Grab an Assful of Seat, Because We're All Going for a Ride

I am a hybrid barely described by science.

I stand on the edge of a post-Cretaceous forest now swarming with strange mammals and giant birds. I am a weird mix of attributes – somewhere between a platypus with some dinosaur thrown in for good measure. My lineage would have ended with me had I not, in my late-30s, succeeded in producing offspring – our single egg on the cusp of hatching at any moment.

I say I’m part dinosaur because I came from dinosaurs, and I guess in this failure of an analogy there's an egg involved now, so...yeah. Now, I'm committed. Anyhow, in the changing 1980s world of latch-key kids, quickee divorces, single moms, permissive parenting and the general downfall of American Society (depending on who you asked at the time), I had the type of parents you saw on black-and-white sitcoms. Many don’t believe the fabled TV parents from the ’50s ever existed with Mom in her pearls staying home with the kids and Dad coming home at 5:30 for a prompt dinner at 6.

That's how we lived at my house of long-fallen reptiles. I got up in the morning and breakfast was on the table. Momma had lunch made, and Dad joined us on the way out the door. School, home, homework, buddies, bedtime.

Wash, rinse and repeat.

Granted, we never solved our problems in 30 minutes or fewer, and we had our fair share of ups and downs and general dysfunction at times. However, even in the ’80s, it was clear my half-old-school, half-European upbringing varied drastically from my friends, some of whom made their own dinners and barely saw their parents at all.

The difference between my parents and myself? I’m an actor, a writer, a former journalist and master bullshitter. I thrive on cynicism, and don’t buy much that the world is trying to sell. I cuss like a sailor and dance to my own drummer. I’m far more Bohemian than my folks ever were. I lived life entirely differently – not always better but not always worse – and now I wonder what kind of parent I shall become in the weeks after he’s here.

Will I be thoroughly modern, or will I revert back to the ‘50s? How far removed will our little boy feel from his own strange forest?

So, here I stand. Watching over our nest. Waiting for the shell on my very own little egg to crack and hatch my very own little human to screw up. I'm told that, at the same time, I’ll experience my own rebirth as a new and different me.

Either that, or I’ll mix a martini and carry on in my regular bombastic manner.