mower

We got our mower on craigslist for 10 bucks. It's electric and it takes two outdoor extension cords to cover the yard. The trick is working out a pattern on the grass that doesn't involve constant danger of running them over. That kills the whole process and feels kind of dangerous, like, you can picture the cord spraying electricity, like the tentacle of a pissed off octopus.

The whole thing is rusted through, like an abandoned boat or one littered with the skeletons of erstwhile explorers. One of the wheels wobbles and the handle is missing a bolt halfway down. Easily fixable with electrical tape. When we bought it the motor didn't work, but that was easily fixable too with a soldering iron and a voltmeter.

I mowed the back, then the front, skirting the tangle of rose bushes (project for other day). It was looking pretty good, only trouble was that now my grass was shorter than the neighbors' grass on either side. I ran down to the hardware store for a couple of extra extension cords, came back and did the Green's front yard and back yard. Mowed Rose's yard while her dog barked through the French doors. The across the street neighbors' yards as well.

I was happy with myself, like I was making a contribution as opposed to town vampire. Looking down the block in either direction, you could see a symmetric plane of grass, albeit one that still grew higher two houses down in either direction. I went back to the hardware store and bought as many cords as I could carry.

They kept getting snagged on people's fences, on their porches and hedges. I knocked over a bird bath, and some kids kept messing up the chain playing double dutch. I went back to the house, got another glass of water, and put on work gloves.

It was starting to get late but I finished the Egan's yard, then the yard on the other side of Rose's house, people I haven't met but who waved through their front window. I could picture in my mind a sea of grass waiting to be mowed, through the town and out across the state. It would be easier to see it all from the air, then again the height of the grass would be less apparent.

My legs get tired and I start thinking about dinner. I realize I've plum forgotten about the edging. It'll only take a couple minutes.

two months

Two months since I had a drink. I'm clearer, more level. Most of my old t-shirts and all of my pants fit again. I feel more aware of how I'm feeling and better able to check that needs be. I'm also a thousand times less depressed.

I just read my first Zola, L'Assommoir, which shows the arc of a couple destroyed by drink. The husband gets delirium tremens; the wife dies under a staircase. While both situations struck me as extreme to be directly applicable to my life, they also rang true.

In about 15 years drinking I did some reprehensible shit. I drove drunk twice, once getting pulled over and only escaping a breathalyzer out of luck and over-politeness. I kicked in a door in a maudlin rage, dated the wrong people, dated the right people and systematically fucked their friends. I flunked out of college, saw and instantly forgot lover's eyes or movies. Came close to punching someone I love in the face.

I cried my eyes out because a girl wouldn't kiss me, then drank so much I puked before she could. I lost friends, drank until I couldn't get drunker, then snorted heroin or popped capsules of unknown chemical liquid. Blacked out and woke up in somebody's mouth (okay I'm not saying it was all bad).

Early one morning I got into an accident, maybe one I would have avoided had I been more alert, less groggy and hungover. Another time I almost pulled out in front of an 18-wheeler. Not drunk then, just hung over. Sluggish. Another time I crashed a TNT-laden chopper into a childrens' hospital.

I owe it to my family not to hasten death on purpose. To take care of myself and them. To pay more attention. There are things I wanted to understand more in the Zola, so I'm reading it again.