Maintenance

I have just deleted a long and boring description of my long and boring day.  You're welcome.  Such things go "first, then this, then I. . . ."  It is like reading a recipe or shopping list.  But that is what the lazy mind comes up with in the duller moments of life.  Many people's lives are recipes and shopping lists, I think.  I know that I am in danger of being part of that throng.  

My real concern is not spring maintenance, though that is a BIG concern.  Indeed, what I erased detailed the HVAC maintenance and the spreading of the pre-emergent among other of yesterday's chores.  And, of course, you were probably breathlessly waiting to see if I went over to see my mother.  

But those things are not what plague me, not completely.  They are a plague, of course.  I am in large part a paranoid and lazy man.  Still, I have always, in the past, at least, risen to the occasion.  Reluctantly, sure, but, you know. . . I can be "manly."  That's how I view that even though I am probably going to hire the woman who built my deck to repair some wood rot on the house.  She is unbelievable.  

What I've been wondering lately is if I will ever meet another woman who interests me, someone with whom I feel compatible.  It is complicated.  I'm like a smart child.  I know a lot of things.  Shut up.  You don't know me.  I do.  But I am a goofy fucker, too.  It's a hard combo, I think, to put up with.  And I used to be better looking.  Shut the fuck up.  I did.  My mother will tell you.  

So, you know. . . those are things I am drawn to.  Smart, goofy, and all the things I used to be--young and pretty.  

"Get the fuck out of here.  You're a whiner.  Put that in there.  You're like a child, alright, a whiny little baby."

O.K. 

I'm just saying. 

I got a text from Red.  A bunch of them, really. . . after I got back from Miami.  Oh. . . why hadn't she seen these texts before, she exclaimed.  Was I still in town?  She would come right over.  

Yea, yea.  Whatever.  

Maybe I'll meet someone at the hardware store.  

Every relationship is a compromise.  Just be careful of what you have to give up on.  Don't give up on the things you really can't do without.  

Oh, people do, and they do fine.  

"Maybe we should do couple's therapy.  Marge and Don go and they say it helps.  We need to work through some of our issues.  Should we go?"

"Sure, honey. . . if that's what you want."

"All the magazines say it's important.  No relationships are without, you know. . . some bumps in the road.  Look what it did for Ben Affleck."  

I heard this song yesterday.  It made me think of some people who left their own hometown to live in NYC.  Then they decided to leave the city and raise families.  They left New York, but you know they will always have that.  

I have never felt provincial.  I travelled more than most people long before they started going to the Instagram spots.  But you know. . . my friends will always have New York.  

For that they are to be envied.  For good or ill.  For better or for worse.  Until. . . .