Heard while I was doing the treadmill:
1) “That’s the thing with the internet; nobody sounds like they really are.”
Interesting. But pretty much everybody I know sounds just like themselves, even on Facebook. Not that I read a lot. But Rachel sounds ex-actly like herself when she blogs. As do Lorena, and Laura, and Lorri and Char and Ginger. So maybe I just know people who are unable to be anything but themselves.
And when I think about it, maybe all those folks who love the anonymity of screen names, and who say things they “never would have said in real life”? Maybe they do actually sound exactly like who they really are, and it’s the way they act in face-to-face life that’s the fake?
2) “It was pre-tty great being me today.” I think I can actually say with complete truth that I have never felt this way even once in my entire life. If the day was awful, obviously, I wouldn’t say any such thing. But if the day was delightful? I’d feel guilty. Like somebody made a mistake somewhere. That it was just dumb luck things turned out well when they could have turned out the way they SHOULD have turned out. Because that statement seems to mean that because of who you naturally are, and because of what you’ve chosen and accomplished, great things have happened – thanks to – you just being you. I can’t imagine any such scenario in my life.
So I am asking here – have you ever felt that way? Because I really want to know. What was the day like? What was the occasion or non-occasion? Tell, tell, tell me please.
REAL BUSINESS
Here are the pictures that will bring my construction story pretty much up to date: the outside framing is finished. Now we wait for the other big but not-so-exciting-and-earthshaking things: roofing, electrical, window replacements, dry wall, paint, carpet. Could be weeks. Could be months. Meanwhile, I do not believe I have these rooms attached to my house. They are imaginary – through the looking glass. All on the other side of pierced but sealed-with-plywood blank walls.
G, perusing the space he has to wire up. This is the new downstairs space. I have been in it three times since it sprang, fully grown, from Les’ forehead. Remember that this is a wide-angle lens, which means that objects in the image may be (are) smaller than they appear.
G and Todd – long time friend, fellow musician, and construction maven. They are wiring now. See the yellow Romex? We know they are safe because nothing in this side of the house will turn on.
The bedroom that was. See the dust? NO. See the line on the wall where the headboard has been sitting for 30 years? Yes. Turned out (thankfully), we didn’t have to move all the furniture out of the room. There was nowhere to move it. Not one single inch of space anywhere left in the house. The books took up all the rest.
Where the old window was.
The old, crampy, teeny-tiny bathroom, which is about to have teeth removed.
The new space which is upstairs over the downstairs new space. Here, Todd really is clowning around, although I know that, from time to time in the studio, there have been tense artistic differences –
G. Striding. And the new windows. Which are SO much bigger than I thought they would be. It will take half an hour every night, just to close the blinds. I’ll feel like an old time lamp-lighter. Except in reverse.
Good bye old window. Hello arch into the new space. This is the origin of the arctic air that has taken over the upstairs of our house. It is very fun to take a shower in the bathroom, there, careful of stepping on nails, and with no doors to close, and with arctic air freezing the pipes. The plywood they put over this doorway shuts out some of the wind. But plenty slips up through the floor joists. Brrrrr.
I put this one in because I love the way that yellow extension cord, caught in a slower shutter speed, spreads and becomes almost transparent as it moves.
The new arch from inside. THERE IS A DOOR IN MY BEDROOM WALL. Leading—where? It’s like falling through the looking glass.
The still-winter view out of one of the new windows. Picturesque shot of monster.
And out of another one. Misty, this one’s for you.
A new dimension to the old face.
Maybe. If it ever gets finished. And I ever get used to it.
Now everything is just turned on its head. I am sleeping on the two couches shoved together in the den, G on the Japanese futon in the living room, braced by puppies. I can’t find anything. But then, maybe I never needed most of that stuff I can’t find anyway. Piles of clean laundry soften the lines of the living room furniture – and where will I put all of these things, once I’ve folded them? I know where my desk is. It’s that place where, come Monday, I’m going to have to do some serious tax preparing and bill paying. Surely all that still must be done will make the time between now and M’s homecoming speed right by? We’ll see. And when the dust settles, and all is in place, will I worry that the real people who live in this unfamiliar house will come home and find me hanging out here?
Chaz – you are never again allowed to buy Girl Scout cookies. This afternoon, you completely turned on my sugar drive with them. Thin mints – argggfgggg.
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