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The More Things Stay the Same, the More Things… Stay the Same

I’m amazed, when I look over the last few pre-hiatus posts around here, at how little has changed.

I mean, we’re told all the time that “change is inevitable”. “You can’t fight progress,” they say, usually as they’re canceling our favorite sitcom or introducing a disgusting new flavor of chewing gum.

(“Try new and improved DoubleMint Wint-O-Spleen! Your favorite chewing pastime, now with the fresh minty flavor of bile! That’s new DoubleMint Wint-O-Spleen — it’s the retchmaker!)

That’s how change works. You don’t try to stand up to it; resistance is futile. You simply brace yourself and let it crash over top of you, and pray you can get the sand out of your underpants before the next tsunami lands.

“You’d think I’d have used that time away to adopt a baby seal or join a Mexican street gang or donate a vital organ. Or something.”

But look at me. I disappear for a good year and a half, just fall right off the edge of the blog, and when I resurface… what’s changed? Nothing much. My boss hasn’t fired me, my wife hasn’t left me, my car hasn’t fallen apart or burst into flames or crawled out of its parking spot to go fight Decepticons. Even my slobbering idiot mutt is still around, barking and pooping and eating and ralphing in the worst possible places. If mid-2009 counts as ‘usual’, then I’m steadfastly rocking ‘business as’, so far as I can tell. Same as it ever was.

Truth be told, it’s a little disconcerting. I mean, I’ve had more ‘life-altering’ experiences during a weekend Winnebago trip than I can remember in the past couple of years. You’d think I’d have used that time away to adopt a baby seal or join a Mexican street gang or donate a vital organ. Or something. But no. I’m just incrementally slower, fatter and older than before. So apparently, I can fight progress — even when I’m not especially trying to.

Mind you, that’s not to say that nothing has happened since last we tangoed. The missus and I finally moved and ever-so-slowly settled into this condo. At one point, she quit — and rather impressively un-quit — her job. My penchant for ‘fat old man sports’ has led me into new, uncharted, and possibly badly sprained territories. The dog remains one fresh kitchen-floor turd away from getting the boot out into the street. And I’ve said and done some outrageously stupid things, most usually in front of the people who employ me, put up with me, or gave birth to my wife. We can talk about all of those things, any many others, in good time.

(The ones I haven’t already desperately repressed into my subconscious, that is. Or the ones covered by the various gag orders. My hands are tied there.)

But in the grand scheme of things, ‘now-Charlie’ feels remarkably like ‘then-Charlie’. We think about the same things, our cheeks rest in the same couch divot — we even use the same ridiculous made-up words and hope no porksmitten cluebags decide to chime in to call us on it. It’s kind of homey, actually.

Maybe there’s some sort of ‘personal growth’ or life change or epiphany planned for the next year and a half. Can’t say for sure. In the meantime, the status quo seems to be working out okay. I suppose I’ll just roll with it, and see whether it leads somewhere else eventually.

Unless somebody out there has a baby seal that’s up for adoption. ‘Cause if so, I am all over that bad boy. Hook me up.