Post-Christmas Enlightenment via The Flu

I feel better when I watch kid shows, or when I re-connect with an old John Hughes movie. When I'm not feeling so good I run to the old stand-bys, the things that assure me that there's a safe place to play where nothing bad ever happens, and right always triumphs over wrong, and good people stay good people, and bad people get what's coming to them. In that safe place of comic strips and Cosby Show metaphors I can re-group and fool myself into feeling better.

Yeah, call it phony. You know what else is phony? When you tuck your kid into bed and kiss him goodnight like he's going to get tucked in and kissed goodnight forever, like everyone in the world gets a kiss goodnight from someone who's looking out for them. Not true. Not even close to being true.

Life isn't supposed to be Family Ties, or just like the funny pages. The real-world Dennis the Menace went to Vietnam and was estranged from his father; his mother had an affair with her boss. In the real world Theo Huxtable became addicted to crack, and in case you didn't notice, no one in Family Circus ever got laid off when the auto industry tanked. Life isn't as fair as Mr. Belding was.

I've decided that its okay to hide in Saturday morning detention with a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal, if it means finding hope and hanging on. I read books I read when I was a kid. I watch the Disney Channel. I pretend that Jake Ryan and Samantha Baker really existed, and that maybe I was best friends with Lloyd Dobblar, and then I don't feel quite so sick, or half as stressed, and nowhere near as fatalistic as life might make me. What? Some people use drugs, or drink. I download bittorrents of Return to Witch Mountain.

BTW...you should read this blog post here. Holy Mother of Judd Nelson it's awesome!