Green pines, grey rocks, blue water and loud birds. Great to be out here again – great to be out here with you again, just great. Best twenty years of my life were when we were living in each other’s pockets, you know.
Hey, let’s go have a sit down by the water. Like we did when we were seven, you know? Dangle our toes off the dock, have a drink, shoot the shit. Just like old days, except I got brews instead of lemonade and instead of boys, I don’t know, maybe let’s just talk about, well, work or something? Mine’s great! Not as bad as it was. It could be worse. I haven’t been pushed into quitting yet. They want you to have a PhD for this shit, but god forbid they pay you more than the schmuck hosing out the burger vats at the food court. I guess I should’ve listened to mom like you did. She always told me I should never have gone into biotech – ‘don’t get fancy and think you’re better than us,’ and so on. Well, I never did, and I certainly never was treated like it, hah. Hah-hah. Well, it’s not like the rest of the market’s better. I’ll stick with what we’ve got while it’s still functional, and that’s more loyal than the rest of my department, I tell you what. Heck, I’ve never done industrial espionage, that’s how good an employee I am. I mean, I’ve never actually STOLEN for personal profit, but like, EVERYONE’S taken stuff home for personal reasons. Bruce took a whole genome’d-up liver home for his dog’s cancer, and that thing was already fifteen years old. Did he get fired? No. So maybe I can take a few designer gene kits and a home crispr package and a few vats and a test subject or three out for the weekend for some fun and a little homebrewing, who gets hurt? Who’s going to tell anyone? And most importantly, who cares?
You know, I’m getting into the weeds here. Let’s go have a sit down by the water. No weeds down there. Not like uncle Bill used to say to me, and then he’d grab my leg underwater and yell WEED GOT YA and I’d scream and pee and cousin Beck and cousin Blake would laugh at me for being a baby. Then you’d come over and tell them it’s not my fault I had a weak bladder and I’d start crying and uncle Bill would pick me up and throw me off the dock to ‘get me out of my head.’ They really didn’t like that I used my head for much, did they? I mean, you’re at least as bright as I am, as everyone was so very quick to remind me, but you always knew how to make them happy with you anyways. Not just mom and the cousins and uncle Bill but cousin Denise – who loved your responsibility and maturity – and aunt Helen – who loved your smile with its big straight teeth – and grandpa Rusty – who loved you for being the first grandkid or grandma Bess – who loved you for not being the grandkid who kept pet newts, which she threatened to flush down the toilet until I screamed so loud I burst a blood vessel in my right eye and had to be taken to emerg. Everyone loved you so much. Did it help that you weren’t me? Do you think in a weird way my existence made everyone like you more? Wouldn’t that be weird? Or would it be even weirder if it were like, the other way around, huh? Wouldn’t that be just crazy?! I mean, that could drive someone nuts.
Well, let’s go have a sit down by the water. There’s nothing much else to do but talk, and the talking’s better done there. Nothing takes the sting off of boring ol’ adult conversations about bills and crap like looking at fish and birds and turtles. Like, does your mortgage really matter as much as that minnow by your toes does? Is it even a quarter as real, even if the guy at the bank won’t shut up about it and your utilities are about to be shut off and you can’t get a loan because you have no friends or family that are willing to cut you a solid? All of that’s just abstract nonsense that has nothing to do with you. But some people get into that and some don’t – like, mom always praised how practical you are, but you just got that big life insurance package, right? Right? Right? That won’t ever do you a shred of good, you’ll be dead! So much for being ‘the sensible one’ huh huh huh huh HUH?
Sorry, that got away from me. But yeah no I’m doing okay too, I’ve been making myself handy too. Plugged the holes in the roof myself, put half a lab in my office so I can work from home when I’m meant to be sleeping, heck I even got into furniture repair so I can buy a few dollar’s worth of wood and save hundreds of bucks on a bedframe, a table, a chair… oh yeah, speaking of chairs, when we’re at the water, be sure to take the big one on the right, it’s the good one, the right one for a big shot like you and by the way if it rocks a little when you sit in it that’s normal, that’s just the dock shifting, the chair isn’t tippy it’s fine don’t worry about it and just lean into the tilt.
I think it’s about time we go have a sit down by the water anyways, the sky’s gonna get dark soon and we’ll miss our chance. Mid-August isn’t so far from September, you know? Warmer than it used to be, but the sun’s still setting soon and the nights are getting longer, so there’s no time to waste. You can’t just wait and watch and hope and expect to see things get better. No, you’ve got to make things happen. You’ve got to take action. You’ve got to carpe the diem, you’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot, you’ve got to get while the getting’s good, you’ve got to aggressively splice your pet newts with Carcharhinus leucas, you’ve got to take control of your own life. You told me that sort of thing, remember? You told me a lot, and I promise I was paying attention even when you said I wasn’t and even when I told you that and you never believed me like you don’t believe me right now. I can see you thinking it. I can see you thinking everything. I’ve always been able to, and you’ve never listened or maybe just never cared, which is sort of obnoxious of you!
Hey, let’s go have a sit down by the water and forget all that stuff I just brought up. It’s all water under the bridge. I’m just a little tense because of all the stuff I just said that I also just said we should ignore, and like, I’ve got a big project in the wings that’s a secret and you know I talk too much when I’m hiding something; that was what you told mom and all our teachers, remember? God I got sent to so many detentions just for asking questions in class because of that, but yeah that’s all water under the dock, it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s what’s under the dock, we can talk about the future instead, like how I probably won’t ever be financially stable enough to start a family unless a miracle happens. Maybe I’ll win the lottery. Maybe I’ll print my own lottery ticket. I know I never got into mechanical engineering but like you know, metaphorically everyone has a way to print their own lottery ticket, right? Use what you know in a way you wouldn’t expect, right? That’s cool. I’ve got some ideas. Couple of ideas. One idea.
So yeah, let’s go have a sit down by the water. Remember how when you were little you used to tell me that the lake was full of crocodiles and they would bite my toes off? No reason at all.