today's realizations

[sanpaku_backup]

1. Tigger:Winnie-the-Pooh::Elmo:Sesame Street. Discuss.

2. We may not live here forever. In fact, we may not live here for very long at all if anything decisive ever happened in the uncontrollable external factors in my life (job, family, etc.). And yet, if we have to move, we will have to spend a great deal of money to get the house into a condition where someone would buy it. We would have to replace the rest of the roof, get new shingles, repaint the outside, fix the shed, get new wallpaper, paint the places where the ceiling is stained, put in new kitchen linoleum, etc. All this for some random fucker to live in MY house enjoying how nice it could potentially be. Is that fair? So even though we have no money it is awfully tempting to dig in deeper with renovations debt, which of course everyone is happy to give us. In the short term this has translated into me feeling an inexplicable impetus to fix all the minor things falling apart, like doors and windows, that I have let go over the past couple of years, and a desperation to actually get out in front of the yard before it goes completely crazy, for once. So we have been busy with that. Though, again, I started buying plants on Sunday and here it is raining on Wednesday night and the ground isn't ready yet. It is so much easier to hatch schemes than to carry them out.

In related news, in explaining why our $6,000 new roof leaked during Sunday's monsoon, the roofer pointed to where the shingles are clearly coming away from the house right above the roof. You have to hand it to life. I guess the house was just a lot more beat up than we thought when we came here and things are wearing out quickly.

3. I don't know whether I would call what I have being depressed. There is something these days that unaccountably throws me into a feeling of gloom and panic that I can't shake off all day. There are moments of quiet over the morning paper when I manage to reflect that, all things considered, life is really not that shabby. But then the trigger can be work or being inundated with the kids or whatever, but once it kicks in it is so hard to get out from. Thus far I have tended to blame the circumstances, which logic tells me will surely pass sooner or later. But now I don't know. What if that sugar high or whatever over the morning coffee is how one is supposed to react to life, and it's the other feeling that's supposed to be abnormal? I mean, the things that make me aggravated are not deep failings in life and in fact they are better circumstances than those of almost any person in the world. It's like the part of me that should make me satisfied and appreciative of things is broken, and I don't know if it has always been so, or if it's just that I don't have access to those kinds of things any more, or if it's becoming an "adult" and realizing that decisions have consequences now, or if it's built into tenuous existence in the middle class, or what. I don't really feel like this is a part of me that's changed, but it sure is ruining the days now.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be some kind of referendum on the why, just trying to explain the mood of the past couple of weeks.

Comments

[hydrozoa.livejournal.com]

what do you want that you don't have?

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a question... uh... not all that much, really, I think. Or at least I never thought of it as being all that much. Or more precisely, I thought of it as sort of a baseline one could expect from life, and I'd be OK with that, and I'd be OK with not having the other things. I think mostly I'd like to feel that I'm doing something purposeful or socially redeeming, preferably in the job I'm paid to do. I'd like some breathing room to do the hobbies I enjoy. And just enough money to worry about it all the time. Oh, and naps. Those just seem to be impossible things right now and I don't know how to even move in a way toward being able to get them. But then I suppose one major characteristic of this point in life is that worrying about how to hold on to what you do have crowds out worrying about how to get the things that you don't. So it's not even something I really think about much these days, I guess, which is for the good.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

That should be just enough money NOT to worry about it, dur.

[dvandva2.livejournal.com]

a Buddhist would tell you that the nettlesome part is your attachment to the 5 skandhas, but I suppose that's not very helpful here.

on a more serious note, you can blame the habituation of the human organism. you have successfully adapted to your current circumstances and are likely seeking out new challenges. it is possible (without knowing much more about your cumulus cover of malaise) that you simply feel a bit stagnant. like "so this is it, eh? i just do this, Godot-style, until i keel over?"

just a thought. well, two actually.

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

Moving away from the northeast to a place with 80 degree days in January has helped me tremendously. :)

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

There's that. But I wouldn't live in the greater Atlanta area for all the tea in China!

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

To each his own. But my house only cost $139,000. :P

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

You can keep it!

Seriously, I like being able to drive to downtown without traffic being a serious issue, I like mostly temperate summers, I like being two blocks from the bay, and I like living in the bluest state in the country. I don't like my mortgage, but who does?

The most wonderful thing about tiggers is....

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

I think you have something there. Something big!

Re: The most wonderful thing about tiggers is....

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I've been reading Jo the original stories for a couple of months now, and she's totally into it, and then she grabbed a video off the shelf of the library and in a moment of desperation I let her watch it, and... yeesh. I kind of remembered it being bad, but not that bad.

The parallel to SS is obvious. We can't let you have your simple, whimsical, random kiddie adventures. We NEED to RAM FUN down your THROATS until you CHOKE ON IT you TINY LITTLE BASTARDS! Just to make sure you "get it."

Same principle at work: There's a Little Golden Book about the one where WTP gets stuck in Rabbit's hole. (I think this one is also based on a Disneyfied episode.) Except the book is called "WTP meets Gopher" and Gopher does this and that. No, the original story is too boring! We need more characters!

I mean, it is hard enough to find the right kind of children's media without Madison Avenue screwing up what we do find.

Re: The most wonderful thing about tiggers is....

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

My friend has the old (1967) WTP shorts on LaserDisk. Remember those? They are so very nice, and not available on DVD. I think he can make me a vhs tape. you want one?

Re: The most wonderful thing about tiggers is....

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Sureness.