Sunday, January 22, 2012

How To Be A Grown-Up Without Really Trying

Something bad has happened.

Something very, very bad.

Okay, perhaps I’m overstating things … maybe it’s better to say that something completely normal has happened but that it’s giving me the willies … the heebie jeebies … you know, freaking me out. It’s just that, well, I’ve become - *gulp* - a yuppie. Kinda anyway.

Now don’t panic – I’m almost as anti-generic white-bread America as I ever was. And I’m certainly not running off and doing anything totally wacko like voting Republican or anything nutso like that. But I have to admit that little bits of the Young Urban Professional lifestyle have crept up on me (though, let’s face it, soon I won’t be able to desperately cling to the “young” part of that statement anymore).

And that’s how it always gets you – by sneaking up little by little. Of course there’s the obvious things, like buying a house in ‘burbs (but, to be fair, all I did was buy a different house in the ‘burbs because, let’s be honest, I have never NOT lived in the ‘burbs). And getting married is, naturally, considered to be fairly yuppie-ish behavior. But then there are some things that are just a symptom of growing up – like how one day you have enough money to dine at an establishment that doesn’t feature a drive-through window and you think to yourself “Wow, this food that isn’t cooked in a microwave is actually quite tasty.” And, naturally, one’s ability to survive in a professional work setting somewhat necessitates that you learn how to fake being a mature adult, maintain a certain amount of responsibility and, generally, regard everyone you work with – including those that you find annoying in every way – with the type of refrained civility you would have never had the fortitude to exude in your younger, “Jersey Shore” (or if you’re my age use this reference: “Real World”) years.

Of course there are some people who refuse to do these things. Those who believe that the mere process of growing as a person means that they are being untrue to themselves (which is sort of hilarious in my opinion. Imagine being a child and refusing to grow up … insisting that if you learn your ABCs that you’ll totally be “selling out”). But, growing up doesn’t, by default, mean that you lose yourself … it isn’t growing up and doing “adult” things that makes you a mindless, zombie yuppie.

No, that manifests itself in different ways … like when it’s New Years Eve. And here you are – married and living in suburbia – and you get an invite to a NYE party at a friend’s house. You spend the whole day debating if you should get dressed up and drive 20 minutes to the party when, in reality, all you WANT to do for New Years is put on some fuzzy pjs, pour a few fingers of finely aged Scotch into your Crate & Barrel tumblers, curl up by the fireplace and ring in 2012 watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. Of course you don’t want to be lame so you force yourself to go to the party, picking up a case of crappy Bud Select 55 along the way. At the party you look around at your friends – nursing their cheap beers and strawberry wine (you know who you are – you rebel who refuses to accept that any beverage could surpass the flavor of the Arbor Mist you’ve been drinking since Freshman year), knowing that no one wants to drink too much because, well, we’ve all got to drive home. When someone suggests beer pong we all agree but have long forgotten the rules for said game and, naturally, we decide to play the game in the garage so as not to damage the carpet inside the house. For a table you use the pantry door – of course you know how to properly remove a door from the hinges and you use one of your many power tools to get the job done effectively. Between turns you discuss the virtues of your friend’s garage, impressed by the sealant he used on the floor – it looks so clean! At 12:05 you wish your friends goodbye, drive home and immediately curl up in bed.

Now don’t get me wrong – GAR and I are still very fun-loving, active people. And I have, naturally, noticed a greater appreciation for the simple, relaxing things over time. And, honestly, wanting to spend the evening at home with the one you love is pretty much the ultimate sign of happiness – not anything more sinister, Again, I think this is a normal shift associated with not being 19 anymore. This scenario in itself is not new – nor do I think that most of the events of that evening make me a yuppie. But discussing someone’s garage floor with actual interest and envy? Okay, you got me – that’s a new one. And that’s what’s got me concerned.

If only I could say it was just that one time. That it didn’t mean anything to me. That I would never do it again. But then it happened a second time, just a few days later, and this time it was an intense discussion over another friend’s solar heating system for their pool. I’m so ashamed.

What’s next? Will I soon be coveting a new garbage disposal system? Pining over Brookstone air purifiers?

I thought I was okay … it didn’t seem wrong to want to renovate my outdated bathroom, paint over the teal shutters on my house or even to make my yucky pool swim-worthy again. These are “cool”-ish things. Pretty things. Things that anyone would want in order to have a kick-ass pad. But garage flooring? No – I’ve clearly gone too far. My candy apple red mid-life crisis Mustang does NOT need a posh place to rest its tires. Only a totally white-bread yuppie would want something like that.

Somehow I have to undo this. Maybe I can go out this weekend and make a totally irresponsible, immature purchase – like a futon or, at the very least, a “What Would Scooby Doo?” t-shirt.

Or maybe I can just continue to be me. And I can do that while allowing myself to grow up a little and be okay with that. I learned my ABCs, perhaps now I can master my colors. And, who knows, once I figure out what exactly “persimmon” looks like I might just realize that it’s the perfect shade to paint that unused guest bedroom of mine.

