Today I woke up and hope to work on the screenplay adaptation, my book(let), setting up the seen for the render of the next shot of the movie. It is a nice day outside. Somewhere in the seventies with a light refreshing breeze. I decide to work out on my deck with the laptop and set it up. Only to find that the glare from the plastic front of the screen is reflecting more light then it is transmising. I find myself looking at a mirror, with a keyboard. “Boy do I need a shave.” I think to myself.
After the shave and having returned to my outdoor mirror, I wondered if the bench swing would be a better place to work at since it has a built in umbrella. The top is cocked back by the wind after having been neglected all winter, so I adjust it forward only to be met in the chest by a small wall of water that had collected there. This pocket of rainwater apparently had also seeped through the top and wet the seat, at least most of it. I managed to find a dry place to sit on one end and began to enjoy the cool breeze while I rocked back and forth. “It really is a nice day. The first really nice Saturday of this year. Or at least the first one I have noticed.” I think to myself as I slowly take in the truly dismal state of my deck.
I can see it has pockets of leaves from last fall and miscellaneous stuff filling the corners. Things that really should have been thrown away at some point. A pile of used cardboard boxes left over from last years flood. Some bits of scrap wood from when I had the roof redone. And the deck, the deck, I can see the green mold slowly trying to claim the deck like a marching army trying to sweep across some foreign map. It is now 2 years overdue for its 2 year treatment of deck stain. I do have the stain, somewhere, it is unopened but about three years old and I would have to power wash it first. Maybe if I just clean and power wash half the deck today I will be able to quickly paint it with stain in the couple hours of daylight I have after church tomorrow. Ok, I’ll do that. It wasn’t what I planned to do today but if I do the deck it will be nicer all summer for me to enjoy.
I begin to clean off the trash from the deck and move things to one side. I will need my sisters help with the table but she went back to sleep right after breakfast, so I start to sweep the deck. Then my mother comes for a visit and when she comes in she lets my sister’s dog in from the front yard. He immediately barrels full speed through the house and slams his 50 pound body right into my screen door smashing it off the track, bending the frame a little and pulling some of the screening from the bottom. My gumption level plummets, I knew it would dip when she came over because she just has that effect on me but most of the time I can deal with it, but now it has instantly bottomed out.
Resolved to continue I start to straighten the frame, get it back on to its track, and begin to work on fixing the area of the screen that pulled loose. All the while my innocent and well meaning mother continues to give me what she believes is honest but totally useless advice. Advice like changing the screen with one that is glass on the bottom, which is impossible cause it is a sliding door and I know the manufacturer doesn’t make one like that and that I should fix the screen with TAPE. Like that will fix anything and not make the house look any more white trash then it already does. My gumption is gone, my resolve is gone and the sky now looks a little cloudy.
It seems the more I ignore something the less it gets damaged. Case in point I have a folding tv table that by use had started to break and for the longest time I ignored it and it was useful as long as you were careful with it. Then I fixed it. A new screw and some wood clue fixed it right up. The very next day I walk into the living room and Gabriel my sisters son is sitting on it, while folded on the couch obliviously watching TV as people his age do. I am done, I’m moving back into my bedroom and retreating into my little projects, alone. In a house full of people I am alone. I cant even say I have a best friend that I can go out and do things with like I used to. I have church friends, old friends, internet friends, but no best friends and it is sad when you wake up one day and realize it.
It is not the first time in my life without a good close friend, after all I went until I was about 15 before I had a best friend but I have been using computers since I was 10 and that has been my constant in life. Is it possible that this is my lot in life; to be confined all my days in a room with the curtains drawn under artificial lighting and in the glow of some computer monitor while the sun shines and the breezes drift along at just the right temperature just outside my walls? My life?
End of Day Update:
After about an hour in my room I emerged to find they all went away and that over the past hour my gumption levels had been restored. So I was able to continue to clean and prep half the deck and power wash away the dirt and mold. So I began to wonder is it better to be lonely with people or to be truly alone when you are lonely?