It's all perspective.
Today was one of those mixed bag days that demands a deep breath, a beer and a lot of effort to process (and avoid breaking something over someone's head).
I vacated my apartment today, after 8 years in it. That's at least 7 years longer than I thought I'd be in it. When I took it, it was a bit of a salve, "nicer" than I needed, more than I could really afford under the circumstances. But it worked out well for a while, until it didn't. I've dragged the move out for 3 weeks, but (as mentioned earlier) there was a lot that needed to be done. But now I'm done with it, and working on settling into the new place, which is fucking chaos at the moment. And in that sense, it's no worse than the old place, and has actual hope of being comfortable at some point soon. So, a definite hard-fought win there.
Speaking of "hope" (but not "hard fought" or "win") my fellow Democrats (and a shapeless yet revolting clump of "independents") have managed to drop a runny, steaming turd on Teddy's grave by electing, either through apathy or active shortsightedness and stupidity, a knuckle-dragging teabagger to the Senate. This stings on a number of levels. There's the obvious threat that only having 59 votes poses to the accomplishment of everything we as a country need to do in order to become as great as we used to be, as great as we could be, and (mystifyingly) still think we are.
Adding to this is the indignity of Ted Kennedy's seat--Ted Kennedy!!--allowing for the unraveling of all this work. It won't only be Brown, of course, but it's the thin edge of the wedge that allows other incurious and unsophisticated assholes in the Senate to fuck things up. And the fact that it's *this* particular seat is really galling.
And speaking of incurious assholes, there's something really galling to me personally about the apparent (based on today's election) profusion of them in what has almost always seemed to me to be a forward-thinking state (relative to most). It's something I've hung my hat on for a long time: politically, Massachusetts for the most part seemed to have its head on straighter than other states I've lived. Now I feel not a little bit betrayed by simpletons who claim "disaffection" and call for tax revolts, agitate to "stop the spending" and yell that "socialism does'nt [sic] work." (Seriously, I saw that on a sign among a bunch of Scott Brown signs on a house in one of the outer suburbs.) That so many FUCKING IDIOTS exist in general isn't a surprise, of course; Frank Zappa said that the most common element in the universe was stupidity. No, what's painful is that so many FUCKING IDIOTS exist *here*, which I'd come to think was one of the last bastions of what counts for intelligence anymore.
So *now* where am I going to go? At least most of my stuff is still boxed up.
For perspective, there's Haiti. I missed the first 48 hours of the Haiti crisis, but have done some catching up since then, and it's absolutely horrifying. There is always someone worse off, but it's hard to imagine who's worse off than Haiti. Spending a little time thinking about that underscores the "first worldness" of so many of our problems.
Certainly all of mine.
I saw a great band on Letterman last night: The Heavy. Kind of like The Make Up crossed with James Brown. And it's been a long time since I heard anything really new that I liked. Dave even made them do an encore, which I haven't seen in a long time. So that was good.
I managed to hurt my (clutch) knee today, by wearing a pair of shoes that I uncovered at the back of a closet while packing. I have too many shoes, and didn't need to wear these in particular--indeed, I'd been splashing around in other ones all morning--but they were just the right kind of snow boot/shoe crossover I needed for the slushy weather and the mission to a client meeting I had today. (Can't drive in my actual snow boots...) So since I'd just excavated them, I figured I'd wear them. Except it'd been so long since I wore them that the rubber sole had petrified to hard plastic.
I noticed this as I headed down the hall. They made an unfamiliar, loud, plasticky (rather than rubber) sound in the new hallway. I remember thinking, "hmm, bet the first few steps outside will be slippery." With the first step I took on the wet (not even icy) sidewalk, I tested the traction, just like I do in the car. Except this time I wasn't ready for the result. One foot slipped, and the other knee bent sideways in a way it's not supposed to as I tried to catch myself. In automotive terms, it was like poking the gas to test wheelspin, only to end up tail-first into a light pole.
So now I'm gimping around, mostly ok if I don't make any particular movements--such as the ones that are generally required when stepping over packed boxes, or trying to lift or unload them.
Having too many shoes feels like a first world problem of the highest order. Wearing the most dangerous of them is just silly. Or payback.
Or maybe there's nothing wrong with the shoes and it's just my clumsiness and age combining in new an unpleasant ways.
And finally, for now, age: Been thinking about it alot, but a new angle came to me a couple days ago. I've spent a lot of time (mostly) silently bitching about a new decade. But I've spent very little time thinking specificially about how much of my 30s actually sucked. Pretty much the first half was pretty awful. A third was fair to middling, and a fifth toward the end was pretty great. So instead of bemoaning this new decade and the injuries it brings, I need to occasionally remind myself how awful the last one was.
It's all perspective.