Monday, January 9, 2012

The Shawshank Restoration

No, I’m not crawling through a river of poo and hoping to come out clean on the other side (though we did pull out our toilet and didn’t quite seal up the hole well enough to avoid some nauseating gases) … but I am digging a really big hole and looking for ways to squirrel away the evidence.

If you haven’t seen “The Shawshank Redemption” you’re really missing out here. Go watch it now in fact – it’s almost always playing on tv (and don’t I know it because it’s one of those movies I just get sucked into watching every darn time I find it while flipping through the channels … so I’m guessing I’ve seen it approximately 500 times now) – then come back and read this.

My hole isn’t hidden behind a sexy pinup poster (though I suppose I wouldn’t mind tacking up a full-size shirtless Bradley Cooper on my vacant bathroom wall), but it is growing larger every day – no matter how fast we work to rebuild it.

After the burglar scare on my street subsided we all went back about our daily routine. We didn’t install a high-tech security alarm system, or even buy some fake ADT signs off the internet like Dad suggested, but we did spring for a new, more sturdy set of front doors (complete with actual working locks! I mean, they will have locks … eventually … after Home Depot comes to install them) and some fancy new exterior lighting (thieves are TOTALLY fooled by motion detector lights, right?). And a friend told me about a news report of some robbers in our area dying in a fiery car crash when they attempted to flee from the cops and, while I found no actual evidence to support the fact that these were the criminals who invaded our neighbors (nor did I even find any evidence to support the fact that this deadly crash really happened in the first place), I have chosen to believe that this was the event that will end any thoughts of a future crime spree in our area. And, thankfully, GAR is back at work now – alive, out of the house and breathing in fresh air (hooray for not being a widow!)

And the mold is gone too! All it took was Dad coming to visit to help GAR rip everything out of the infested bathroom – walls, vanity, toilet, tile – cleanse it and rebuild it brick by brick (or, rather, waterproof durarock by durarock). And while the reconstruction portion of the project is still in development we have turned our attention to the disposing of the demolished, unwanted rubble left behind.

What to do with all this linoleum, tile, mirror fragments and assorted ‘80s jetsam?

On home improvement shows they always order a dumpster to dispose of, and subsequently haul away, this sort of thing – suckers! No, we are far too cheap for all that. The garbage men often refuse to haul away larger chunks of debris, so for our previous bathroom remodel we spent months afterwards slyly breaking it all into smaller, lighter chunks and hiding it in our weekly trash disposal. We broke tiles into fragments, squirreling them into the middle of our waste cans where they likely wouldn’t be seen – bit by bit over time until all that was left was a giant mirror too sizeable to discard of so easily. But minimizing all this rubbish and stuffing it down our pants Shawshank style was tedious and this time we decided to just go for it, carried it all out to the curb (except the wood chunks we used as kindling for our fireplace – waste not, want not) and took a chance that the porcelain pirates would want it.

Ah yes, the porcelain pirates – the pick-up truck warriors of America who troll the street looking for booty in the form of discarded yellow appliances, musty armchairs, warped two-by-fours and other assorted “treasures” that others no longer find valuable. In our case we’ve been visited mostly by those who pray to porcelain gods. They’ve “rescued” 2 toilets, a bathtub and several sinks from our front curb already and it didn’t take long for them to scoop up the salvageable scraps from our most recent construction. Brazenly they appeared in broad daylight as I was painting approximately 700 sets of closet doors yesterday and rummaged through our refuse, plundering as they saw fit. Oddly (though really it is just a fine line between what they’re doing and “stealing” - which I take great … or, rather, some … protection against) I was glad to see them cart off most everything the garbage men wouldn’t take – no Shawshank smuggling required.

But we’re still far from done … not just with the bathroom but with everything. As is the case whenever Dad comes to visit, my home improvement “to do” list starts spiraling, snowballing out of control. The holes in my house grow bigger and the dilemma of debris disposal continues. And my bank account suffers. Suddenly I NEED new flooring, new cabinet finishes, a new wine rack, wainscoting, sprinkler systems, energy-efficient windows, pendant lights … and I need for my dining room not to catch fire (but that is another story for another day).

Mostly I’m just worried about the impact this has on my career. No, not my day job – my other, back-up, someday dream job as a hand model. I was “discovered” a few years ago (okay, fine, it was freshman year of college … but it seems like just yesterday) by some friends who were doing some modeling and encouraged me to take some “hand shots” of my practically perfect digits to use to promote myself. I always figured that someday, when I grew weary of corporate life, my appendages would be used for margarine commercials or to show off authentic looking faux gemstones on QVC and I’d settle into a quiet, less hectic lifestyle where I can’t lift a (carefully gloved) finger lest I get even the tiniest of scratches on my moneymakers.

But, no, the more the renovation pit grows, the more I need my hands for hammering, nail gunning, sawing … okay, fine, mostly I’m just in charge of painting. But it takes its toll man … and these calloused, semi-construction worker hands aren’t getting me any callbacks for the new Land O’Lakes campaign … regardless of the “perfect length of my nail beds.” Sigh – farewell dreams of a pampered, perpetually moisturized existence.