The Joys of Adulting

Tuesday   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First day of summer it’s like the DC Elder gods heard us. It’s the kind of oppressive heat that starts early early in the morning and is only appropriate and pleasurable if you’re in a caftan with a good buzz anticipating a visit to a body of water within the near future.

Walking to get coffee, riding the bus to work, being outside FOR any reason that is not to travel between air-conditioned boxes is so unpleasant. I can’t even. But here it is. Season of my birth, which hey when I don’t have to worry about my appearance (by worry I mean not be a sweating nasty mess) is fiiiine. Otherwise this is when moving to Norway or Iceland or Maine seems like a swell idea. So that’s the small talk out of the way.

I feel better than yesterday. In fact I didn’t even feel bad all of yesterday, it’s rare that a single mood dominates an entire waking day in my life but I imagine that’s true for anyone. Work being slow and not keeping me occupied but at the same time requiring that I can’t tune it out to tackle other things leaves me in a weird limbo.

I started back on reading the book I’ve had (took a break over the weekend), it’s Joe Hill’s latest (the Fireman) and so far I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s end of the world stuff, one of my favorite genres. I think largely because that sort of scenario creates such a fertile landscape for the best and worst of people and resonates with my constant thoughts about focusing on things in life that really matter. Death, chaos, and hardship serve as irrefutable elements to forcing people into shedding whatever bullshit they surround themselves with and get to the core of who and what matters to them, or they unravel like poorly made dolls but it’s a thought-provoking spectacle in either case. 1984, Anthem, Oryx & Crake, Dogstars, The Stand, Hunger Games, Brave New World, The Road, The Girl With All the Gifts, Blindness, Hyperion and on and on and on.

Riding the bus to work today was the variation of experience where I am calm about being in the middle of the diverse crush of humanity. Sometimes it’s less than thrilling.

Today (Wednesday)

Things went slowly downhill yesterday. I left work on time and got home and got everything moving for my ideal evening. Sweet potatoes in the oven, cleaned up a bit, found the yoga series I wanted to start doing on YouTube, sat down on the couch to read and wait for M to get home.  He calls and let’s me know at almost 6 that he’s just leaving work… I’m disappointed but it’s not a big deal. The rain kicks in for a real show and then the fun begins. Water starts pouring through the existing hole in the ceiling and walls from our first major issue back in the first week of May.

I scramble to get the sheets and blankets off our bed. Email our HOA president. Grab pots and pans and towels. We ended up sitting on the floor picnic style to eat dinner and just chill. Nothing else happened. No yoga, no little household chores. Stupid bullshit with this condo eats up another evening.

Today we already had an appointment to have the leak source assessed and I’ve been planning to work from home. M took the day off and the damage assessment guy is early but really nice. Says to him the cause is obvious (gutter and downspout and masonry issues.) You can even see the dark streak along the building where the water has been permeating the masonry. I can’t help but feel that our condo people and insurance spent all this time delaying because they were hoping it was a cheaper problem. At this point I don’t care. It’s been almost two months. Now I have ANOTHER insurance claim open because these additional damages have to be dealt with separately. The water mitigation people came back and I have industrial fans in my room and MORE missing drywall and insulation. At least this time they were able to just tear off the pieces of nasty smelly carpet that were damaged.  Now we’re out $1000 so far in insurance deductibles.

And to top it off the tasks I’m getting into at work now are more complex. I am feeling intimidated and overwhelmed with the amount of new things to learn. I feel like I should have been a developer for the last 10 years to understand half of this. I know my current negatively swayed emotional state is not helping matters but this entire day has felt like an enormous trial.

I just want my apartment put back together. Keeping things clean an organized here lends itself to my overall feeling of sanity and control. I realize it’s fake and illusory but not having it is really making this entire shit show worse.