fog and thunder on Mt. Oread
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if only I hadn't already bought my sink and toilet this princess pink pair would be very tempting...
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You all know that I'm fucking nuts, so this will come as no surprise.
On Monday, I was at work, bored, staring down an afternoon with little to do. I did what anyone with a serious mental illness would do: I faked a headache and left work to go work on the house!
I put in a good five hours, feeling pleased that I was getting closer to being ready for my drywall contractor to work next week. The next morning, it occurred to me that I already had an excuse in place, so I called in sick. Good thing I did.
At about 9:30, my drywall contractor called to say that his schedule had changed. He could either start on Wednesday or he wouldn't be able to get to it until the new year.
My people, you know what I did. I said, "Start on Wednesday," and then I threw my ass in gear to get ready for him. I knew I had at least two more days of work to do, so I figured on at least 16 hours. It ended up taking a little longer than that. It was my first and hopefully my last home remodeling all-nighter. Because it's one thing to pull an all-nighter, sitting around eating pizza and studying. It's another thing to spend all night standing on a ladder, scraping, peeling, sanding, and priming.
At about 8 pm, I broke for dinner and went down the block to the nearest fast food place. In the shape I was in, I would normally have gone through the drive-thru, but the bathroom in my basement is sooooo cold. I was willing to face a little public humilation in order to put my ass on a toilet seat that was not glacial.
I took my pee break and went back out to order some dinner. People stepped away from me in line. At the counter, the cashier recoiled. Now I knew I was dirty, but until that moment I hadn't realized just how dirty. I had a cloud of dust and debris around me--the pulverized particulate of fifty years of bad wallpaper choices. And probably not a little in the way of lead paint chips. The cashier didn't even bother to ask if I wanted my food to go; she just bagged it up and handed it to me from arm's length. Only then did I notice the little semi-circle of dust and detritus that I'd left at the counter where I'd been standing.
But wait, there's more. At midnight, about 15 hours into my ordeal, I was dying. I could see I had at least 3 more hours of work and maybe 5 hours. I went out to the local quickie mart for coffee and another pee break in non-artic conditions. An elderly man stood by the counter chatting with the college age cashier. Clearly the old man had reached that point in life where he no longer really needed sleep, so he'd taken to hanging around pestering cashiers at all-night quickie marts.
When I approached with my coffee, the old man smiled at me and said, "Why don't you let me get that for you?"
I was already in a slightly stunned state, but I managed to say, "No, that's okay. I got it."
He persisted, but I already had my money out on the counter.
Having failed to buy me a coffee, the old man said, "Do you have some place warm to stay tonight?"
Yes, that's right, my people. I was so bedraggled looking that I was mistaken for a homeless person. I schlepped my crusty, dusty self back to my 2 bedroom gulag, and went on with the work. At 4:30, I put the last strokes of primer on all the cut wallpaper seams, and dragged myself home to shower and sleep for a few hours.
For the record, I do not recommend this, but I do now have sheetrock on my walls.
plus pumpkin lasagne.
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...or maybe a hoarder with a tendency toward minimalism?
I hate throwing out things that still have a useful life. I loathe waste. You'd think I'd lived through The Great Depression, the way I cut buttons off of torn (irreparable) clothing, save boxes and lidded food containers (cottage cheese, sour cream, ...., etc.), and stash away scraps of paper that still look too useful for the recycling bin. The trash can is a very last resort in my house, and a shameful one at that. To throw something away is to be defeated, to not have the wit or creativity to find another use for it. I get anxious and a little angry when I hear people mentioning that they threw out old clothes and furniture and stuff, rather than donating it somewhere.
I'm thinking about this now because I just spent 30 minutes sorting old mini light bulbs saved from 20 years worth of holiday decorating. I tested all of the bulbs and sorted them by base style. I just got a package with 60 brand new replacement bulbs in the mail, bulbs that are exact matches for the strings of lights I have now and shold keep my lights lit for five years or more, but it made me want to organize the mess of old bulbs. The whole time I'm sorting the old bulbs, one half of my brain is pleased with my thriftiness, and the other half is screaming at me to just swipe my arm across the table and fling all the old bulbs into the trash. In spite of that screaming voice telling me the old bulbs are not worth valuable time and storage space, I still found myself with handfuls of burned out bulbs, hesitating over the trash can, wondering if there wasn't some other thing that could be done with them, maybe something decorative??? As for the bulbs that tested good still? They're organized in piles on the table in front of me, taunting me. They want to be put away and saved "just in case", but they're also laughing at me because I can't bring myself to just throw them away. I'll leave them there a while and think on it. Maybe I'll wind up throwing them out just because I get tired of seeing them and debating with myself. I kind of hope I throw them out, but I can't bring myself to do it just yet.
Old light bulbs, many of which don't even fit in the light strands I have - this is something that will eat my brain cycles while I try to decide whether to throw them out or keep them. It's only the fact that clutter makes me extremely uncomfortable that keeps me from being a pathological hoarder. It's a very strange issue to have as an internal conflict.
