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gap in the generational wall Thursday, November 3 2011
I suppose if your dad dies and you don't wake up the next morning with hangover, you never really loved the guy. I had to take a big pill of Ibuprofen when I woke up this morning, although things weren't as bad as they might have been. Contrary to popular rhyming wisdom ("beer, liquor, never sicker), it was good that I ended the night with bourbon. When, however, the bulk of my drunk comes from IPAs, I tend to have hangovers that remind me of bad acid trips.
One of the unnerving things about losing a parent (and I've seen this mentioned somewhere else) is that it represents an attrition of a generational barricade between yourself and death. I lost my grandparents either before I was born or when I was young and immortal, but I'm losing my father in mid-life, having recently begun the dreary task of taking stock of my own life. And now where he'd been is a hole in the generational fortifications between me and the void. Like most of the other intense feelings that go with mourning, it's inherently selfish; my father is doing just fine and cannot help me any more.
Nancy (of Ray and Nancy) has a temporary job as a graphic designer at the Culinary Institute of America across the Hudson, and today after work she picked up Chinese food in Rhinebeck and brought it over. As we finished our meal, Nancy made the casual observation that leftover Chinese food "smells like farts." The three of us ended up watching a not-especially-funny episode of South Park (the one making fun of Occupy Wall Street) and the Colbert Report.
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