You know what I hate most about owning a home? How all of the sexy stuff like rugs and curtains and rose gardens and pea gravel beds is always and forever interminably on hold while totally unsexy things like baseboards and potholes and refrigerator compressors take priority. (I’m willing to acknowledge that it’s only taken four and a half months of country living for me to have completely forgotten what is and is not sexy.) Today, within hours of talking to our favorite excavators-down-the-road about the trench-digging, then scrapping and pouring of a gravel pad for my office shed (see: so much unsexy before the sexy of my dreamed-of salvaged-French-doors go in and the perfect shade of bright lime green paint goes up), we discovered puddles in the ice cube trays in the freezer. This is the freezer attached to the fridge we have already repaired once. The repairman, upon remembering his first visit, recommended over the phone we replace it sight unseen. I don’t blame him, since he was here in the first week and the place was terrible then, but I did say a couple of times, to sort of encourage him to maybe come take a looksee, that he wouldn’t recognize it today.
So, today I bought a new fridge. Maybe a new (inexpensive, simple white) fridge is sexy and it is merely my mindset that is not. But I doubt it.
Gutters are up, and I can attest to their unsexiness, even if the water drips in more reliable patterns now. I have a semi-permanent scowl on my face when I catch my reflection unawares, and I know this is because I can’t stop wishing for things. I want my present state to be different, always and deeply.
None of this is making me a better teacher than last year, however. I have only the unsexy practice of being present in my virtual classrooms for that, which continues. I’m also still not feeling great. (“Way to be an inspiration,” she said, unfailingly.)