Field of Battle

Wow, that was hectic. The last month has been a blur. We just moved to a new place. It’s nice. And it’s our first real place together. So that makes me happy. And it’s starting to feel like home now. Which is nice too. But for a while there it was a clusterpoke of unsettledness. Nothing felt quite right. I slept for shit. I got lost on my way to work. My mail wasn’t showing up. I couldn’t figure out how to use the microwave. I was just off. I’m not a guy who likes to feel off. I like to have things in their place. It’s better now. Still new, but better. I figured out the microwave.

So that being said, I haven’t had much time or energy to write a blog. It was the last thing on the list of stuff I wanted to do. Add in the fact that my laptop is passing away and unable to complete simple daily tasks, and all of a sudden it’s been over a month since my last post. I apologize. Mostly to myself.

But that was then this is now. Let’s get to work.

So the cable guy stopped by a few weeks ago to hook everything up. Cable box, modem, router, etc. He did his job — at the most basic level — but he did his job. Everything worked just fine. But he left a hodgepodged shitload of cables and cords all muddled together in an indecipherable mass behind the TV stand. To the normal brain, this would’ve simply been an out-of-sight-out-of-mind, let-the-cords-land-where-they-may kind of thing. But not me. One look at this massive melee and I lost it. I won’t have it. Unacceptable. Not in my house.

I spent over two hours trying to undo the tangled mayhem. But it was just too much. After a gallon of sweat, an endless stream of juicy f-bombs, and one slightly scared, mostly confused dog (and girlfriend), I threw in the towel. I called the cable company and made a technician come back out and clean shit up. Ridiculous. And you’re goddamn right they didn’t charge us for that visit. I wish they would’ve tried.

It’s much better now. I can kick back in my chair and watch football in peace, knowing that all is well and right where it needs to be. No more mammoth cord bundles antagonizing me from the dark place behind the TV. I like that.

I think one of the best things about being an overthinking exaggerator of all that is minor and meaningless — it feels that much better when you get to that settled, just right place you were looking for when you started. The end result is exaggerated too. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think the outcome could feel so right if I hadn’t made it into something bigger than it needed to be from the get go. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Like Vince Lombardi once said, “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.”

This time the field of battle was the tiny space between the wall and the TV stand.

And victory was mine.

JS