Where I Am: the Mean Streets of my Condo Complex
What I’m Doing: Walking said Mean Streets
Ah, the mundane, how you dominate my life. I’m walking to my car after dropping off some garbage in the dumpster.
There’s a rule at the complex that large junk has to wait for the quarterly visit of the large dumpster. This has led to some creative garbage dumping. On this particular day, peeking out from some strategically placed black garbage bags, was a 32″ TV. Hardly noticeable.
Where I Am: At the Movies
What I’m Doing: Basking in the afterglow of Pan’s Labyrinth
We saw two movies over the weekend: Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth.
Both were amazing.
Both were nominated for Best Cinematography Oscars and for good reason.
Children of Men has some of the most amazing tracking shots ever put to film. The fact that they’re not at all flashy and do nothing to take away from the characters or story makes them all the more remarkable. The continuous take in the car scene blew me away and it didn’t even register with some of the people I was watching it with until I pointed it out.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a reminder of how truly terrifying fairy tales are. There’s a lot of horrific things going on in the real world (they make up at least 2/3 of the movie) but I was never as terrified as when Ophelia was in her fantasy world. The Pale Man was wonderfully realized: there’s nothing so terrifying to me as something menacing in wait.
If you haven’t seen either, they’re two movies that are well worth dragging yourself out to the theater for. You’ll be happy you didn’t wait for the DVDs.
Where I Am: Outside a Home Depot (I think)
What I’m Doing: Raising an ant farm on my face
I was well aware that I have a big fat head long before this project started.
Now I’m forced to face the fact that I look hideous with facial hair.
I used to have a rule that if I’m in need of a haircut, I stop shaving so the itchiness of facial hair would force me to a barber. This rule not only failed to work a good 95% of the time, it also led me to look like a disheveled creep. This is only a few days’ worth of growth and it looks as if I broke the legs off a million cockroaches and hotglued them to my face. The incongruity of the facial hair just adds to the awfulness.
The other thing I’ve learned from this project is that, despite the fact that they make up 100% of my wardrobe, I don’t know how to maintain a collared shirt. The collars are all curled like a wilting flower.
I’m a damn mess.
Where I Am: Outside my Condo
What I’m Doing: Clearing the snow off Lisa’s car, warming it up
Don’t let this winter wonderland fool you. It was gone by the afternoon.
I’m outside this early because I’m starting Lisa’s car for her. This is an act of kindness that is usually only performed on days where I get to sleep later than her. Regardless of the weather outside, her car needs to be started and she’s running so late she can’t do it. Of the many times she’s dragged me out of bed to do it, this is the only time where it actually needed to be done.
My car’s wiper fluid sprayers are on the fritz, so I’ve been dreading the post-snow salt encrusting of my windshield. Since the snow was so light and since it had melted by the time I left the house I was able to avoid it, but I’m sure I’ll be depending on the Force to drive fairly soon.
Where I Am: In the car, headed to the bank
What I’m Doing: Not paying attention to the road
I’m not sure why I look so stoic. My fat face doesn’t lend itself to smiling but that’s no reason to mope, especially when it’s the first snowfall of the winter.
I think I’ve told at least 5 different people that it was the first time we haven’t had snow fall in Central Park in December since 1892 (which isn’t the right date, it’s 1877. 1892 sounds better, though.). I don’t know why I thought this particular factoid was interesting enough to make an appearance in several bouts of awkward small talk, but there you go.
We won’t have that same problem for January, as this picture demonstrates, This isn’t a very good picture (not that any of these are) but it’s the only one where the snow looks like snow and not rain or shows up at all.
Where I Am: The Office Yard
What I’m Doing: Balancing a piece of flue pipe on my head
I found a piece of flue pipe that, when placed on my head, made me look like a robotic Abraham Lincoln.
Well, it made me look like an Abraham Lincoln that wore a metal hat.
At the very least it makes me look like a fat man with a flue pipe on his head.
I think that’s an achievement.
Where I Am: The Living Room
What I’m Doing: Tucking Bowser in for the night
When we first got Bowser, he slept in the kitchen in a bed in a cage (with its door open). We didn’t want to give him free range in the house because of what he might do while we slept.
Like any parent, we eventually grew lazy and soft. We brought the bed out into the living room and let him roam as much as he wanted around that part of the house. We kept (and keep) the gate blocking off our hallway so he can’t come to our bedroom door to annoy us while we sleep.
As soon as he was strong enough to jump up on the couch on his own, he made it his new bed. The cage is gone now, donated to an animal shelter (or maybe we threw it out. I think we’ll stick with the nobler one) and so is the bed that was in it.
We’ve got two fuzzy red blankets and he makes a cocoon out of them for his bed.
I’m helping him along here.
