Severe and Potentially Mean

I wanted to know how he sees himself, what kind of a person he imagines himself to be. We had been talking for over an hour; I couldn’t figure out how to ask the question so that it made sense to him, apparently.

“How would you describe yourself if you were a character in a novel?” This was a last-ditch effort – it seemed perfect to me, unmistakable.

“What kind of novel?”

“I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

“I mean, who am I in the novel? What am I doing?” He looked at me, concerned. Truly, he wanted to be helpful, but context matters to him; unlike me, he clearly has not spent his life narrating his every movement in his head, writing the story of it for his own amusement.

Suddenly, he brightened. “Do I get a light saber?”

“Do you want a light saber?”

“Hell yes.”

“Fine, you have a light saber. Ding!” I bopped him on the shoulder with the fork I was holding. “You’re the main character. There’s a review in the New York Times. Now how do you describe yourself?”

“Uh.” Perhaps he simply could not imagine a light saber-wielding character in a novel reviewed in the New York Times. Perhaps he was distracted by imagining scenes in which he was terribly busy lopping heads off. In any case, he couldn’t or wouldn’t articulate a description of himself.

(He’s the sort of man who, when offered accessory possibilities limited only by his imagination, doesn’t want a 10-inch penis or a billion dollars – he wants a light saber. In short, he’s a geek.)

I am the kind of person who has a narrator living in her head - a semi-detached observer who watches as my life unfolds, whose interest picks up when things become unpleasant, who rubs her grubby little imaginary hands together and purrs, "Oh, this will make a good story." I have only rarely been sufficiently overcome by emotion or circumstances to forget that she is watching, taking notes.

Apart from that - as revealing as it may or may not be - I have been forced to stop making declarative statements about what sort of person I am. I've lost track of myself, of what I'm like. What I really want him to tell me is who I am.

I am no longer the character I wrote for myself, that much is clear. I am not a person who requires a great deal of time alone. I am not a person who is made uncomfortable by talk of emotions. I am not a person who does not burst into tears for vague, non-specific, poorly-articulated, girly reasons. I am not a person who finds yoga unbearably flaky. I am not a person who gets into relationships with perfectly wonderful men only to experience panic of the chew-off-my-own-arm variety at the first sign of real intimacy. I don't even smoke anymore.

Even if I could figure out a way to ask him without feeling ridiculously self-centered and insecure, he is not a reliable source of information about what I'm like. "Part of the gestalt that is M.Monkey," according to a letter he wrote me, is a list of things which includes "long red hair" and "an altogether pleasing array of curves." My hair is brown. I brought him a box top from the dye I use; it clearly says Medium Brown. Also, I have gotten pudgy since I quit smoking. Pleasing array of curves, my ass. Love apparently diminishes his critical faculties.

Having come up with a description of him that pleased me, I could describe myself in the context of him: I am the kind of woman who falls in love with the kind of guy who has always wanted a light saber. If I’d known that years ago, my life might have turned out very differently.

Based on the evidence of decades, I thought I was simply not interested in long term relationships. I thought – absurd, really – that the only way I could be happy was to live alone. I finally told him that we could try, okay, but that it would probably be over in a week or two.

Hours after I had given up on trying to get him to tell me about how he sees himself, he told me that he knows that there's a disconnect between the way that people perceive him and the way that he sees himself. "I've asked friends to tell me what I seem like to strangers and -- well, they won't tell me, so I don't think it's good."

"May I ask who you were going to use the light saber on?"

"Bad guys!" He said this with the enthusiasm of a 6-year-old. The thought of nameless, faceless bad guys made him happy. "I would use it on my enemies."

"Do you have any enemies?"

"Um. No." He looked dejected. It is perhaps illustrative of the diminution of my critical faculties that I could not, at that moment, imagine what sort of horrible person -- or alien -- would not find him simply adorable. Enemies would drop their weapons and want to buy him ice cream.

"When I met you," I told him, although he hadn't asked, "I thought you were arrogant and detached. Isn't that funny?"

Again, he's enthusiastic. "See, I thought the same thing about you! I mean, that you were severe and... potentially mean." He is visibly pleased at being able to deliver such a succinct and accurate description.

“Severe and potentially mean.” Inadvertently, I had gotten him to answer the question that I couldn’t figure out how to ask. I know that he’s smart and perceptive, that he makes a hobby of studying people. I know that he spent several months observing me at close range before I noticed anything about him besides the fact that he’s late to work damn near every day. “And you found that attractive?"

"Well, of course, I suspected that wasn't what you're really like."

Do It Yourself

Perhaps if the little dude in the millwork department at Home Depot had known that the rhinestones on my sunglasses are meant to be ironic, he would not have spoken to me like I was a fluffy-headed idiot.  I am an idiot of an entirely different sort than he imagines. Or so I imagine.

My garage as a whole is somewhat less than sound. It’s a two-car garage, with two garage doors. The most precarious aspect on that particular Friday afternoon was the door on the right; it was my conviction that parts would fall off if I subjected it to one more opening and closing. Opening it seemed crucial. The right side of the garage is filled with old furniture; it belonged to the previous owners of my house. Nothing, it seemed to me, would make a more fabulous bonfire for the 4th of July than that furniture. Closing it, however, also seemed crucial. Where I live, what the crackheads don’t steal, the feral cats piss on.

