Grouchy, Unpleasant Me

The sanding block that's doing me in.

I didn't sleep well last night. I was dreaming about working at the house. It was actually more relaxing to just be in bed awake than sleeping and working. So that's pretty much what I did from 2:30 on. It's hard to figure out why sometimes I sleep better than others.

Anyway, today is Friday and I am glad. We have worked hard all week and I am looking forward to the weekend off. I think my body is too. My arms are sore again from sanding walls yesterday, and that is kind of hilarious to me because the sanding block weighs almost nothing, and is made out of foam. I realize that the only thing lighter than foam is air, or feathers maybe, but I swear it has exhausted my arms just the same. Apparently I do not raise my arms above my head often enough to hold a piece of foam. That’s pretty embarrassing.

I really enjoy the work though. It's different from what I normally do, and I am finding that in addition to being sort of tedious it is really satisfying too. The ripping things out was fun, but I am enjoying the putting back together even more.

I don't know why, but I still think of the house as an orphaned thing, and the more I fill holes in walls, the more I see the abuse that 20 years of not caring has inflicted upon it, and the better I feel about patching it up, and taking the imperfections and making everything whole again. It is somehow a wonderful feeling to find an ugly scratch, caused by who knows what, and fill it in with vinyl compound, and then smooth it out until I can't even feel with my bare fingers that it was ever there. I wish holes in people were as easy to fill as holes in houses. There would be a lot more happy people around. I feel that if Miss Meadowlawn were alive this would be considered the healing time. First we had to get rid of all the bad, cut it out, rip it up and take it away. And we were left with an empty shell, exposed and damaged, but still solid and strong deep down, where it counts (thank goodness!). And this week, and probably next, we are taking the time to fix her, to remove those old memories from her to erase the lumps, bumps, scratches, dents, cracks, and holes caused by angry people swinging doors too hard. I am filling in every pin hole that ever pricked our dear girl, and as soon as we prime her, no one will ever remember they were ever there. And I love that feeling of helping and healing.

*So after that rather poetic paragraph…We got mostly nothing done today! Lol. Typical. Despite not sleeping well, the day started off pretty well I thought. But as it wore on we couldn't seem to get much accomplished.

It's tough moving to a new state. There are so many things to do that are just way more complicated than they ought to be. Changing addresses, registering vehicles, getting new ID, insurance...the list goes on.

And I was feeling tired and short tempered all day, which translates into an unexplainable inability to make even the most trivial decisions, which in turn pisses me off, which in turn frustrates me and makes me grouchy and mildly to moderately unpleasant to be around. Basically it sucks for everyone. So we didn't go to the DMV like we planned, and didn't get any work on the house done. What we did do was spend three hours at Menards to order two doors and some cement board. What we did do was spend three hours walking back and forth through the store looking at all the things we may or may not want to buy for the house; counter tops, trim, backsplash, shitters...LOL. Opps! I meant shutters. Although we are looking for shitters too I guess... And it's just so many decisions, none of which we made, and so we will just have to go back and do it all again some other day and actually purchase stuff for real, and that thought just exhausts me.

Sometimes I wish there weren't so many options, sometimes I wish you could just walk into a store and say "Hey, I need some trim for my living room" and there would only be one kind there, so you could just take it, feel good about it, and get on with your life. But noooo. That’s not real life is it? In real life there is plain wood trim, there is primed trim, there is trim already colored that you never have to paint. You can choose a simple design or an ornate one, or any of the fifteen variations in between. You can get it in 1/2", 3/4", 1", 3", and if you really want to shell out the big bucks in 6". You can get some that's plain and painted and it will cost you the same as one that is plain wood but much more decorative which you have to paint yourself. You can budget $2.25 a foot and still have eight different kinds to choose from.

And so you find yourself standing in the same isle for an hour, surrounded by a hundred and fifty different kinds of trim, trying to sort out all these options you don't want to have, but are now compelled to consider. And suddenly the pressure is overwhelming, and your stomach is growling because lunch was an hour ago, but you missed it because you got sucked into the black hole of choosing trim, and you feel faint. At that point there are only two options. Option 1.) You throw your arms up in the air and exclaim "fuck it" and grab four of whatever is closest to where you are standing, buy it, and nail it up before you can change your mind or 2.) Quietly hang your head in defeat, accept that you are never going to actually buy trim, that your living room will be forever trimm-less, and go get a sandwich.

That's what I felt like all day today, with every single thing we looked at, and I am sorry to say that for the most part I went with option 2. My sandwich was tuna on whole wheat, and it was delicious.