Sophie got into a discussion with kids at school this week. I suppose she was bragging about her new experience this past weekend, whereby she stayed up until midnight alternately reading and watching me kick the ass of Tony Hawk’s Project 8, a skateboarding videogame, on my PS2. For any truly old people who may be reading this, the PS2 is a last-generation videogame console, and a skateboard in real life is a long flat piece of wood with grip tape on one side and rollerskate-like wheels on the other. The grip tape is so that you can ride it without sliding off of it.
Anyhow, she was telling the kids about this adventure, because when you’re nine and a half and raised properly, staying up late to watch your dad play videogames is an adventure, and her friends responded with shock and awe. “Your dad plays videogames?” Because apparently theirs do not. Which pretty much implies that she wasn’t talking to Daniel, or any of the other kids of the “cool dads,” because I know for a fact that Daniel’s dad plays his PS2.
Sure, I realize I should have spent my time doing something tangible and productive. I should have been working on my boat, which has been gathering dust since I got distracted from it by vacation in August, then school starting, then Halloween, Thanksgiving and now Christmas. I’m pretty sure it’ll end up being a new year’s resolution, and I’ll finish it in time to launch it in spring, but for now, I’m perfecting my ollies, grinds and manuals, smoothing my lines, collecting gap keys and trying to find the “Sick” scores for the various missions. I felt confident and encouraged long before I sticker-slapped the security box on the gate that allowed me to venture from the suburbs to the downtown area, and since that point I’ve also opened up the City Center area and driven my rank up to #80. Yes, in a short week or two I have become one of the top 80 skaters in this imaginary world.
