I slept so much today.  Well, I should say, I stayed in bed so much today.  I woke on and off, tossed and turned, drank lots of water, composed a fantastic song in my head (which of course is gone), and drifted in and out of slumber wonderland.  I’ve finally conjured a concept for a short story and I suppose at any point I could have gotten out of bed and started that, but no.  I just kept on laying there.  Waiting for life to begin.

For the second day this week, I am wearing a tie to work.  For some reason, I rather like it.  It’s helping in the whole “Pretending to Be an Adult” thing.  As I smooth it out before sitting, I recognize the move as something I’ve seen adults do.  It’s helping me go through the motions. 

Knowing this, it actually distances me further from the reality.  Because I know full well it’s a prop in my acting like an adult; not being an adult.  I know damn good and well that I’m imitating adult-like actions I’ve seen on television, though I’m still a child inside.  I’ve spent my life in awe of adults, parents, teachers, authority figures, watching them occupy space and shaking my head in wild wonder, thinking “How do they do it?”

As a child, I saw that adults had keys.  They used them to unlock their cars, sheds, gun cabinets, office doors, front doors, safety deposit boxes, and porn stashes.  So I set about collecting keys, until I had a gigantic ring of keys, none of which served any purpose other than for me to hold and feel important.

Then later on I noticed that adults got mail, so I started filling out every mail-in offer on every box of cereal, every television brochure, and I even went so far as to enter the Publisher’s ClearingHouse Sweepstakes.  I was so excited to see the mail come in and find something with my name on it. 

In truth, at age 32, I still believe in the power of these phenomena.  I still check the mail everyday hoping to find something, anything, with my name on it.  I still feel a swell of pride when I get a key to something, anything.  And I still like to play dress-up and make adult-like gestures while I practice grown-up speech.

That being said, I am (physically) an adult, and have responsibilities and bills and shit, and a career that I fashioned in hopes to be able to shoulder those responsibilities and bills and shit.  I’m still waiting to see if that will work out the way I’d planned.  I’d like to procure more belongings that require a key and have hatched plans to do so, but those plans are currently being monkeywrenched.  I will succeed, of course, but perhaps not in the timeline I’d originally drawn.

Speaking of playing dress-up, I very much need to go and get my tuxedo for the wedding.  It’s coming up pretty quickly and I need to find out what I’ll look like so that my groomsmen can get their tuxes all worked out.  I also made an appointment to get my passport next Thursday, which I’ll need for my honeymoon to the Bahamas (yeah, you read that right), but also so I can feel more like 007; a character consistently portrayed in film by an adult male.

And lastly, Halloween is this weekend, and I am expected to dress up for the three days I am working.  Today I very much last-minute threw together a ’20s reporter costume, which could just as easily be a hard-boiled detective costume, except I put a card in the brim of my hat that says “PRESS” so there’s no confusion.  I think tomorrow I’ll recreate my “The Crow” costume from last year and Sunday I’ll just be Zombie Manager, since I’ll more than likely be exhausted anyway.  Oh, creativity, how you elude me as of late!

If everyday were Halloween, I would dress like an adult.  And more than likely happily accept candy from strangers.  Weird.