  I guess I didn't write about this earlier because I needed to process yesterday.  My father drank two beers at Sushi Samba,  Asahi's mmmmm. 22oz.  I guess you could say he took down a forty,  my old drink of choice a very looooonnnngg time ago,
 I'm not embarrassed it's the meager beginnings of the alcoholic I strive to be these days. by the way,  I'm so old,  I can't even drink a glass of white wine,  without feeling the " buzzes"
 Wow,  I even write the way I talk when I get nervous about something,  first base,  second base,  hockey,  boxing,
 polo and then back to home plate. I felt really sorry for him,  my father,  really really sad,  I was so befuddled by these feelings that I chain smoked this morning without pacing,  no hesitation.
didn't help.  In his semi- drunken stuper filled lunch conversation and stroll through the park,  my poor father spilled his ego onto the table and then onto the green lawns and then onto me. what I mean is at first I tuned him out,  because he started out quite normally as he usually does,
 my speech went like this,  I told these jokes,  these people were impressed. but then he said it the sentence that ripped me from the porno channel running in my head ( i know. I'm looking into using the CAGE questions to assess my level of addiction)
He says,  " I'm nothing D,  I don't have anything,  I make nothing for the amount of work I do,  I am a nobody,
 I will never be in my lifetime what I have always dreamed of becoming. this is what I wish for you.  I didn't know people like my father had an insecure cell in their bodies,  and if they did they would somehow have it transplanted. is what I thought. I processed this sentence over and over,
 clicking away at any and everything even when my internal memory was full I just kept clicking. indicating my internal memory was overloaded.  He proceeded to say how he has to project this image,  sometimes it consumes him,  he isn't white,  he's relatively new to the lucrative private practice business.
he is within the company of men who own ten clinics worth over 5 million each,  don't get me wrong D,  he says,  I make a lot more than the average person,  but I will never be worth several million dollars. my father has been eaten alive by the green headed monster who is insatiable.
I hope it spits him out alive and whole.  Several million Dollars. oh my god. these are the likes of men who own homes that face this park,  that span the city block we just travelled through. I just wanted my father to own a Rolex,
 drive a really nice car,  wear really nice shoes,  have money and power that would allow him to take a break finally,  not retire,  he would collapse from boredome. a home with jasmine bushes,
 coconut trees,  and horses everywhere -  you see his is still the proud Indian villager who wants his village to have proper health care schools and basic sanitation -  near the ocean,  with huge glass windows,  I wanted him to be with my Mom,
 and bring her,  her most sought after material wish,  him. I wanted him to open a small production studio,  where he could make the Indian cartoons he has dreamed about in his head since telling me stories before I slept back in 1989. I just wanted him to work hard enough to be happy.
see I know my father better than i let on. I try to create this distance,  this war because I am so scared I will become eaten too,  if this monster has the taste for the same kindred blood.  He wants to build a dock where I can launch his ship of a thousand dreams,  he sees the creative fire in me,
 the love of nature,  the humanitarian,  the thirst for the finer things,  although I would never buy a purple pin strip suit -  our tastes for finer things is where we split paths -  He thinks I can be what he never could.
doesn't sound extraordinary. most parents do. but it's the fact that he feels so defeated despite his worth as a father,  husband,  doctor,  and human being.
 He feels he can't ever stop,  because he still falls short,  never the holder of more than the " image"  what he wants is to be holding the camera,  creating the image.
I just feel really sad,  that I haven't taken more time out to pat him on the back,  to tell him that he doesn't need anymore,  and that I will make a majority of his dreams come true and I will take care of him,  and that he is a great father.
