Once more, I spent a day digging, getting some sun and exercise and a twitchy trapezius. As you can see (if you can see it), my inferior-product water line, only 20-mumble years young, developed another leak. Actually, it developed this leak around the time I was repairing the other leak a few weeks ago, which is kind of a twitchy situation all by itself (first, I don’t actually do any repairing, just digging. But I was there). This isn’t unexpected given the nature of PSI, but all sorts of things happened in between, including my former plumber apparently leaving the country immediately after cashing my first check. So water dribbled down the hill for a few weeks, not particularly bothering anyone but creating wetlands at the edge of my neighbor’s yard and sending my usage to a new, exciting place.
The geyser above, by the way, reached about 8 feet in height with no special effects or help, once we got that pesky dirt off.
At any rate, a friend with a useful skill set came over and we dug, exposed and got all nice and muddy, and then we he patched the line and we undug. So far so good, although this is only temporary and the next project is trenching, unfencing and laying a new line. Fun fun.
Actually, it was. Digging is fun. I’m not sure if it’s a reverb from childhood or just doing something constructive and physical at the same time, but there’s some pleasure, if pain today.
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Four years ago I started getting some good advice, and it went sort of like this:
Look, buddy, sorry to tell you but you’re not allowed anymore. You’re not allowed to be grumpy or blue or pissed or lethargic or lonely. Too bad. From now on, you’re going to have to keep track of this and figure it out. It’s OK to feel that way – you can’t help how you feel – but you damn sure better know WHY.
This isn’t psychobabble or transcendental or self-helpy, just common sense. Everyone feels rotten from time to time; most people don’t handle the rough times by exploring the insides of a very large bottle of vodka. And thus a new habit is born.
And that’s what it is, a habit. Just an inventory, constant and relentless, making sure I know what’s going on. In four years you can hone a habit.
So I’ve been mad at the world lately. This is a useless feeling but completely understandable, I would think. Lots of frustration and fear, lack of control and some dread. It’s better now, and it helps to know what’s what, but I’ve surprised myself. We were walking the other day and I saw a Crazy Person. He might have been just eccentric, or different, or even perfectly ordinary with just an odd way of walking, but I immediately categorized him and mentally sent him a warning.
Back the FUCK OFF, Crazy Person.
This is sort of unlike me.
My wife is sick, seriously sick, although also bright and upbeat and bouncing around as always. You’d never know it to look at her. And really, this may all turn out just fine, just another life blip, some complications, some surgery, some other stuff. This is nobody’s fault, not really (maybe one lazy doctor, but that’s hard to pin down), there’s no satisfactory way to blame society or corporate America or Glenn Beck, although God knows that would be fun. It’s just one of those things. We’ve had other things, so it feels sort of like, puhleese, could we get a little break, but we’ve had lots of breaks. It’s just a scary thing.
And I’m grateful for that common-sense advice I got four years ago. It helps to know, to understand when I’m being a wee bit irrational and indulgent and irritable. Sometimes you get mad at the world; you don’t have to drink over it. Lessons, lessons.
But sometimes it helps to dig, and it did.