Where I Am: Twin Peaks (actually the parking lot of a Staples in Yonkers, NY)
What I’m Doing: Taking a crappy photograph and not noticing
Since this is the only picture I took yesterday, it is, by default, my picture for the day.
This is all the sun had to offer for 3:30 in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful day for an accidental murder in the Arctic Circle.
Well, it’s mostly official: my ring is gone. We took out the seats and tore apart the upholstery to no avail.
I’ve already been shot down on my suggestion of a Lord of the Rings replacement. Lisa’s only other requirement for the new ring is that it’s bought soon.
Time to go see if gold decoder rings are available for overnight shipping.
Where I Am: On the couch
What I’m Doing: Shamefully staging a photo. Mission accomplished!
The dog actually fell asleep while I was pretending to be asleep. It makes the photo all the more adorable.
The calm in this picture says nothing of the whirlwind of activity in my house in the past few weeks. The whole damn thing is in upheaval.
The main bathroom has been entirely redone: new bathtub, new toilet, new sink, new tiling. Soon, there’ll be a new floor to go with it.
The kitchen has been repainted, the counters have been removed in preparation for new countertops. New cabinets have been installed, giving us something to do with the left side of the kitchen other than a repository for dog waste. We’ll have new appliances within the next few months.
The entire living room has been rearranged and rewired. All of the electronics have been moved to the other side of the room. The bedsheet formerly serving as the screen for my projector has been replaced by an actual screen.
There’s a giant tapestry of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle hanging over my bed now.
Little things have changed, too. All the doorknobs in the house have been changed, so now we can lock each other out of rooms temporarily during fights. The knobs and handles on every folding door and cabinet have been replaced. The decorations for both bathrooms have been put in place after months of storage.
The constant change has put us in a few awkward positions.
For one, when the tub was removed, xmas weekend hit before the new tub could be installed. This left us with a pipe sticking out of the wall at the level of the tub spout. We showered in the squatting position for the long weekend (and the two sick days the guys installing it took afterwards) which is every bit as pleasant as it sounds.
I’m not as comfortable with change as I thought I was. Well, to be fair, it’s more the prospect of change that has me constantly second-guessing the wisdom of what we’re doing. When actual change occurs I embrace it and welcome even more in its direction. I just hem and haw when it comes to getting a project like this started. I think the problem is that what “this” refers to is interchangeable with too many things in my life.
Where I Am: In my semi-newly painted kitchen
What I’m Doing: Something previously thought impossible
This photo is not photoshopped in any way. I am actually working to improve my home.
This is above and beyond the standard cleaning and maintenance required of me. If you asked Lisa she would tell you that I do not clean around the house and in fact make it messier just by my mere presence. I am, in her eyes, some horrible progeny of Pigpen and the Tasmanian Devil, leaving destruction and a thin veneer of filth in my wake. While I do have a propensity to take a few shortcuts now and then, I do more than my fair share of cleaning around the house. Lisa is currently running a scam in which she asks me to cook/clean as a favor to her since her back/shoulder/neck/ass hurts or since she worked all day. This may seem perfectly harmless but the scam part is that she has rerouted her neural network so that any favor asked of me performed in her stead is actually a check in her column, not mine, and in arguments she can still claim that I don’t do anything around the house.
This, however, is an entirely different matter. We’re currently renovating the kitchen and just had the walls and the cabinets painted. I’m installing new handles on the cabinets, brushed metal affairs that, combined with the new cabinet colors, give the room a lot more light, unlike the old cabinets and handles which were composed mainly of dark matter.
The odd position I find myself in is that, while I wasn’t really behind this whole project at the start, now I’m invested in seeing it to completion. Details that before went unnoticed now stand out like a sore thumb. The old rangehood now looks like it travelled through time from the 50s in order to spy on our kitchen. The refrigerator and dishwasher, previously given a passing grade, could now be mistaken as items salvaged from a shipwreck. The oven, already slated for removal and replacement, lends the cheery air of a man marked for death. I’m honestly thinking thoughts like “Man, I can’t wait to see what the new countertops look like. I can feel my testicles straining to escape their confines to seek greener pastures.
I’m not as in love with the new wall color as I am with the cabinets. It’s not so much a dislike as a not-used-to-it-yet. It’s a striking change from the half-Lassie-era wallpaper, half-bare, crumbling wall motif we had going. The color’s been compared to a blue found mostly in aquariums and I couldn’t muster a compelling argument to the contrary. There’s nothing particularly wrong with aquariums. I just don’t cook a lot of fish.
My living room is painted a blood red so deep that I’m surprised some enterprising goth didn’t snatch the place up before we did. It somehow brings a warmth to the room as well as a “Hey, strangely that looks nice” reaction from everyone upon first seeing it. I’m sure the previous owners had the same reaction as we’re having to our kitchen when they changed their living room from some neutral, inoffensive color, to it looking as if the elevator doors from the Shining had opened in their living room.
