Time marches on and keeping up with my Friends™ gets harder.
I’m only catching up with their Christmas™ now, and yet it’s March! Jesus has only just been born, but he’s almost ready for the chop.
People talk a lot about how having children changes things. It’s certainly tempting to blame them. In amongst running around after them, trying to keep the house clean for family guests, and trying to earn enough money to heat our home, it does seem harder to find time to sit down with friends.
But long term readers will know I’ve always been quite bad at time keeping. Which, for a drummer, is not ideal.
So with the excuses out the way, lets press on.
“The One With the Hot Doctors”
Rachel’s pregnancy is making her want to sleep with LOADS of people. I totally understand. When my wife was pregnant I also wanted to sleep with loads of people.
(Hi sweetie, in case you’re reading that is a JOKE).
She’s even into one of the doctors checking up on her pregnancy! If you’ll remember, she does have form when it comes to hot doctors.
I’m only catching up with their Christmas™ now, and yet it’s March! Jesus has only just been born, but he’s almost ready for the chop.
People talk a lot about how having children changes things. It’s certainly tempting to blame them. In amongst running around after them, trying to keep the house clean for family guests, and trying to earn enough money to heat our home, it does seem harder to find time to sit down with friends.
But long term readers will know I’ve always been quite bad at time keeping. Which, for a drummer, is not ideal.
So with the excuses out the way, lets press on.
“The One With the Hot Doctors”
Rachel’s pregnancy is making her want to sleep with LOADS of people. I totally understand. When my wife was pregnant I also wanted to sleep with loads of people.
(Hi sweetie, in case you’re reading that is a JOKE).
She’s even into one of the doctors checking up on her pregnancy! If you’ll remember, she does have form when it comes to hot doctors.
But the strangest thing is my wife has recently met those doctors too! She’s regularly been hanging out in the ER. And is spending a lot of time with them. Should I be suspicious? Or should I just enjoy that she’s got something to watch that gives me more videogame time? Maybe I should even have a late career change and start comparing my time as a doctor to theirs?
As usual Phoebe decides to take things too far. Pimping out Rachel to a virgin friend. (Yes, really). Rachel, somehow manages to resist, before accidentally hitting on Joey! I was relieved when he didn’t give in (Rachel and Joey? Imagine… that would be ridiculous.) But I’m not sure I would have done the same. Joey, you’re a much stronger man than me!
Ross has been struggling with Mona wanting to take the next step in every budding relationship:
Sending out Christmas™ cards.
Should I be worried we’ve been together ten years and haven’t started doing this yet?
I should probably be more worried that the other day, my wife turned to me and said “can you believe we’ve known each other for ten years!”
We’ve known each other for twenty years.
She’s completely forgotten the first decade of our lives before we got together!
Ever since I did a module at Uni on how cards are merely a way of destroying wealth for social prestige I haven’t bothered. (Thank you Anthropology…) I’ve lost track of how many arguments we’ve had about whether my wife should now get TWO cards at every occasion, one from me, and one from the kids. Apparently there’s one person more important to me than protecting the Amazon.
A couple of mates do do cards. (Heh “do do”).
The best one we ever received was shortly after Monica Number 2 opened a scaffolding business (yes really), and sent everyone a card of them swinging round a pole adorned in tinsel and a Santa hat. Every year I consider just printing up a run of those and sending them out to everyone…
Ross has really ballsed things up with Mona.
I don’t understand why he can’t just be honest with her about what he wants?! How was this guy ever married…
He even goes as far as giving her a key to his apartment, then changing the lock to backtrack on it. Poor Mona. Talk about mixed signals.
Chandler’s been struggling with the truth as well. Monica was desperate not to socialise with his boss, so he ended up pretended they’d separated to get out of it. Queue boss taking us to a strip club to get over it. Well I guess that makes up for his lack of a stag!
My wife has yet to meet any of my new colleagues. Can’t believe I’ve been there over a year already! It’s a shame as they’re all really nice, but getting evening childcare for us both to go out is an absolute nightmare. Of all the things I didn’t consider when it came to parenthood this is probably the biggest, practically speaking. Until we make more local friends one of us (or granny) will ALWAYS need to be in in the evening. Some days it feels like the lockdown never ended.
I’m not sure it is a good idea for my wife to meet people from work. She’s convinced I’m getting off with one of them, after finding a long black hair on me. I’ve tried explaining it could be from any number of them, we sometimes hug to say good bye, or even someone from the tube but she’s having none of it.
Her and Chandler will be super pissed when they find out it’s actually Monica’s.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
Even though I’m reasonably happy in my job after a year, I recently applied for something else really good that came up.
Imagine my shock when I actually got it!! Turns out job hunting when you’ve got almost a decade of experience, is very different to when you have none. Or at least that’s what I thought.
We entered into negotiations, and I was happy and ready for a new stage of my life. More money, super interesting company in the industry I want to work in. Then they came back to me “actually would you be able to come in to the office one more day than you’ve proposed”.
Well, YES. One extra day of Nintendo Switch™ train time a week? Sign me up! Only problem is, because of where I live, this would have cost significantly more than the pay increase of the new role.
