Saturday, September 12, 2009

A trivial triumph

...and for once I don't mean winning a trivia game.

As I have been posting, I had no closet in my apartment and then I was delivered a fine wardrobe, which had only one drawback: the bar that they delivered with it is a foot too long to actually fit inside. Although Mr. Jang, the school's Guy Friday, was quick to get a new stovetop delivered when only one burner on the extant one worked, my hanging up my clothes seemed to be 27th in his alphabet. (Hey, I just made up a new metaphor... what do you think?)

Well, it's Saturday morning, I just got back from a lovely cool damp run along the stream, guest-starring magpies, egrets, mourning doves, pigeons, and one very disgruntled-looking great blue heron. I walked in the door, glanced in the corner with  my umbrella, broom, and such, and said "Eureka!" (Actually, somebody might have said it to me; I was pretty sweaty.)

...I grabbed my Grab-It/Swiffer Sweeper device, unscrewed the sweepy part, unscrewed the shaft, shortened it, tightened it again, and... my shirts are hanging up, with no help from anybody.

If you don't know me really well, you're thinking, "Big whoop", or whatever words you, who are hipper than I, choose to express that same thought. But for me, someone who has always defined himself as totally incompetent with all kinds of three-dimensional/mechanical/practical/hands-on matters, it's a real breakthrough. I feel an odd and probably totally unjustified sense of satisfaction, even pleasure.

Of course, I defined myself as terrified of flying, but I got here, and shy, but I talk in front of dozens of people every day, so... maybe my walls really are self-imposed, insubstantial, and finally illusory.

Maybe yours are, too.

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