Waiting For Godot
One thing we’re discovering about the new double wide is its lack of adequate insulation, especially when it comes to the area of ones feet. It’s gotten so bad these last few weeks that it’s painful to wander through the house without both socks AND slippers on, as if it’s just one or the other, the cold pushes the flimsy foot covering aside and settles right in next to the bone.
We’ve made the appropriate phone calls. Gotten bids on new windows and insulation both top and bottom and so far they are sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for us to make pick up the damn phone and make the phone call. Yet we hesitate…
It’s not just the money; we have enough to pay for it without going into debt to do so. But there seems to be the underlying feeling that the more we do to this house, the longer we’ll feel obliged to stay, and right now the house has an unusual feeling of temporarity that we just haven’t been able to shake.
I’m sure this happens to everyone at some point and maybe for us it’s just that we’ve reached a certain age, but the only underlying feeling we get from this house and our lives right now, is that we’re waiting—for what I have no idea, but I have been feeling like one of the tramps from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “Mr. Godot will not come today, he will come tomorrow” this house seems to say, and so here we wait.
I understand the theory that the more I put into this house the more I will make it mine, but I am uncomfortable with permanence in what feels like a time of change, and equally uncomfortable with change when I should be looking to settle in.
In the end I just wind up waiting. Waiting until tomorrow to start my diet. Waiting for tomorrow to begin my exercise. Waiting for tomorrow to write my will, a song, a forum, an email—for a tomorrow, where I buy Christmas presents, a life insurance policy, a new washer and dryer, and new bedside tables now that the cardboard boxes I’m using have started to fall apart.
What if, when it’s all said and done, I’m just a tramp, and tomorrow just lead to another tomorrow until at the end of the day I'm staring into the face of a death I invited by my own inaction? Will I look back on my life and say this is what I intended—this purgatory?
You can see why I’m such a hit at parties these days! “May I interest you in a puff pastry?”
Speaking of parties…I’ll be performing at the Swiss Pub here in Tacoma, tomorrow night, December 1st. Starting at 8 pm. I hope you can come out and help me spread a little holiday cheer. Also the Weekly Volcano that comes out tomorrow has an interview with me, where I don’t talk about any of this, I just answer the question asked with equal parts truth and bizarrely fantastical bullshit. Rumor has it, there’s a picture of me in there and everything….
We’ve made the appropriate phone calls. Gotten bids on new windows and insulation both top and bottom and so far they are sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for us to make pick up the damn phone and make the phone call. Yet we hesitate…
It’s not just the money; we have enough to pay for it without going into debt to do so. But there seems to be the underlying feeling that the more we do to this house, the longer we’ll feel obliged to stay, and right now the house has an unusual feeling of temporarity that we just haven’t been able to shake.
I’m sure this happens to everyone at some point and maybe for us it’s just that we’ve reached a certain age, but the only underlying feeling we get from this house and our lives right now, is that we’re waiting—for what I have no idea, but I have been feeling like one of the tramps from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “Mr. Godot will not come today, he will come tomorrow” this house seems to say, and so here we wait.
I understand the theory that the more I put into this house the more I will make it mine, but I am uncomfortable with permanence in what feels like a time of change, and equally uncomfortable with change when I should be looking to settle in.
In the end I just wind up waiting. Waiting until tomorrow to start my diet. Waiting for tomorrow to begin my exercise. Waiting for tomorrow to write my will, a song, a forum, an email—for a tomorrow, where I buy Christmas presents, a life insurance policy, a new washer and dryer, and new bedside tables now that the cardboard boxes I’m using have started to fall apart.
What if, when it’s all said and done, I’m just a tramp, and tomorrow just lead to another tomorrow until at the end of the day I'm staring into the face of a death I invited by my own inaction? Will I look back on my life and say this is what I intended—this purgatory?
You can see why I’m such a hit at parties these days! “May I interest you in a puff pastry?”
Speaking of parties…I’ll be performing at the Swiss Pub here in Tacoma, tomorrow night, December 1st. Starting at 8 pm. I hope you can come out and help me spread a little holiday cheer. Also the Weekly Volcano that comes out tomorrow has an interview with me, where I don’t talk about any of this, I just answer the question asked with equal parts truth and bizarrely fantastical bullshit. Rumor has it, there’s a picture of me in there and everything….
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