my Average Life

One thing should be established before we move on. My life is good, as far as lives go: sweet husband, solid job, nice apartment, and a great family. For the most part, I really like being me. Average, yes, but I like it that way. The predictability and relative ease of it is a good fit for me.

However, I suspect that part of my soul is off living a double life without me, probably in Greenwich Village or some little coastal town in Italy.

This secret side of my soul is staying up until 3 a.m. writing poetry or drawing or painting, discussing literature with writers and other artists, sleeping in until noon, and going to art galleries and shows in the evening. This is my "inner artist" and I can't stop it from wondering and fantasizing about the carefree lifestyle I've just described. Much like Edna St. Vincent Millay when she was in Greenwich Village...minus all the sex and drugs and chronic anxiety.
(But can you really have that life without the dysfunction? The pleasure without the pain? Popular theory is that you can't. The whole point of that lifestyle is to ride on the cusp of chaos.) So I leave it alone and stick with what I know: simple and average and content.

However-

I met a girl who embodies this imaginary side of my soul. We used to work together, that's how we met, but that was over a year ago. We haven't seen each other at all since then. Odd thing is, I didn't realize she was the embodiment of the untapped portion of my soul until months and months after I left that job. We never talked about it, we never really talked at all, so she has no idea and never will. We're friends on Facebook, but that's meaningless, really. There are people that I can't stand being around and they're my "friends" on Facebook.

Through Facebook, though, I found her blog. This is embarrassing to admit but...

I'm blog-stalking her.

She's a good writer. She reads books the way I eat food or drink water. She knows things that I wish I knew: memorable lines from great written works, names of people from historical and current politics, tenets of eastern philosophy and religion. I haven't dabbled in any of these things, but I wish I knew something about them.

(I can't believe how confidently I'm writing all this...she'll know it's her if she reads this. But here's the thing: I know that she will never, never read this because I never, never cross her mind. Never.)

My inner artist wishes I could trade places with her. The rest of me, however, knows better. I don't really want her life and she wouldn't want mine. I don't fit in that world, I don't fit with those people, and the greater part of me recognizes this. Yet she still fascinates me and I still watch her through sporadic blog posts and Facebook updates.
Admittedly, the fascination has died down some in recent weeks. Maybe I'll finally break free from whatever holds me in her wake. Deep down I can still feel my inner artist sleepily pondering her life and dreaming of its taste. But I know I wouldn't find happiness there. So I comfortably sink deeper into my own average life and I feel a wrenching pain -- my inner artist is dying, day by day, one small piece at a time.

does My use of Italics distract You?

My car has been dead for the last two weeks. Students in the automotive department at my university have been working on it. It takes longer, but they're cheaper.

It was finally ready to be picked up today.

(shout praises!)

I went down to the shop, they gave me six copies of the receipt (six? What the crap are you going to do with six copies??) which I had to take down to the first level of the school, the cashier's office, to pay for it. She stamped my receipts, all six, then I hiked back up the hill to the automotive building (These buildings are not close together. I won't try to estimate distances for you, cuz I'm bad at it. Suffice it to say, they're not close) and handed him the receipts and he gave me my car key. Kind of a long process just to pay for a car, but I won't complain. It's done now. Sweet.

Only thing left to do is drive my car out of the garage door and into the parking lot.

Little did I know that this was the tricky part.

I had to turn to the right a little to avoid a cement column and as I pulled forward there was a grating sound. Ah, probably just driving over the vents, no worries, it's all good. Until the grating turned into a screeeEEECH!!

Oh fart.

Wouldn't that just be my luck? I finally get my car back and I wreck it driving out of the repair shop! Good grief.

Well, as it turns out, a piece of machinery caught onto my tire rim when I pulled right and I had been dragging it. I didn't even see it. It was one of those...geez, I don't know if they have a name...it has two ramps, one for each tire, so you can drive up and onto a higher platform (Would that be considered "machinery"? Not really. Let me re-phrase: "a car repair prop caught onto my tire rim...") It was dingy yellow, greasy silver and angry looking. I dragged it for about two feet before I stopped the car. Luckily I didn't hurt it at all and my car looked untouched.

So no damage done. It only took a small chunk out of my tire rim and attracted the attention of every instructor and student in the shop as they stared at the idiot girl in an idiot car dragging their idiot prop as the echo of screeeEEECH! bounced off the cement walls.

Thus marking the disintegration of the last remnant of confidence I had as a woman in a car repair shop. Almost no damage done.

My gawsh I am such a klutz (bangs head on desk).