absence of suffering
Chicago has turned cold, and my new winter coat is too warm.
Wait, back up a minute. Fuck me. Fuck me and my “problems.” My coat is too warm! My husband uses too much soap! My child reads too well for her age, and it leads to awkward conversations! My house has too much storage! Somebody ought to send me to Chechnya or Sierra Leone for a few months, so I can get some perspective. (I would bring the winter coat to the former, but not the latter.)
Don’t get me wrong: overall I am glad to have found this coat, because I have pretty specific requirements. I cannot wear a down coat. I have read all the bloggy fashion advice about the “flattering” kinds, and then I try one on and no, sorry, this really is like wearing a blanket. I’m a wool girl, but I don’t want it to have a belt, and I will never understand those coats with big open necklines—is it not winter? Or do you just like having a frostbitten collarbone? When I found a coat that met my specifications I snapped it up, but wow is it warm. Especially now with my long-ish brisk walk on either side of my commute. I walk fast and the wool is all insulating and I get clammy-sweaty in the freezing winter air, and I will probably end up catching one of those medieval diseases like ague or ergotism. I know that neither of those were caused by temperature extremes (mosquitoes and grain fungus, respectively), but weren’t they fun to say?
Another dumb “problem” is that I still have not received any notification from our mortgage company stating that we indeed have a mortgage, here’s how to set up auto-pay, etc. I know what to pay, especially after signing a lot of documents to that effect at closing, and I have a coupon in the closing packet to send if nothing official has shown up by January. But still, it’s a little weird. Usually the loan is sold practically minutes after it’s funded, and refinancing offers are in the mail moments after that. Perhaps I will call the mortgage broker, who is probably lonely for my voice since we no longer talk once an hour like we did during loan documentation.
This is not a problem at all, but we have been replacing some of our kitchen appliances, like the leaky dishwasher and the weird beige fridge. The other day I worked from home, waiting for the dishwasher delivery guy, baking muffins, and streaming Pandora over the TiVo.
The installation guys turned out to be not your usual solemn Mexican men but a 20-something goatee’d slacker dude and his much older partner, who did most of the hook-up work. While older guy disconnected the old dishwasher, slacker guy kept glancing around my kitchen, wide-eyed.
SG: Are you listening to Pavement?
Me: Yeah.
[a few minutes later]
SG: I’ve heard this song before. Who does this song?
Me: Uh, I’m not sure…[walks over to TV]…it’s Spoon.
SG: Oh yeah.
[later still]
SG: What are you baking?
Me: Muffins.
SG: Awesome. Muffins rock.
Me: Muffins certainly do rock.
He never hit on me exactly, but he had a slightly wistful, faraway look on his face and I was like, Are you mentally starring in your very own indie-rock porno? Where you come to install a dishwasher and some cardigan-wearing bespectacled MILF sexes you on the kitchen floor while an Eagles of Death Metal song plays in the background? And then we all have muffins afterward? Dude, get out of my house. Forthwith.
[It turns out that they did not even install the damn dishwasher, because there is some random extra gas pipe that needs to be “capped off” or “sawed down” or “pooped on,” I forget which, so I have to call a plumber this weekend (Thanksgiving! Oh joy) and pay tons of money, while in the meantime the beautiful new dishwasher sits in its box and mocks me. Oh hey! THERE’S my real problem! Well, sort of.]
—mimi smartypants knew it was around here somewhere.