I’m becoming Tony Soprano

That’s what I think while standing in the kitchen breathing heavily over my second carb-laden lunch of the day.

In my bathrobe.

Wearing loose boxer shorts.

Yes, an undershirt.

I can feel the change happening. A metamorphosis of the gut and house slippers variety. An accent that isn’t mine. A fascination with fresh sausage. Capicola. Gabagool. Purchased at delis where they wrap it in that specific type of paper that feels like a gift.

Part of me wants this. To plop down huskily on a plastic chair outside a butcher's to drink an espresso or a glass of wine. To read the newspaper while loyal friends are pantomiming Corleone, Michael or Vito. To complain about the decline of this generation. They don’t even go to church anymore. Not that I do.

But so to witness the change in ethics, morality, and the erosion of civil liberties with a sense of anguish, wistfully chowing down a sausage sandwich as I wait for the last strands of my youth to turn into unprocessed grief. Tony with the ducks. Tony with the horse. In many ways, Tony Soprano reflects my potential to be a middle-aged gangster with anxiety issues.

Deep feelings, of which Tony Soprano remarked to his therapist, “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?”

Prostate cancer, apparently. Two Academy Awards and prostate cancer.

But then I remind myself I’m driving a little Volkswagen, helping my wife in the garden, and reading a book of poems about mornings. And so I’m actually just a millennial dweeb with the nervous air of unearned stability. I undo the bathrobe, spread out my yoga mat, and sun salute the old mobster out of my mind.