The simple solution, I thought, was a new garage door. Home Depot sells garage doors. They are large, but I have a truck.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines millwork like this: “Woodwork, such as doors, window casings, and baseboards, ready-made by a lumber mill.” At Home Depot, the area in which doors – closet doors, front doors, sliding glass doors, and garage doors – are located is called the millwork department. As a devout Home Depot adherent, I know this. I don’t even mind that the majority of these items do not seem to be made of wood. My fussy insistence on proper word usage is suspended by the little surge of dopamine released by my brain when I walk into those vast temples to Do It Yourself.

Do It Yourself. This seems to be the sum total of what I have learned from feminism. I do not feel entitled to anything. No. I feel that I must be a good representative of my gender and Do It Myself. I must demonstrate at all times that I am equally capable, that I am willing and able to do equal work. I carry my own luggage. I own my own power tools. I lay my own tile. I installed my own dishwasher, and I damn well clean up my own kitchen. Sometimes. I mean, I’m the only one who ever cleans it. It doesn’t happen very often.

I would have liked a wooden garage door, ready-made by a lumber mill. I would have liked one with windows. I told this to the little dude in the millwork department. He regretted that they don’t stock such things. What they stock is an ugly, flimsy, metal affair with no windows. I could order a nicer one, he told me.

“How long will that take?”

“Three-four weeks.”

“I want it today. I’m an instant gratification kind of person.” I said this apologetically, politely. Truly, I am aware of my deficiencies and limitations as a human being; this is one of them and I acknowledge it. I am sorry for it. It causes me trouble. It irritates other people. But hell. If there’s a door available, I’ll take it. I’ll pay for it.

I decided that the flimsy metal thing would have to do. My need for a bonfire outweighed my long-term aesthetic concerns, in addition to which, I couldn’t really afford to spend $600 on a garage door.

The door – the thoroughly unsatisfactory but immediately available door – was out of stock.

The little dude did not apologize. “Well, you say you’re an instant gratification kind of gal – but what do you think you’re gonna do with the door when you get it home tonight?”

“Install it?” I do not like to be called a gal.

“Have you ever installed a garage door?” As if that had a single goddamned thing to do with anything. As if Home Depot would be in business if people felt limited to doing only the things they’ve done before.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’d never done before by coming here, buying stuff, taking it home, and following the instructions.”

“Heh.” He regarded me with something that looked like a cross between pity and contempt. “It’s not easy to do,” he said. “You can’t get it done tonight. And it’s not a job for one person.”

“I’ll go to Lowe’s,” I told him, backing away.

“You can’t do it by yourself,” he called after me.

At Lowe’s, I did not talk to anyone. I went to the lumber department with a cart; I stacked 4x8 sheets of poplar plywood on it, 1 x 4 pine boards, a pile of assorted hinges and other hardware from their millwork department, a box of wood screws, carriage bolts, nuts, a can of stain, and a gallon of polyurethane. I dragged the cart up to the front – my beaded flip-flops slid on the slick floor and made it hard to pull – and went to the power tool department. I picked up a box with a table saw in it.

“You can’t carry that,” said a man in a Lowe’s shirt. “Let me get you a cart.”

I carried the table saw to the closest register, retrieved my cart, and paid for my stuff. Outside, I loaded it in my truck by myself.

I had to cancel the party at which I had intended to burn the old furniture; I didn’t have time for a party. I was very busy building a garage door. It took me three days, every waking moment of the Independence Day weekend. I had to go back to Lowe’s three times – twice to buy more stuff, and once to return the stuff I didn’t use. With the table saw, it cost me about $600.

The state of my garage is somewhat precarious. The window is broken. It needs a new roof. The furniture I so fervently wanted to get rid of is, in fact, still right where it was last July 1st. The door on the left, if I open and close it too many more times, is going to fall apart. The door on the right, however, is a thing of beauty.

Cemetery by Moonlight

Here is a picture of Tim. You can't really tell much about what he looks like, I suppose, but it does serve to illustrate the thing that I am most amused by at the moment, which is that we climbed over the wall at Spring Grove last night and wandered around in the moonlight taking pictures. I was speculating about the possibility of getting arrested -- or at least kicked out ignominiously -- and he gave me this horrified look -- as if I were missing the most fundamental element of the whole expedition: "We're not going to get arrested -- we're photographers. We're wearing SCARVES."

He might qualify as a photographer. I myself am a dilettante (which is a whole lot cheaper), but I sure do like trespassing in cemeteries late at night. (I enjoy getting up the next morning and going to work somewhat less, but I suppose that goes without saying.)

I keep thinking about love and... stuff. It's all so complicated and so entirely straightforward, isn't it?

This is not the heart-pounding, stammering sort of love -- I haven't lost myself. I am just myself with him -- maybe a softer version. The other night, while I was driving home, I called my mom to say, "Okay, I just have to tell you -- in case I slide off the highway and die in a fiery ball of smashed-up truck -- that I'm just so very damn happy and I want someone to know."
We are so not the cool kids -- but I think we're having more fun.

Anyway... whatever... it just is. :) We keep breathing in and out.