2003-02-24 - 4:00 a.m.

Ninjas, Scorpions, and Other Toys

Feh. I spent Friday and a good chunk of the weekend losing sleep and trying to locate my intestinal fortitude. It's not that I fundamentally lack said fortitude, you understand. I have shitloads. I think it must be under the pile of paid bills in my home office or something.

Ever since I took the plunge and committed myself to fatherhood and the perils thereof, I've defined myself in part as "he who shall not fail any more gut checks." I still feel free to screw up my life, because that's my sacred right as an American, but I'm not going to let it get fucked up by my own fears.

I've internalized this enough that I got pretty weird in a conversation with Mer a few weeks ago. We were just shooting the shit, discussing the unlikely hypothetical question of how we'd have worked out if we had ever hooked up romantically at a time when we were emotionally ready to do so. Mer, having known me long enough to understand certain things, opined that it might never have worked out, because I'm a difficult bastard to be around. Suddenly I was all in her face, insisting that if that were the situation, I'd do what had to be done to make it work out OK.

So, anyway, I'm currently pretty furious about some shit happening that I don't quite want to write about yet, and lost some sleep Thursday night casting about the universe for ways to get myself the hell out of the situation, preferably in a fashion that left a nice big wake. Alas, no such option appears viable, so I'm just going to have to lean into it and push on through. Which I can do, because like I said, I don't intend to fail any more gut checks. But if I ever develop cosmic powers or reach that stage of life where I have a hidden mountain base and an army of fanatically loyal ninjas, there's an every growing list of people who are going to get a little chastisement. Or, to quote The White Devil, "...that I had the power to execute my apprehended wishes, I would whip some with scorpions."

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