Let them sleep in the middle

2005-02-06 - 11:42 p.m.

If you do something bad on purpose, but then go back and fix it before any harm comes of it, does it still count as being bad?

I have a parking space reserved for me in the parking garage down below my apartment building. All the spaces are very small and I do believe mine is one of the most difficult spaces to get into. I'm good at it now, but I used to have quite a bit of trouble parking there and I will admit that I ran into a certain cement pillar once and scraped along the wall on the other side once too, although not recently. Anyway, one side of my space is a cement wall. It's on the passenger side if I pull straight in so I generally get as close to the wall as I can just to leave as much room as possible between me and the space on the other side of me. The person who parks there drives a large truck. Yesterday morning I went out to get in my car and found this:

The truck was parked over my side of the line so close to my car that I couldn't even get in far enough to reach my door handle let alone try to squeeze in. I was so angry. I really don't like feeling angry. I think I'd rather feel depressed than angry. I wanted to do something bad to get even with the driver of this truck. I wanted to go back to my apartment and get something to smash his windows with. I wanted to let the air out of his tires. I wanted to throw a bucket of paint on his windshield. I wanted to do something, and I was appalled at myself for wanting to do these things. I ended up just going for a walk instead.

This evening I came back to my car and the situation hadn't changed at all. I was able to squeeze in the passenger's side by the wall and crawl across to the driver's side and get my car out. I went out grocery shopping and when I came back, the truck had moved. It was no longer over the line, now it was simply on it. And it was backed in...meaning its driver's side was on my side. I was struck by a sudden fit of fiendishness and backed my car in too, pulling as close to the truck as I could manage. If there were four inches between us before, now there was less than one. And I could easily get in and out my driver's side. Of course the truck had a bench seat up front so the driver could easily get in the passenger side and slide across, but still, it's the principle of the thing, right?

So I went inside and unpacked my groceries. But I was feeling bad about what I had done. I did my dishes and cleaned out the things that were growing in my fridge (guess what, Thanksgiving leftovers won't keep until February...) and then couldn't stand it anymore. I went back down to the garage and moved my car. I centered it in my spot. It's still a pretty tight squeeze to get into his truck, but that's his fault for parking so close, not mine, and no matter how close he gets I can still get in because my driver's side is towards the wall.

I'm such a wuss. Imagine how I would feel if I had done something truly bad.

Last Monday I went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned for the first time since moving to Seattle. My new dentist seems very nice and I think I like him. I think perhaps they may be a bit too nice at this dental office, but I won't complain about that just yet. The miracle is that I don't have any cavities. Unfortunately, he referred me to a periodontist for my receeding gums. Once, years ago, my orthodontist suggested getting them fixed by grafting skin from the roof of my mouth onto my gums. That sounded like just about the most horrible thing to me and since my dentist never brought it up, I never did either. But it looks like they want to do it now. I'm going to go see the periodontist on Wednesday to see what she thinks about it. But the other thing was that I brought up the subject of my chipped front tooth. The dentist thought the chip was so miniscule that it didn't need any sort of attention whatsoever, but I wanted it fixed because I had already felt the chipped spot get bigger once and I didn't want that to continue happening. So a few days after the cleaning I went back and had that little spot filled in. It was cool, I was very happy with my freshly whole front tooth...up until a few hours ago when I rechipped it. Damn it! It hasn't even been a week! The chip is still miniscule but it's much rougher this time. I'm going to call the dentist tomorrow to see what he thinks about it. I mean, since it lasted so little time don't you think he should redo it for free? Or come up with a better plan? Or at least give me my money back? I don't know, I'm very annoyed by this though. The worst part is that it's my own fault. This chipping is caused by my bad habit of chewing my lips. But I can't seem to stop. I just do it without thinking about it. As soon as I stop thinking about not doing it, then I'm doing it. Unless I'm chewing gum or something, which isn't something I really want to do all the time. Ack.

Today I hung out with Duke again. We drove over to Redmond and went out to lunch at the Claimjumper (his choice, it certainly wouldn't have been mine) and then went to see "In Good Company" (also his choice). The movie was ok, but nothing spectacular. The best part was the ending, although only barely. Afterwards we went to Borders where Duke bought a couple of books but I bought nothing (good me). I'd say one of the things Duke has over Magellan is reading. Duke likes to read and even though he hasn't done much recently, his interest in reading was resparked just from being around me. Magellan doesn't like to read and claims that he never has. Today while driving back from Redmond we even had a discussion about books. It's funny that our reading interests overlap so much and yet we've read so few of the same books. He came over to my place briefly so I could give him my paper shredder to borrow for a few days and then he went on his way.

Keith Urban is coming to Seattle next month. I'd love to go to his concert. Magellan offered to go with me, which was nice of him, but I turned him down because he's not a country fan. I wouldn't want him to be bored out of his mind and hating it. It's really no fun going to a concert with someone who has no desire to be there. I've done that, it's not worth it. And he didn't say "No, really, it's ok, I'd like to go with you," or anything along those lines, so I'm thinking I made the right choice.