Hrrm, it looks like we’re in uncharted waters here. Is this the “New Normal” we’ve heard so much about? After a week of agonising, I had to turn it down. With the dreaded “Cost of Living” crisis, and now having two children, I don’t know how I ever would have got by without being able to work from home several days a week.
I also realise I’m in a very privileged position here.
I think very soon we’re going to have to reckon with the fact that there’s a new class barrier in place. Between those who work jobs with the luxury of home working, and those that don’t. I’m not sure if anyone will come up with a solution. Beyond a rebalancing of salaries that there’s no demand for.
My own idea to soften the blow, is this: (Sorry to get all political for a second). Commuting costs should be tax free. In practise, reportable as an expense of your job, and thus open to a tax rebate. So whatever proportion of your pay that you have to pay to get to your job, you’d get around a third back from your income tax. This would rebalance things for people who have to travel to work. Benefit the economy by making home working less appealing. And stop situations like mine where people end up stuck in a role because they can’t afford to take opportunities elsewhere.
OK. Not so much a “Real Live Sitcom Moment” as a party political broadcast. But, hey, a boy can dream.
As usual Phoebe decides to take things too far. Pimping out Rachel to a virgin friend. (Yes, really). Rachel, somehow manages to resist, before accidentally hitting on Joey! I was relieved when he didn’t give in (Rachel and Joey? Imagine… that would be ridiculous.) But I’m not sure I would have done the same. Joey, you’re a much stronger man than me!
Ross has been struggling with Mona wanting to take the next step in every budding relationship:
Sending out Christmas™ cards.
Should I be worried we’ve been together ten years and haven’t started doing this yet?
I should probably be more worried that the other day, my wife turned to me and said “can you believe we’ve known each other for ten years!”
We’ve known each other for twenty years.
She’s completely forgotten the first decade of our lives before we got together!
Ever since I did a module at Uni on how cards are merely a way of destroying wealth for social prestige I haven’t bothered. (Thank you Anthropology…) I’ve lost track of how many arguments we’ve had about whether my wife should now get TWO cards at every occasion, one from me, and one from the kids. Apparently there’s one person more important to me than protecting the Amazon.
A couple of mates do do cards. (Heh “do do”).
The best one we ever received was shortly after Monica Number 2 opened a scaffolding business (yes really), and sent everyone a card of them swinging round a pole adorned in tinsel and a Santa hat. Every year I consider just printing up a run of those and sending them out to everyone…
Ross has really ballsed things up with Mona.
I don’t understand why he can’t just be honest with her about what he wants?! How was this guy ever married…
He even goes as far as giving her a key to his apartment, then changing the lock to backtrack on it. Poor Mona. Talk about mixed signals.
Chandler’s been struggling with the truth as well. Monica was desperate not to socialise with his boss, so he ended up pretended they’d separated to get out of it. Queue boss taking us to a strip club to get over it. Well I guess that makes up for his lack of a stag!
My wife has yet to meet any of my new colleagues. Can’t believe I’ve been there over a year already! It’s a shame as they’re all really nice, but getting evening childcare for us both to go out is an absolute nightmare. Of all the things I didn’t consider when it came to parenthood this is probably the biggest, practically speaking. Until we make more local friends one of us (or granny) will ALWAYS need to be in in the evening. Some days it feels like the lockdown never ended.
I’m not sure it is a good idea for my wife to meet people from work. She’s convinced I’m getting off with one of them, after finding a long black hair on me. I’ve tried explaining it could be from any number of them, we sometimes hug to say good bye, or even someone from the tube but she’s having none of it.
Her and Chandler will be super pissed when they find out it’s actually Monica’s.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
Even though I’m reasonably happy in my job after a year, I recently applied for something else really good that came up.
Imagine my shock when I actually got it!! Turns out job hunting when you’ve got almost a decade of experience, is very different to when you have none. Or at least that’s what I thought.
We entered into negotiations, and I was happy and ready for a new stage of my life. More money, super interesting company in the industry I want to work in. Then they came back to me “actually would you be able to come in to the office one more day than you’ve proposed”.
Well, YES. One extra day of Nintendo Switch™ train time a week? Sign me up! Only problem is, because of where I live, this would have cost significantly more than the pay increase of the new role.
Hrrm, it looks like we’re in uncharted waters here. Is this the “New Normal” we’ve heard so much about? After a week of agonising, I had to turn it down. With the dreaded “Cost of Living” crisis, and now having two children, I don’t know how I ever would have got by without being able to work from home several days a week.
I also realise I’m in a very privileged position here.
I think very soon we’re going to have to reckon with the fact that there’s a new class barrier in place. Between those who work jobs with the luxury of home working, and those that don’t. I’m not sure if anyone will come up with a solution. Beyond a rebalancing of salaries that there’s no demand for.
My own idea to soften the blow, is this: (Sorry to get all political for a second). Commuting costs should be tax free. In practise, reportable as an expense of your job, and thus open to a tax rebate. So whatever proportion of your pay that you have to pay to get to your job, you’d get around a third back from your income tax. This would rebalance things for people who have to travel to work. Benefit the economy by making home working less appealing. And stop situations like mine where people end up stuck in a role because they can’t afford to take opportunities elsewhere.
OK. Not so much a “Real Live Sitcom Moment” as a party political broadcast. But, hey, a boy can dream.
