When I get anxious, depressed, flustered and so on, I find that what I tend to do is just hole up alone and stare off into space. I avoid people around me, neglect my immediate surroundings, and usually just dwell inside my own disturbed mind.
This is why one of the best ways for me to work through these bad times is to work hard to come out of my head and work on the space that I inhabit. Cleaning, building shit, fixing shit, etc. It's a real struggle to get to the point where I can start this kind of work, but if I can pull myself together then it's excellent therapy.
Today I'm finally starting to muster myself. I didn't make it as far as getting up to go to the food bank, but because Cory just moved in and needed a key to the apartment I found myself in Canadian Tire this morning. I figured that since I was there, I should get a new hinge for our toilet seat/lid since one of ours is broken and the fucking thing slides around all the time. While hunting for the hinge, I also found shower curtain liners and figured it was time to replace ours, which is so fucking mouldy that taking a shower is an exercise in making myself as small as possible so it doesn't brush up against me.
Cory ended up actually paying for these things out of a desire to contribute to the house, but as soon I as got home I got to work. The shower curtain liner was already ripped, which is a bummer but it was like, $2 so I guess I can't really complain. As I was putting it up I found myself wondering really inane shit, like "I wonder who standardized the amount of holes in shower curtains and liners. Did they like, have a conference about it?".
I wish someone had standardized the size of toilet seat hinges and the holes they're supposed to go through because, as it turns out, the hinge was way too big. I didn't want to have to go back to the store (and to be honest, they probably wouldn't give me an exchange on something I had tried to shove into a hole in my punk house toilet), so I ended up whittling the hinge down with my leatherman, and cramming it in. Voila, another successful repair on the Orphanage toilet (we also had to replace the rubber flapper last year. That was more annoying to fix, but was a bigger problem to begin with.)
I can't help but think of that lady who warned me not to become too domestic. I wonder at what point one becomes "too" domestic, you know? I mean, being comfortable in my home is important to me. Having shit to work on here gives me little bursts of satisfaction. I still get an incredible thrill out of travel, and I feel extremely comfortable hitchhiking, but having a home to be proud of is something I really desire. Otherwise I would probably just end up wallowing in a filthy, uncomfortable, poorly lit, stinky hovel and would never have a break from my own mental poisons.
Now I'm going to go busk with Ryley, because playing music is also really therapeutic for me and I really don't get to do it often enough these days. All I want to do is distract myself and occupy my mind with more positive thoughts until I can find a way to get to sleep, and then do it again the next day. Living day to day.
Fuck.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
as long as you're nurturing your home as a functional workshop for all the inspired shit you do, you're not being too domestic. if your blog post had been focussed on matching the shower curtain to the rest of the bathroom, maybe i'd be concerned about your domesticity... as it stands, i'd say you're doing fine.
Post a Comment