je suis un homme

Two of my studio's fluorescent lightbulbs died at almost the same time today: the one in my bathroom and the one standing guard over my kitchenette. They were bulbs of different lengths, and not really bulbs in terms of their shape (Korean fluorescent lights look like skinny tubes bent into rectangles: thus). The bulbs' nearly simultaneous deaths elicited much wallpaper-blistering profanity from yours truly, but I did my duty and tromped out to the local store to buy replacements.

(Even as I was swearing at the corpses of my lightbulbs, I had to marvel at the simultaneity: there must be some precise engineering that goes into bulbs that somehow manage to die at the same time after having been, presumably, installed at the same time.)

Replacing lightbulbs doesn't make you a handyman by any means, but it does fill you with a deep sense of grim satisfaction when you put the mounting back in place, flip on the switch, and bathe yourself in renewed incandescence. It's one of the few moments in life when you can definitively say that you've accomplished something—something useful.


_