Moving the House - Tourette's Style

A scratching on the door interrupts me just as I'm about to write (not strictly true, as I have no idea what I'm about to type - the past day was only mildly interesting: an eye appointment, a bunch of kava drunk, a strange dream about saving a mouse that turns into a small dog, TV watched and ignored, Indian food consumed - none of it seems worthy). I open the door to the bedroom where I've exiled myself while Katie tears apart the house in a process that is as much about mental health as it is about interior decoration, and explain the nature of my dilemma to her.

"If you need inspiration, I could use your help doing some little stuff before we have to move the big pieces," she says. When I demur, she picks up the rug and recommences dragging it down the hall, shouting, "Dicks!"

3/21/11 - Nothing can be OK, too

Katie's not feeling well, but she still has to go to work today, thankfully not a double shift. She and I will be home tonight, and we will eat ice cream (after I do yoga and sit - I believe I am at 13 consecutive days, which is only 23 days off my goal for lent!) and watch Battlestar Galactica.

We sat in silence for a while last night, and then she apologized for not having anything interesting to say. I told her, "We've got a million months to go, and chances are we won't always have something to say."

12/5/10 What more do you want from me? A cookie?

I followed the recipe on the yellow package, as aspiring bakers all over the country have for generations of Christmases. They turned out perfect, brown and chocolatey and delicious.

Then we watched walking dead and went to bed.

Sometimes, I don't feel like being all creative.

6/25/09 - While you were out

"Scott, it's Warren, your super."

"Hey, Warren, what's going on?"

"I just wanted to let you know, there was a problem with the boiler and the fire department came, and while they were here they had to break down the door to your apartment to see if everything was OK."

I stood there in Katie's apartment, phone in hand, watching the news replay over and over again the stories of dead celebrities and New Jersey housewives, and said, "OK, man, I guess I'll be there in a few minutes."

6/23/09 - Am I using my time well?

"Superjail," I tell Katie as we talk on the phone, "seems like it'll be bad mojo, but really, it's pretty benign." I say this while the remains of the two beers I drank in quick succession during dinner finish rattling their way around my bloodstream. The cat lifts her ass as I pet her, and for once she simply allows me to stroke her fur, rather than yelling at me about whatever it is a cat thinks is important enough to yell about.

Earlier in the day, I played my guitar and sang a version of the song Bobby McGee for a play reading, before having to go back to work, where I thought about my upcoming 38th birthday, and what I've accomplished with my life so far.

5/16/09 - If I weren't so emo, I might accidentally kick somebody's ass

While watching a fight between two adversaries on the TV show Deadwood, I am once again reminded of the violence that only in the last few years has become a part of my mental landscape. I find myself with a heart full of bloodlust, imagining foes, altercations, assaults, wanting to fight, carrying around a pen knife, wondering if today on the way home from the train I will need to use it on someone.

This is new for me, but I suppose I have always had it. It explains my former depressions, my black moods and despondency, which I thankfully have much less of, but which must have been nothing more than an already extant violence in my soul, which I formerly turned inward because I could not accept that it was part of my "good boy" personality.

12-22-08 Putting it together

My father decided that he was buying, “for my mother”, a fifty-seven inch, DLP, HDTV. I sort of saw it as the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball with his name engraved on it, but whatever They seemed happy enough about the arrangement. I got to put together the TV stand which had a sort of IKEA feel to it, but since I love putting stuff together, I had a good time too.