Perfectly acceptable people start out their day with one asking the other, “So, what do you want to do today?”
What follows is a perfectly acceptable day with perfectly acceptable goals, with accomplishments and tasks that happen in no specific order. Perhaps a visit to the winery? Should we walk the dog? Let’s prepare meals, and make sure to work out, but you said you wanted to shower and shave, and don’t forget to remind me to run by the house before we hit the mall. There’s a party, but no one’s going to be there until 9, but so and so hasn’t text back.
6 hours later, food has been made, a shower and shave have occured, and for the fourth time the same piano song has been played while the goings-on in the kitchen continue to go on. There’s no rush, there was no real plan, and there’s no harm and no foul. These perfectly acceptable people have time to kill, are basically on vacation, and have most of their monetary concerns covered by rental properties or parents.
Perfectly happy people laugh about their teenager friends and their weird comments or decision making. They run the dishwasher or start the blender to match, practically on cue, the second a noise comes from anywhere else in the apartment. The kitchen, despite the dishwasher running, will not be clean the next time someone returns to it. While one perfectly acceptable person continues to play, interrupted only to change into “let’s go” clothes, the other decides instead of going, better address taking the dog out instead, leaving the player to go back to playing.
It’s perfectly acceptable to have a lack of urgency, a delay in your intention, if agency at all, or to have no idea what you truly intend until you happen to find yourself pouring over something new like a thick slow glaze applied to a donut. It’s perfectly acceptable to not worry about just what it is you’re doing and how you are or aren’t responsible for it. To be perfectly acceptable is to just do, just laugh, just play, just make some noise and repeat yourself, never forget to repeat yourself.
Given that I’m not perfectly acceptable, every waking moment feels like a scene in a tragedy. I started going through a course on website creation, and then my predictions came true. In fact, the moment I started, so did the piano. If a confusing section came up, that’s when the blender started. It’s perfectly acceptable to play piano, to cook and use a blender, and it’s not theirs or my fault that on my forced day off in this tiny space is at once the time for their activities and mine. But it doesn’t work, and it can’t last.
You’re either happy, along for the ride, blindfolded and securely fashioned, ear muffs snug, tongue dry and crusty flapping in the wind, or you’re terrified and unhappy leaning over the side attempting to straighten out the rail and keep the bolts tightened so you all don’t die in some horrendous fashion. I see personal problems I can’t address but for the passage of time and sacrifice of my body. I see big whole-life issues I can’t even pretend to begin to address in any form of timely fashion. As far as everyone around me is concerned, that’s perfectly acceptable. It’s acceptable as Wheat Thins open and on the counter for weeks, because it’s a counter, after all, it holds things. Remaining open makes for easy access. As long as the Wheat Thins don’t fall off or through, everything is fine.
With the perfectly acceptable people out of the way, not without one last piano piece, I can finally pretend to have the focus and resolve to complete another pithy introduction into something I won’t have the time to understand or experiment with for a while. I’ll eye the book I’m not going to read when I’m done. I’ll hesitate to start one of the movies I planned to watch. I’ll think a little bit harder about the bottle of rum, but mostly, I’ll be perfectly unacceptable, by myself, doing everything in my power to find a reason that it can be regarded as perfectly acceptable too.
