Modern Day Slacker

My dad died on friday night. He was, of all things, roller skating at a kids party at a roller rink. He was laughing and saying “it’s not as easy as it looks and fell down. They couldn’t get his heart beating again, even after shocking him 3 times.

My dad was an odd dude. He could be a tremendous asshole when he wanted to be. He could also be the goofiest person you ever met. He was a good dad and a shitty dad. He was full of sayings, advice and stuff his dad told him. He could make you feel like shit in a second or great in a half.

When my parents split, it was so bad and I ended up not talking to him for a few years. While at the time it made sense to me, now I really, really regret it. It was only a few years but now that he’s gone, I feel stupid. I guess I was young and very much influenced by the crazy goings on via divorce.

I was lucky enough to break that pattern of not seeing him after my grandmom died. I think what sealed it was that one day, when I was away at college, he took me out to eat and apologized for being a shitty dad. “I know I can’t make up for the past but I’d like to work on the future”. Mind. Blown.

He was an extremely cheap guy, but we went out to eat almost every week. It didn’t matter to me where we went, but he loved a buffet. Loooved a buffet. It was cool to see him once a week and hear his ridiculous dating stories. he always had some kind of words for me about things going on in my life, sometimes good or bad. He always pushed me to stop being so nice (yes, you can be), to worry about me and not everyone else (which I have a habit of not doing), to get out and see the world, and for fucks sakes have a little more faith in myself. Sometimes the advice was coated in crotchety danny-isms that I might not have been in the mood to hear. Sometimes he wasn’t in the mood to hear my ridiculous crap either.

We are a lot alike. We both love to travel. We both love to try new things. We both got irritated with people who were firmly against trying anything new, especially food. We both work better in non-conventional jobs and NOT in an office. We both have a very goofy sense of humor. We both are moody assholes sometimes. We both are non-caring about fashion or what people think of us. We also both love baseball. I’m sure there are lots of other things I can’t think of right now too.

He was single before he died, having broken up with his soul sucking crazy ass girlfriend+family. I could tell he felt kind of alone. He was creeping up on 61 (in fact his birthday was the day after he died). I knew how he felt, I felt the same way. It was just me, him and my little stepbrother. His whole family was already gone. Maybe he knew he was sick, maybe he knew he had heart disease and that was why he was so adamant on spending more time with the two of us, I don’t know.

As the past few days have gone by the old crappy memories have seemed to kind of fade and the funny stuff is highlighted. I guess that is normal after someone dies, I don’t know. I’ve never lost a parent or anyone in that area of closeness.

All I know is that my dad is gone and I feel like he is going to call me and say “don’t you know how to call?” or have him walk in when I’m looking thru stuff and yell at me.

I really miss him.
I really miss my dad.

Ok, I know the name is Modern Day Slacker, but I think I went above and beyond the name.

After some crazy months, wordpress problems and some serious laziness, I am back to chew on tv, sports, music and anything else that might catch my eye.

So come back soooon!

-nick

So, after having various blogs in various places, I’ve landed here at WordPress. I write a column at Teevieo and I do watch alot of television (thank jeebus for dvr), so look for lots of tv posts, as well as posts on philly sports (and sports in general) and music. So keep an eye out for stuff coming very soon!