Yesterday a welcomed message came in, it just popped up on my computer screen as part of the international angelic messaging service. I was being asked to dj in Costa Rica in two weeks. My pedigree as a super-cool guy was still out there floating around in the aether somewhere, holding its own and waiting to strike. I accepted the gig, flights were booked, all was well with the universe again, all was as it should be. I was being rewarded for being me. Others would be punished. This is how god has ordered the cosmos. He works in cruel and mysterious ways.
Then, late last night I remembered that my passport had expired. The last time I had to get a passport was when British Airways lost mine when I was returning from Manchester after 9/11, where Rachel and I spent some time together arranging ourselves towards one another, eventually falling in love in Costa Rica some time afterwards. The passport has been expired since September of last year but I had no upcoming international travels so I treated it as I do most things, I forgot about it. Now there is a necessary scramble to put things in order. God also works in a timely and ordered fashion, at least when doing government work.
I worry that the passport agency will want to keep my old passport. It is something I want Rhys to be able to see. I have traveled many places in the world and I want him to see that, to wonder at the world. My father was in the Navy and I used to go through his coins from all over, from different times. They would spark my imagination. I would search for the various coins original locations on maps and globes, then wonder about those places and what they must have been like. I would scour the encyclopedia trying to discover anything I could about those various faraway places.
Now there only remains the issue of me actually becoming cool again, thinner and with a tan. In short, younger. Also, I must remember or re-learn how to dj. I think I remember. You play one record, then you play another, then another... on and on like that for the whole evening, flawlessly matching tempo, mood and interest level - giving the night a sense of topography, creating a listening experience where there was previously none before. Something out of nothing.
I am so pale that I'm certain I will be received as a returning albino god, having consumed the previous incarnations of me, doubling in size and power, tripling even.
At least fat floats much better than muscle. There is always that.
.
