\t\t\t\ti don’t know much about my family history or genealogy, and i’ve sometimes
\nregarded myself as a genealogical sociopath for the void of interest
\nin the matter that inhabits me. one word, though, that stands out in my
\nmemory is the way my great-aunt described the Thomases. “You Thomases are
\ngood people, you’re just lazy.” When seh told me taht I accepted it in a
\nfolksy way. She was, I thought, 140 years old, so everything she said must
\nbe golden. In time I disabused nyself of the notion that old people are
\nrighteous an d wise just because they are old. And as regarded that
\nparticular comment I didn’t have an opinion on its veracity. No one in my
\nimmediate Thomasian orbit was particularly lazy, as far as I could tell.
\nThe great-aunt was probably referring to earlier generations, those
\nforebears I never knew or about which I knew nothing. Most of the stories
\nI know from my father’s side of the family are grim. A lot of suicides, a
\nlot of deaths under questionable circumstances, and a lot of death
\nby alcohol. I’ve never known drinking like they did it on my dad’s side.
\nThe only real exposure I had to it was in Atlanta, when I stayed with my
\naunt and uncle for a couple of weeks. The uncle (my father’s twin brother)
\ndrank, but he knew what he was doing. It was the aunt (not a blood
\nrelative) who drank morning noon and night, waking up sharp and likeable
\nbut disappearing into invalid-level incoherence drunkenness at the mere
\nsmell of bourbon. That’s the only full-scale drunk I ever spent time with.
\ni have no idea if she was lazy, though, she had spent 30-something years
\nas an executive assistant to one or another CEO, or so it was described to
\nme. she may have been like the administrative assistants i knew at
\ncorproate. if so then she spent 30-something years mastering the art of
\npacing herself, of doing as little as possible, or working harder at not
\nworking that at working. or maybe she worked like a slave all those years
\nand her retirement was her time to let it rip, let it wash away under
\nthe blistering lava of pension-paid alcohol. (i have a pension coming. if
\ni make it to 63 i think i get about $300\/month. i laughed when i got the
\nletter telling me this. i told my mother “I’ve got beer money for my
\nretirement!”)<\/p>\n
\ti lay in bed this long morning,
\n \timpatient with another painful erection,
\n \tthinking about that word.
\n \tlazy.
\n \ti am lazy.
\n \tlaziness has filled my hours.
\n \twe spend our hours the
\n \tway we spend our days, which is
\n \thow we spend our weeks, our years, our lives.
\n \twhen the most recent ex and i would
\n \twake up at 2pm i would say
\n \t“welcome to my lazy life.”
\n \ti said it with pride,
\n \tconfidence,
\n \ta dull braggadocio.
\n \tnow i mutter it to myself with disdain.
\n \tby some standards i am living a fantasy.
\n \tby others i am wasting the dream.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i don’t know much about my family history or genealogy, and i’ve sometimes regarded myself as a genealogical sociopath for the void of interest in the matter that inhabits me. one word, though, that stands out in my memory is the way my great-aunt described the Thomases. “You Thomases are good people, you’re just lazy.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-lazy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}