Leaving things open

I guess this is an appropriate first post - Nick always yells at me for leaving things open. Mainly, it's the half dozen doors of our kitchen. There are twist-lock cabinets, squeaky sticky drawers, even every once in a while the fridge door (that was worse in our old place because the fridge was older and the rubber seal was unreliable). The more I think about it, the more I realize I do it everywhere. I always have three books lying around, spines cracked open or stuffed with a pincushion of markers. I leave my pants in crumpled heaps on the floor, inviting toes to step in and with a shimmy, be pulled up and zipped into use. I leave the bed unmade, hanging wide for easy entrance.

I realized this all when I left the door to our medicine cabinet yawning tonight, and caught myself in the reflection as I was walking out of the bathroom. It was one of those weird, it's a stranger in my mirror moments. I get them more often when I'm walking down the street and catch myself in a store window. I don't recognize my stride or the jut of my chin for an instant, see myself as a third party. A strange sensation, at best, a disheartening or disjoint-ing one at worst. I wish I could do it on a less physical level. People are easy to characterize by their foibles and habits. Oh, she would check her email at four in the morning, oh, he would forget to lock the back door, oh, she would be offended by the accidental eroticism of "every wife deserves a facial." How do people describe me? Oh, she would cancel after agreeing to meet at a party, oh, she would complain about people leaving candy out in the office kitchen. Oh, she would be too nice to stand up for herself.

Oh, she would leave the door to the microwave open all night.