20140707.0714

Today, I am trying to return to what passes for normalcy for me--which is not "normal" as most understand it, I admit. My wife and I are currently enjoying an inversion of several of the normative gender roles prevalent in the perception of mainstream US popular culture; she works, while I stay home to take care of the house and those who dwell in it. As such, I have some cleanup to do from the trip; there is laundry to handle, and there are dishes that need washing. (I do reserve the right to write a bit and to have a cup of coffee before I go about doing so, though.)

To that end, I am glad that the water is back on at Sherwood Cottage. It is not because of problems paying bills that the water was turned off, certainly; I cut the requisite check as soon as I received the billing statement, and it appears to have already cleared my bank. No, it was off in the evening because of something that happened a couple of houses down from me ("down" being higher-numbered lots, thus farther away from the origin point). I am not sure what caused it, but a water pipe going to the house in question burst, and it did so on the city's side of the water meter. As such, city crews arrived to work on the problem, and doing so required that they close the main that serves Sherwood Cottage.

I understand the need to do so, of course, and I acknowledge that the inconvenience imposed upon me was only an inconvenience. But I am nonetheless reminded of the precarious interconnections upon which I rely, and I doubt that I am alone in that reliance. It is some way to the nearest water source for me if I have to carry water by hand, for instance, and I know that my skill set is not such that I would do well at foraging for my own food or food for my family. I suppose that makes me something of a parasite, or would did I not contribute in some small way to the betterment of that body from which I derive sustenance. I am perhaps as one of the bacteria in our guts, distinct from us in fact but vital to our ongoing lives in the aggregate. Some of the work I do, whether on The Work or elsewhere, is needful, and all of the work that I and those like me do is necessary even if any single worker is eminently replaceable.

It might be asked why I would contemplate such things. They cannot conduce to my comfort. They certainly do not ring of that which builds up a person. They are images that do not need to be taken far to unravel, since it is not at all a great cognitive distance to travel from gut bacteria to feces and flatus, and thinking of myself as mostly belching forth stinking gases and producing waste is hardly flattering. It is what I am trained to do, however, and I cannot but do as I have been shaped by myself and others to do. I cannot but be as I am made to be. And so I will be getting back to chores and The Work soon.