I’ve read somewhere that social media allows us to portray our lives in a kind of perfection that filters out the ugly realities and mundane moments we don’t want others to see. So today is my come-clean, soul-purging blog post of the banal stuff that will demonstrate how boring my life is aside from the glamour shots I post.
On a typical day, we wake between 4:50 and 6:15, and if motivated, we might go for a walk. To be honest, Caroline is up early Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a run and maybe a short visit to the gym; as for me, getting up early to go for a walk with her is a recent phenomenon.
On the other days, we often read a bit before reluctantly heading to the kitchen to toil over making breakfast. Okay, so it’s not really laborious, but I figured that starting the day in a kind of agony would sound more dramatic. The fact is we often share the duties of putting the water on for coffee, heating a pan to poach a couple of eggs, and the other little details required for getting this first meal of the day going.
Besides showering, tooth brushing, and such, we try to squeeze in a few more minutes online, catching up with the bits and pieces of news and personal interests surrounding our hobbies before we have to make our way to the car. On the drive to Caroline’s office, she’ll be arguing with me. Not really, but this is supposed to be about the grit that my idealized waxing about our good fortune neglects, so I thought I’d throw that in there. Actually, on most days, she is reading to me from the passenger seat. At the moment, we are reading the lengthy tome titled “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara Tuchman, which weighs in at over 780 pages.
On occasion, we’ll mix things up and add some spice while taking a pause from our current book to dip back into “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” which we’ve been reading for a few years already. This book of five volumes stretches across 3,600 pages, and we are currently in volume three. Written in the 16th century by an anonymous Chinese writer (or writers), it has been nice to pick up from time to time using it as a kind of soap opera break from our usual non-fiction routine. Revisiting the characters a couple of times a month for years lets us feel a kinship and familiarity with the people that live on with Hsi-men Ch’ing.
At this point, Caroline walks into her office after some lost minutes, during which we stare goofily into each other’s eyes and feel awkward about people walking by as we kanoodle. With that, I’m likely off to some random coffee shop for writing and the beginning of our chatting with each other over the course of the day, sharing a few moments of affection here and there.
From writing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, or dabbling on my synthesizer, my day is one of maintenance and, to a large extent, goofing off, seeing I’m trying to be honest about the non-glamorous side of life.
Eight hours after dropping off the wife, I’m back in her area to walk around and up my step count before she emerges from her office building. It may sound impossible, but I don’t believe she ever fails to greet me with a smile from afar before getting in the car and then professing her love and how happy she is to see me. The next question is inevitably, “What’s for dinner?” My answer is like a clockwork that is redundantly stuck in the same moment into perpetuity, “Food.”
Because the subject is “The Dark Side” and in the spirit of trying to keep this real, it often happens after Caroline has to cork things off all day; she’ll hotbox me in the car in the mistaken belief I won’t notice if it’s silent. To this day, she still doesn’t understand how I qualify a fart held for hours as being obviously stale as opposed to fresh.
Sometimes, we’ll return to the book, but usually, we’ll talk about events that occurred over the course of the day. At home, unless we stop somewhere for dinner, I’ll busy myself finishing dinner or getting it going if it’s a simple preparation.
The next four to five hours for Caroline will be split between fiber arts, the internet, watching a DVD, and often all three at the same time. As for me, if I’m not watching screaming human candles run around, I’m doing something with Blender, Bitwig, the synth, or my blog. Oh, I almost forgot to share that there’s a decent amount of pestering I perform with near habitual regularity where I poke, prod, and offer all kinds of “treats,” such as hickeys that Caroline turns down with equal regularity. Through all of this, we try to smile and laugh with one another multiple times a day before converging in the coziest of beds ever created for taking two people to sleep.