Road Trip 1

A lot has changed

Not much in the grand scheme, but I persist with a few bruises. Mostly ego-based.

I let the pool go to shit. Damn. I really tried with that fucking thing. Every week multiple ph checks and tests at the local leslie’s pool supply. Spent hundreds of dollars on chemicals and salt. Didn’t stand a chance against a week or so of negligence. I just got a bit too busy, and didn’t check on the water levels throughout the ‘winter’ closing. Had a pool cover over it so I didn’t pay it too much mind… until I noticed the cover had fallen into a giant pit. A dry pit. Somehow I developed a leak in the vinyl liner, and gravity did the rest. In case you don’t own a vinyl-lined pool I should explain what happens when the outward force of 20,000 gallons of water pushing against the sides of the liner disappears… well, maybe I don’t have to. You can imagine for yourself. Wet earth likes to move, and as a result of its excursion through inevitable entropy, an expensive repair now lives in my future - lest I never want to swim in my own backyard again. Eh, first-world problems? Maybe, but I’m still entitled to be mad about it. Not like I have all the money in the world to be throwing at all my problems (I don’t - that’s not sarcasm in the slightest.)

Leaks are constantly occurring in life. I recognize that I can’t be on top of everything all the time… Wait! What does it mean to have the same epiphany over and over? Like a amnesiac nymphomaniac rediscovering sex over and over again (well, maybe not that good). Well, epiphany is nice, but it doesn’t even have to be good. “Epiphany” is just a feeling of neurons finally connecting. Neurons that up until that very moment lived their entire lives just a few hops from one another without ever reaching out past their comfort zone. What pushed them to touch, what forced them to grow? Doesn’t matter, turns out that’s not what I’m feeling.

Is it an epiphany when you realize you’ve left the stove on? Probably not. Epiphany implies profundity, eh? I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of anything that qualifies as such. Just an occasional overwhelming feeling of self-doubt? No, but I’m generally confident outwardly… Is it what happens when my brain-liner loses outward pressure against the beating of the external world? Nah that’s stupid. Or deep. Or a joke.

I may just laugh it off, but something happens in my brain when I recognize the futility of life. Not to sound depressing though. I enjoy things, I’m not overly morose, and I’m just the standard amount of apathetic - as is required in the modern age - but I can’t really define what it is I feel during this """epiphany""". I swear it happens a lot at work when I’m taking a piss. Leaving my desk and walking through the campus to the toilets leaves me just enough room to think, “Something is broken, something that will bite and sting and leave nasty little marks, and it will be my fault.” But I accept it in those moments. It’s like some sick schadenfreude against my future self. No, maybe it’s not pleasure, but it’s acceptance. I accept in those moments - as I masterfully tap away the last drops of urine (thereby ensuring I never need to invest in the latest calico cut pants) - that I’ve let something fall through the cracks (not talking about pee anymore, move on please).

Whatever that feeling is, it always comes with a part two. Maybe part one is just premonition, the nagging in my brain that actually knows exactly what I forgot, but it doesn’t connect properly to the language module, so it just throws errors that resemble anxiety. The second part is the inevitable fallout of not taking care of that thing, whatever it was!

What am I saying with all this? Do the things you can do when you recognize they need attention. You already know that things leak and fail and break. You’ll still be blindsided. You can’t control everything in this world. But you can control more than you currently do, and we both know that’s true. You just need to stop putting things off. If that nagging voice finally breaks through, write it down, plan it, do it, check it off the list.

Oh, the road trip

I need a dehumidifier for the crawlspace under the house. It’s teetering on the edge of mold-inducing humidity, and that’s why I’m going to Virginia to hike this weekend with my family. My girlfriend is driving (still haven’t proposed) so I had some time to write down some thoughts. I bought this limited amount of time by ventilating the crawlspace with a 25-dollar lasko box fan and duct tape. Seems to be helping, but really I need an entire re-encapsulation. The last few owners of my very old house seem to have been even more negligent than me. Leaky pipes, sparsely applied vapor-liner and what appears to be a felt material that seems to excel at nothing more than being exceptionally moist. It’s all good, I’ll take care of it. I’ve already replumbed major sections but really the entire house could use a rewire, replumb… a rebuild would be nice. I’d be lying if I said being a homeowner hasn’t increased the level of anxiety I’ve had to normalize as part of my standard “background noise.” But really, I don’t mind. I enjoy the yard and the location mostly. I have a nice big detached garage. I’m 15 minutes from work. I even have a pool to relax in during the summers. Or… I did.