It does some good though, honestly. I've learned that it's better to not bring home things you don't absolutely need. I've learned just how quickly that shiny new thing becomes clutter, and how annoying it can be to have to find a new home for it just to avoid the shame and guilt of throwing it out. I don't make frivolous purchases any more, so I don't waste as much money as I once did. Plus, I do wind up using some of the stuff I've stashed, and I find myself grateful for having it on hand when I need it rather than having to go out and buy something. It's a good thing to think seriously about everything you consume, to know what you really need and what is likely to wind up feeling like a burden until you finally admit defeat and put it in the trash. I even shop a lot more carefully for the things I do decide I want/need, researching to make sure it'll do what I need it to do and that it will last.
But right now..., do I want these old bulbs or not? I'm thinking not, but I'm also starting to get art/crafting ideas for the burned out bulbs and I'm giving serious consideration to pulling them out of the trash. argh.
Normally about right now I'd be stressing out in a major way. I love the holiday season, but just cannot deal with the stress and chaos of it all. December traditionaly makes me want to hide; it wears on me until I'm prone to tears and tantrums at every little thing. This year though? Don't care.
A week in Ireland alone with my BFF and soulmate over Thanksgiving has completely reset my perspective on things this year. I wouldn't say I don't care about anything, but so very much of it all really isn't important. My yard looks like a muddy war zone. Don't care. I've only barely put up any of my holiday decorations. Don't care. The outdoor lights we did put up before we left, were a mess up front and not working at all out back when we came home. Don't care. Almost all of our many strands of indoor lights are completely non-functional in a werid coincidence. Don't care. I've only just started shopping for gifts, and though I know what I want to give people, I haven't actually got anything yet, nor have I started making the gifts I want to make. Not worried. We may or may not get cards in the mail this year -though I don't even have any picked out (or made) yet. Don't care. Our schedule for the month is cram-packed and already there are double-bookings. Whatever.
It's just not bothering me. Vacation is always good. Vacation in Ireland with my sweetie seems to have been the perfect medicine for my holiday nerves. Bloody brilliant. I expect these holidays will be so very far from fancy, organized or even pretty, but given the difference from my unusual December state of mind, I'm also figuring they'll be the most pleasant I've had since I was a kid and had nothing more to worry about than being good for Santa.
I think maybe I'll hang another garland and a wreath or two today. Maybe do some online shopping. ...Then again, *shrug* maybe not. Definitely need to make a latte to sip while I get some work done though. It is the holiday season after all! :)
I've just gutted my entire house, right down to the studs, and am slowly rebuilding it. After months of nothing but demolition, I'm finally starting to reverse the process. My bathroom contractor is working today to get ready for my tile guy. The insulation guy worked yesterday, so the house is nice and cozy now. (Right, except that I have to put the windows back in.) On Tuesday, the sheetrock guy comes to start putting my ceilings and walls back.
Just as soon as I wrap up my work in the attic: 2 more ceiling joists to sister, one more ceiling fan mount to install, plus 3 more fixture mounts for other lights. I'd planned to sister all the 5 ceiling joists that need it this weekend, but Tuesday I created a little emergency. While trying to rip out a piece of planking in the wall that had bowed and split--thereby preventing the sheetrock from being flush--I discovered that two of my ceiling joists were actually resting on that plank, instead of on the exterior load-bearing wall. The reason? when the foundation failed in the 40s that wall bowed out about three inches, and the joists slipped off it.
Which is how I broke my nose. With all that weight on the plank, it was under a lot of pressure, so when I finally managed to pry it off the studs, it came loose at high speed and whacked me in the face. I blacked out for about a second, before that little quiet voice in the back of my head kicked in. You know, the little voice that whispers, "Maybe you shouldn't take that short cut," and "Get up and check the door." My little voice said, "Don't fall off the ladder."
I didn't. I managed to get myself down the ladder, my head ringing, and my dust mask filling up with blood. As I was just starting to wonder how badly I'd fucked myself up, I heard this soft groaning sound and looked up. Above me, the ceiling was sagging about three inches. Not terrible, but likely to become so.
This was at about 8 pm, and who was I going to call for help? Sure, 911 would take care of my face, but they wouldn't do anything about my ceiling joists. So I went out to my truck, grabbed the jack, and a couple of 2 x 4's on my way back through the garage. I slapped one 2 x 4 up to the ceiling with a pair of screws (thank you, trusty cordless drill), wedged the other one up under it, balanced on top of the jack, and cranked the ceiling back up to the proper height. Contrary to my expectations, it worked perfectly. After all, that little jack was designed to lift one quarter of my truck, so it was strong enough to lift one tenth of my ceiling.
Then I could worry about my nose. Luckily I still have a kitchen sink, so I went it and pulled the dust mask off. Blood, lots of it. I washed off a bunch of it, but I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't really see what the damage was. I had half a bag of ice in the freezer, so I grabbed that, stuck it on my face and drove to my temporary digs.
