a paddle or a rudder, or at least any discernible course. Lest the goog think I care less now than I have ever done about the world of Subaru Brats, London Taxis and sausages, I must peel off the outer layer of confusion from my foggy brain, and rearrange it in a demi-linear fashion onto the page.
It was of course about ruddy time that I got into a cult. I’d been cultless for so long that I was starting to wonder if I would ever entertain a courtship with a new group again. Some kind of hobby celibacy had taken hold, and I was divorced from the world of writing, crafting and setting fire to things among fields of the semi-naked. Cult for me is not the pejorative Branch Ronian kind of deal where I take people from the bosom of their rural Christian upbringing and force them face first into a pit of stench and debauchery (though that does sound like the kind of hobby that I might like to get involved in when I retire, recruiting the weak and vulnerable at Cultist Anonymous meetings at a smoky pub in Clapham Junction). For me cult is all about joining a group whose social norms are significantly different from the ones to which you are accustomed, or perhaps bored of.
So my new cult is simply kickboxing training, where the December piece of resistance is to perform 10,000 push ups. (press ups to those of the Western world who use push-up only in the same sentence as “Eva Herzigova” and “thrupenny bits“). It may quite possibly overdevelop several parts of the body, namely the bit responsible for arithmetic dividing 332 by the number of hours left in the day and the left tricep. But I’m part of something bigger than me, and it doesn’t require any belief in supernatural entities, and I got to write my honest goal down on day one of joining. To be a badass. I mean, sure I want to look good in a bikini at my impending 4oth birthday party, but I don’t just want the looks – I want the lifestyle.
So it is that I entered the larval stage, hoping to emerge the vibrant hued butterfly. I read that “classic” book by Ericl Carle about the hungry caterpillar to my kids. It’s supposed to teach nutrition and counting and “science”, but it’s a crock. The nutritional wisdom is a bit like the sinners guide to getting into heaven by changing your mind and surrendering and believing as soon as you can smell the WD40 on the hinges of the pearly Bill and Melindas. OK kids – this is what really happens if you eat sausages and chocolate cake for a week and then chase it with a bit of salad. You still get sick.
And if you then take a long nap in a house made of your own vomit, you don’t wake up transformed. You wake up dead. In a plywood bed. Think kale, little ones, kale and lots of pushups. And you can grow up to be like your old man. Though hopefully less cynical and bitter.
How the Sandra Bullock am I supposed to teach my kids about not being bitter and twisted? Is there a book for that Eric Carle? Maybe I missed your colorful little volume in which the teenager stabs six nuns, punches a pregnant woman and then writes a few letters to Santa and makes good with the world. Oh Mr. Carle, how you let me down.You simplified the world and lied to me with your promise of three plums on Wednesday and a happy ending. I am now distraught. Vulnerable. Back in a cult.
At least I’m on my way to being a badass.