There are not too many people of whose lives I am envious. This might sound a bit off considering I spend so much time here on my blog bitching and moaning about how difficult my minute to minute existence is. But it is true. This life kicks my ass on a daily basis, but it is mine and I like that. However, there are a few people who although I would not forever change places with I might like to spend an afternoon tooling about in their shoes. One of those people is a friend of mine who lives in the Pacific Northwest. She runs her own web design business and does quite a bit of traveling to warm, exotic places. She always sends me her Kodak galleries of these trips and although I am compelled to love her because she is my friend, I sort of despise her for her fancy home and her mobility to places beyond her front door.
Another person I often envy is Dooce. As a fellow Heather I suppose on some level I have a need to loathe her. Aside from that wacky brain chemistry that occasionally knocks her on her ass or puts her in a hospital bed, she really seems to have a great gig. Sure her child is a pain in the ass. I fully understand about that, I have three who are like hemorrhoids on my bottom side. This woman has a gorgeous, if slightly sterile-like Pottery Barn home, and she gets to enliven so many of our days with the daily tid bits of her existence -for pay. And if this is not too much, she has Jon. Now I obviously don’t know this family and appearances can be misleading, but the two of them truly seem to have something good going on in their relationship. They work from home, together. They collaborate on projects, together. They even go to pick up their daughter from preschool, together. I don’t know if they do this everyday, but from her post it sounds like a fairly common occurrence. When I read that post few weeks ago I had to go to bed for the rest for the day such was my grief. I can’t imagine ever loving another person so much as to commit to decorating a house as they they do or working side by side day in and day out as they do. Jon has stuck by Heather through so much, and if her writing is at all telling she is rather high maintenance. He appears to be a big, ole computer nerd and she indulges his whims for cords and things with knobs on them. They appear to have a simpatico, a peace, an understanding.
Obviously the strain of no man in my life sometimes gets to me. Would I really want one right now? No. My daily plate is so full it comes with additional a la carte shit I never even ordered and would like to send back. But sometimes when I read something like Dooce and the good times they have, I have a pang for something other than what is in front of me. I wouldn’t trade in the kids but I might have a gander at the man part of the package and ponder the possibilities that an afternoon might have to offer.