At the time I doubt I really appreciated it as much, but in now my middle years I've decided one of the things I liked most about college was living in the dorms. It wasn't the tiny rooms or pure chance of whether you'd like your roommates (I switched a week into the terms twice, once for an improvement, and once for a disaster that haunts me to this day). It wasn't the wretched food ("slop on rice" or the salsa on the breakfast burritos that turned me off of that food for life after I ended up in the hospital, dehydrated after barfing it up for two days straight). It was the communal living, where I learned to be absolutely blase' about wandering past strangers wearing nothing but a towel, on my way across the hall to the showers. There's something so comforting, something that harkens back to the dorm years, about how we go back and forth between our house and our neighbor's in jammies several times a week. I'm glad that he shows up at the door in a bathrobe, asking to use our hot tub while Barley plays out back with Murray. It's also cool that our kids and D&D group are equally chilled out when they come over, helping themselves to snacks and beverages, as comfortable here as in their own spaces. I don't do well in isolation, and this feels right.
We donned pajamas after supper, and went next door to watch a movie. It had been long enough (at least a year) since any of us watched Groundhog Day, and we felt it was time. I paid attention to the background details I usually gloss over, and that was fun. Our neighbor said he's heard theories on how long Bill Murray's lead character is stuck in that same day, refining himself and fixing defects over and over until he's finally healed inside. He said some people think he was stuck there for a thousand years or more. I'd never pondered it before. I think I assumed at most one year, but that can't be right. He learns too much for a single year. Just becoming a piano virtuoso alone would take years of serious study. We asked each other how we'd approach a day like that; what would we do? I said I had never planned it out, but obviously whatever it was, it would involve bingeing on gluten for hours. All the donuts would be mine, with no consequences in the following week.
It has been nearly two years since our electrical panel was completely rewired from the bird's nest of frayed wires that was in it when we bought this house. It took nearly a week of identifying circuits before the panel upgrade, just so we knew what we were looking at, and careful planning of how it should be laid out to make sense for the rest of the years this house would be standing, using that power grid. The identifying map was written on a scrap piece of paper, and lost in the house during the year that our emotional lives were self-destructing. Dealing with home maintenance was not high on anyone's list while we were busy metaphorically stabbing each other in the heart over and over. While I was here alone, I eventually found the handwritten diagram, and pinned it to the refrigerator. There it stayed for over a year. A few times I locked my eyes on it, and thought, hm, I should write that on the inside of the breaker box door. I never did. I'm a world class expert at procrastination. Today, while I sat in my favorite chair, determined to accomplish next to nothing today, Mr S-P walked in with the cover to the panel, and the paper diagram. He set the cold, sharp-edged metal door on my lap, and fetched a Sharpie, setting me on the task. It's done now, with only the mystery breaker (that we never could identify) unlabeled. Someday we will find out what that breaker controls, like someday we will find out what the dual light switch next to the basement stairs is for. For now, that can be punted to a day in the distant future. I got one task off the deferred maintenance list. I call that a win.
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