on parenting, aging, and 'alternate timelines'
jeremy: “i really like your asteroids story, because i’m the same age as your father was at that time—i’m 34 now, which makes me sad, but, you know, you deal with it. every year, you deal with it.”
me: “someday i’m going to be older than my dad, who is just, like, perpetually 35.”
jeremy: “but i can see myself, if i had gone ahead and gotten married to the girl i was dating in college, i would’ve, you know, gone on to live a, probably, more constructive life than i have now, had a good job, not write about video games and, you know, i would’ve… i would’ve maybe played some old video games out of nostalgia, but really not kept up. and this year, i would be looking at bionic commando, and i would be saying to my child, ‘do you know what this is? this is bionic commando! but look how good it looks!’”