I kept the ice on it for about five hours, and that seems to have done the trick. I have a bump, a bruise, and my eyes are a little black, but my nose is straight. I'm pretty sure it's broken, because I can feel it wiggle when I laugh, and my eyebrows actually hurt.
Episode 2 was me calling into work sick the next morning. Only I didn't stay home. I couldn't. I went to the house and crawled up in the attic to sister in the three joists that just couldn't wait for this weekend. Then I had to repair and replace the plank I'd originally been intending to fix when it bitch slapped me. I won the rematch.
I haven't been getting solid, regular sleep for weeks now and I get kind of pinched and cranky, which makes me prone to bouts of madness, ...more so than usual. I have imaginary arguments with voices in my head, and the imaginary snowballs and spills out into the real world.
I'm not going to delete the post in question because there is some genuine frustration and honesty in it, but at the same time, I've chilled out a bit and realized how stupid and self-centered it is to bitch about people wanting to make me happy.
I'd prefer my holidays to be easy and meaningful, but it's occurred to me that plenty of people must love the chaos and consumerism too. So, if anyone is wondering what they can do to make my holidays happy, I'd ask for simplicity and some quality time. For those of you that love the holidays large and loud, I hope you get just that, and if I can find a way to contribute to the chaos, I would make the effort just to bring you a little holiday joy. ;)
Every year a few people ask me that question, and every year it catches me completely off guard.
I'm almost 40. I left home and started supporting myself about 20 years ago, half my life now. When there's something I want, I budget for it and buy it for myself. Why would I ask other people to buy me stuff at this point in life?
Still, I'm always asked. You'd think I'd know to have an answer prepared by now. It just seems so damn weird to me. I'm flummoxed.
So, I'm thinking now. What do I want?
I want:
- A lovely little home on the west coast of Ireland with a view of the Atlantic
- Enough money that I not only never have to work or want for anything ever again, but also enough to insure the same for my loved ones, with plenty left over for my favorite causes
I guess I could stretch my mind a little and delve into the highly unlikely:
- World peace
- A rocket ship with warp drive so I can tour the universe
- A safe, functional teleporter for more mundane travel needs
- A polar bear I can ride around town to do my errands.
Besides, shouldn't gifting be a from-the-heart thing??? I don't want people to do my shopping for me. If they come across something they want to gift to me, then that's really thoughtful and appreciated. If they don't, I'm absolutely fine with that and certainly not keeping score. Uhg. I really hate how complicated people make holiday gifting. Talk about taking the fun and meaning out of it!
How about a realistic answer, just for the people who really want to give me something they know I'll like?
- Consumables - wine, cheese, chocolates, candles, stationery, soap, ... LOVE these things! Doesn't even have to be difficult or expensive. Buy me a loaf of delicious bread from your favorite bakery, or some jam you've had that's so good it makes your eyes roll back. Those things would be excellent gifts!
- Make me something. I LOVE homemade gifts! Bake me cookies, make an ornament for my tree, draw me a picture, have your kids draw me a picture -or hell, print out a nice photo you've taken! String some beads. Hey, just jot down your favorite recipe for me! All absolutely lovely gifts!
- If you don't want to make me something, buy me something lovely that someone else has made. Support independent artists and entreprenuers. I love that!
- Make a donation to a good wild-life/conservation organization in my name. How about a local soup kitchen? An art scholarship fund?
- Seen something pretty that made you think, "Jen would love that!"? I very likely would. Shiny things, pretty fabric/scarves, gorgeous yarn, pretty paper, ...
A lovely little home on the west coast of Ireland with a view of the Atlantic, please.
Vacation pictures need to be sorted and memories still need to be jotted down, so instead of the beautiful landscape of Ireland, I present you this morning with my yard:
As for the pets graves, I'm sure my girls have moved on by now. I'll pretty up the ground there in their memory.
The front sidewalk is another story. That's going to be a pain until we can get it repaved. We're supposed to let the dirt settle over the winter before even attempting a sidewalk, so that means six months of mud. I wonder if we should put some straw down? And I have no idea what we're supposed to do to keep our mud sidewalk free of ice and snow all winter. This is Main Street, and people walk here all day every day. ...Well, they used to, anyhow. heh.
So yeah, my yard is a total mess. The words "war zone" have been used by friends. Craig put things in perspective though: "Water flows in, shit flows out, everything else is just details." :) He's so wise. We did get all of this replaced just in time to avoid immanent disastrous emergency repairs, so that's awesome. Our lovely little homestead does such a good job of warning us about these things.
And, like I said, this gives us the chance to regrade the yard and replace the sidewalk, things the house has needed badly ever since we bought it, and I get a blank slate as far as new beds and plantings in the spring, without having to dig up clay and sod, which is thrilling.
Ok, yeah. I feel much better about this mess now. All is well. Water flows in, shit flows out, everything else is just details. :) Life is good.
