The microwave is dead. Long live the microwave!
As you can see by the martini shaker and vermouth bottle (just ornamental, of course!), the microwave was huge. It dated to the early ’80s or even late ’70s, and originally belonged to my girlfriend Sharon’s parents. They gave it to us around 1990 because it was old(!). The thing was almost three feet wide and two feet tall and weighed at least 80 pounds. Not surprisingly, Sharon didn’t take it with her when she moved to Austin in ’94. The microwave was built like a tank (if I had decided to invade Poland, I’m sure it would have performed like a champ) and never faltered through the years I was with Elise.
Then, week before last, maybe an hour after the phone call where Elise and I agreed we should no longer be married, I noticed the digital clock on the microwave was not on. I unplugged the cord and replugged it—and heard some very strange noises coming out of the oven. Wondering what kinds of cosmic rays I had just been zapped with, I quickly unplugged it again. And that was the end of that.
Cosmic coincidence? Or just that fact that nearly 30 years of warming things up was enough? I don’t know.
I do know it cost $60 for a new microwave, much smaller and probably better. But I had just been hit with a $1000 car bill, and had to spend $500 for a pair of new crash cymbals. The CHECK ENGINE light casts a baleful yellow light in my car ($160, new sensor should be in stock tomorrow) as I drive to midtown to meet the divorce lawyer (no contest, $700). It’s a cold, windy day, and my hair whips around my face every time I get out of the car to run a couple additional errands (Target: $20, grocery: $25).
The glasses I am wearing are eight years old and so scratched I can barely see out of them. Just before New Year’s I managed to hit my good glasses with a drumstick (in 35 years of playing I’ve never done that before) and broke the frame. The optical shop told me it would take a couple weeks to get them fixed; after a month they were finally ready. I tried them on and noticed one lens seemed to be smeared, so I asked the counter woman to clean them before I left. It turns out the repair process had crazed the anti-glare coating and they had to be sent back to the lens company. Should be a few days, but actually it was another month. I called today, and the guy said they had just come in, and now he has to get the lenses into the frames—should be done by the end of the week. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, but I’m sick of the eyestrain from two months of looking at a computer screen through old scratched glasses.
I always tell people that a freelancer has two emotional states: in one, there are no new projects coming in and you’re convinced everyone hates you and you’ll never work again. In the other, there is far too much work to be done in the time allotted, you’ll miss your deadlines, your clients will hate you and you’ll never work again. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. At the moment, I’m finishing up a few projects, so I’m in the former state.
So it’s just that February thing, when the whole world is like that old snow piled every place that’s the least bit shadowy. It’s dirty and gritty, and the sun brings no joy because it just illuminates how grimy and tattered everything looks, all shades of brown and gray. The wind howls and finds all the chinks in your jacket, and the thought of spring is an illusion, an impossible idea existing solely to taunt you.
I’m not asking for sympathy. Well, I suppose in a sense I am, because why else would I write this? But honestly, I’m just trying to explain. I feel ripped off, but nobody is ripping me off. It’s more like a lot of cycles are ending at once. A bunch of worn-out stuff has to be replaced. Elise and I have lived in different cities for three years; she’s doing well in Albuquerque, and I’m laying the groundwork to do really well here, as I redefine whatever the hell it is that I do. It’s time for both of us to acknowledge the changes that have happened and give them room to grow. She’s still my closest friend; nobody can make me laugh like she does. We just have to laugh over the phone, that’s all.
The sun is up a little longer every day. A few daffodils are poking up through the grubby snow, and one of these days I’ll have my glasses back to see them better. Maybe spring isn’t an illusion.
Maybe it’s a dream.
The microwave is dead. Long live the microwave!
