A drive, an imagined conversation, a birthday, and time zones...

So this morning, much to the chagrin of the Ugly Lady in Ugly Car, I took Beach Drive to work today. It's the nice scenic route. Nice houses, nice view, nice 35 mph Speed Limit - which, of course, implies that you should be going 40 mph. The UL in UC was obviously in much more of a hurry since she kept rushing up to meet my bumper and then falling back a few yards to throw a little hissy fit about me obviously not getting the hint and then repeating these steps - all along the stretch of road. It was sad. She can't help it that she's capable of road rage first thing in the morning - I mean, that takes some kind of serious commitment. I don't get road ragin' until after work when I just wanna get home! At that point I pity anyone who isn't in as much of a hurry as I am - I finally figured out that the Rush in Rush Hour has nothing to do with the speed of the cars - just the people in them.

As I enjoyed my drive to work (not including my momentary fears of being knocked off the road by UL in UC) I started to have imaginary conversations in my head. Am I the only one who does this? I like to try and script out moments that may or may not ever actually happen. This morning I spent some imaginary time with my nephew, AA. In my mind AA was a teenager and was coming to me for advice on all sorts of things - in reality the kid is only approaching 9 months and only comes to me to tug on my necklage and drool on my face. I want to be that uncle that I've always wanted to have - the one that you can call when you need advice from outside the home. When Mom says one thing but Dad says another...you need a tie-breaker and you know Grandma and Grandpa will always side with their respective kids. The Uncle is the one to go to...I hope. Of course, AA has more than one Uncle. He's got me, his mom's brother, and whoever else the Grandma's and Grandpa's have decided is worthy of being called Uncle. It's tough to fight for the attention of a 9 month old - mainly because everyone else wants it, too. The real test comes when the kid turns into a teenager and suddenly has his own thoughts and issues and wants to have discussions instead of lectures. I want to be that Uncle who encourages him to think for himself, to not always follow the crow, to find his own path, to love and care for people, to know when to let people go, to learn how to handle everything that life throws his way - I guess I wanna be a surrogate father without all the 24/7 responsibilities. I want to be there just for the big things - I want to tell him how to handle his heart the first time it's broken, I want to help him figure out what to get his Dad for Christmas...I don't want to scold him on his report card or work out a chores list. I want to help him write an A+ paper about something he's never had an interest in before - I want to teach him that knowledge can be both powerful and entertaining. I want to teach him that ultimately it doesn't matter what his opinion is just as long as he has one. ...I think alot about this, I guess.

I forgot PR's birthday - I feel like such a schmuck. He called me on mine. I made a mental note to call him on his but my mental notebook is filled with two work schedules and a rehearsal schedule. I will give him a call as soon as it's reasonable to assume that he's awake - I have this difficult problem with time zones. It's ridiculous - especially with my poor friends in California. I'm always like "Well, it's 5pm here...what is it, like, 8am there?" And, God, even my friends up North get the same thing - which is totally ridiculous because I used to live up there so I know it's only an hour ahead...of course, I also like to live in a world where everyone other than me gets to sleep until 11am or so. Like nobody else has to be at work at 8am regardless of their time zone. Oh, and let's not even talk about my friends overseas or in Hawaii (I don't know if that is implied by overseas...overseas has a distinctly "Not America" feel to it) - I get totally confused there...it becomes more of a "It's 5pm here...what is it, March there?"