'Going on for centuries'

By ART MCGREGOR
Blog on the Run editor

My cousin Evan dropped by yesterday to talk sports, girls, rap music and drugs.

Born of the 20th century, these are topics that most of us discuss. You see, he's 8. His date of birth is December 1999.

He opined that Lil' Wayne definitely does drugs, but Jay-Z doesn't because "Jay-Z doesn't swear as much."

He thinks the Pirates stink but understands why they traded Xavier Nady. "Those two younger guys they got could ONE DAY become really good, right?"

He still wonders about this little girl that sat next to him this past October during the Michigan State-Ohio State game. "What was her name again? Ashley?"

I like that he knows his shit about sports. I mean, he really knows it. Knows the players and the uniforms and wonders "where Beanie Wells lives?"

But he gets that knowledge from playing hours and hours of video games. He doesn't usually go to bed until 3 a.m. and drinks Red Bull after midnight.

He'll be in the third grade later this month.

We had a good time. Went to this park next to my sister's place in Lower Arlington, 43220.

But it's a park. They have slides and swings and weird bars and climbing mechanisms. So when you have kids, you work all day, come home to a wife that doesn't let you do many fun things, and take your kids to a park where they do pointless activities and beg you to watch them when you'd rather be checking your cell phone for baseball scores? Wow. And this has been going on for centuries?

Sometimes I just think I'm smarter than everyone else.

I had to get fitted for a tux for my sister's wedding, so she can have kids and take them "to the park" during her only two hours of free time per day. I haven't worn a tux since July 31, 1987. True story.

I missed out on bowling with McCampus, The Godfather and NJAG. That's a shame.

Overall, a good week thus far. Haven't had a beer since Saturday night at the Street Festival in Chicago. That's a really good run for me. A better run would be from Chicago to Columbus. Even if that run was to Columbus, Indiana, it'd still be fucking far.

I had spaghetti last night for the first time in about three months. Holy tasty. Back when we used to go to the EGG or I took dates to Easy Street Cafe, I'd order up some pasta with grilled chicken. Tryin' to be all classy and shit. Hmm ... I had pasta a couple Fridays ago at Betty's but it didn't have red sauce, so technically that's not spaghetti in my book.

One thing I forgot to bring up about Chicago was that a lot of people go on dates. Like real dates. Like, "pick you up at 8!" George _ Bush TF?!??! Who does that? I knew we were in trouble when we got to The Doctor's apartment and his roomie AMOS, said "I am GOING OUT ON A DATE." And actually was serious. When we got back a little after 1 a.m., he was on the couch watching something lame on television.

Probably thinking about a future that holds taking his future kids to the park on Wednesday evenings in August.