Hands of Time

I noticed a disturbing trend a few years ago: my friends started to get married. My high school buddy Steve Sotnick called to invite me to his wedding, but I had just started law school so I was busy and, more importantly, broke. I didn't have the wherewithal to spend a weekend in Toronto; I was forced to decline. That same year my former best bud Thomas got married, and unfortunately I didn't have a good excuse to skip his wedding because Thomas lived in New York. He had joined a very weird church while he was a freshman at Columbia, and the guy was marrying the church secretary and the whole thing creeped me the fuck out. I suspected there would be a sacrifice involving some sort of barnyard animal, a ritual bloodletting session and magicks, magicks, magicks. Afraid that the "wedding" was actually an elaborate ruse to get me to join his coven congregation, I told Thomas I couldn't make it because I was busy converting to Islam that weekend. When my old girlfriend Cindy called to inform me that she was getting married, she told me she'd call it off if I asked her to. I said I would if I hadn't already converted to dicking other dudes.

And now, this. I spoke to Doug today, and I guess he and his wife had their baby a month early because they were having problems with his wife's blood pressure. Holden -- that's the baby -- experienced some jaundice and a little difficulty breathing early on, but apparently he's doing fine now and is being released from the hospital tomorrow. Doug told me Holden's a little guy with hair on his back. "Oh, yeah, he's yours," I replied.

My friends are becoming parents. It's great. It blows.