Happy bearding. I’ll see the new, badass version of you in a month.

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I explained to #1GF! that the internets take priority over packing, but she had this strange look in her eye and I think I caught a glimpse of her choking hands. I did not think it prudent to requisition a lackey to pack things for me at that juncture, so the posts are going to slow to a trickle for a little bit.

If anyone wants to spend this Saturday wrenching their backs moving people who are past the age where they should be asking friends to help them move, call me or #1GF!. For the rest of you, check out a few of the 1500+ posts in the archives and wish us luck…

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Sunday (Day 525): Two Small Failures Was Plenty

We went to the house in the morning to install the bathroom mirror, but couldn’t figure it out. We moved on to installing the numbers, but I found that they were made to be stuck to a plaque instead of screwed into wood. We didn’t have a plaque. That was strike two. Before we hit strike three, I suggested that we give up on the house and go shopping for furniture. It seemed like a better use of time, and I was sensing imminent failure, so I thought I should get away before it happened.

Monday (Day 526): Numbers, Mirrors, And Toilet Paper Holders

I went to house in the morning to get a couple of things done. I started with installing a new set of numbers that we bought the night before. I found the center of the door, which didn’t end up being the center of the light above it, so I fudged a center for the numbers somewhere between the two. I measured to where I thought the numbers should go and then hung them with masking tape. I stood back several times tweaking their locations to make them look normal.

When I got them where I wanted, I drilled the pilot holes. I coated the screws with caulk and drove one screw into each of the numbers. When I got to the final screw, I drove it in and broke the number in half. I stood there staring at it for a second and then said “No way.” I had to laugh because I’m really starting to think that the house is resisting all of my attempts to tame it. I knew that if I ran out to the store for a new number right then, something else would inevitably go wrong and require another trip later. I abandoned half hung numbers and moved on to installing the toilet paper holder.

I noticed the screws that the screws included with the toilet paper holder were an inch and half long, which would have driven right through the cabinet that it was going to be attached to. I looked for more screws in a couple of the coffee cans full of screws that homeowners accumulate over time, looking for four matching half inch screws. It took me longer than I expected, but I eventually came up with a few good matches.

I took the screws into the bathroom and took out the toilet paper holder instructions. I’ve installed a toilet paper holder before, and the installation is far from complicated. All you need to know is how far apart the sides have to be. This one had instructions that went something like this: 1. Install one side of the toilet paper holder at appropriate height. 2. Install other side levelly.

Hey, instruction writing fuckheads: The only thing you had to tell me was put the mounts for each side 5 and 15/16 inches apart. That’s it. If I have to guess, your instructions are worthless. I knew that the only way I could goof would be to make the thing too thin so that it wouldn’t fit a roll of toilet paper. Being in an empty house, I didn’t have a roll to guestimate with. I jammed it the holder back in the box and decided I’d get another one that spent two minutes on their instructions.

I had failed twice on two minor projects, so I decided to try to repair the hole left when the last contractor replaced the electrical service. I was swimming in blown in insulation feeling around for rafters, but I couldn’t reach the hole from the inside. I dusted off and went to see if I could close the hole from the outside. The simplest thing I could do to keep squirrels from using the hole as a gateway to a winter hideaway was to fill the hole with expanding foam insulation. You’d think I’d have sworn off the stuff after someone filled my vent pipe with it, but even though I didn’t want to buy it, I really didn’t have another option. So that’s what I did.

As a note to anyone else who uses expanding foam insulation: use gloves. I was using my fingers on the stuff a lot. I know the warning says not to, but I assumed that the warning was just for ladies who want maintain their smooth Palmolive hands. It’s not. It took about a work week to get the stuff off of my hands, and it picks up all kinds of dirt, making your hands look grungy as hell.

Once the hole was as sealed as it was going to get, I went up to clean the attic. I nailed down a few boards to repair some of the holes that the last contractor had left for me to fall through. The electrical inspector came by and made two quick checks before passing us. Once he was gone, I headed out to get some new numbers. Of course the one that was already up needed a match from the home improvement megastore that was the furthest from the house.

I picked up the numbers and tried to find some oversized switch plates to cover the massive holes that the plasterer left around the outlets and switches in one of our rooms. Of course, they didn’t have what I needed. I decided that I’d buy the number I needed and then go to the next megastore. The number was $3.99, and I had four singles and a twenty. I scanned the item, put in the four singles, and waited for my penny. The machine waited for its nineteen cents. I forgot that I do not live in tax free, New Hampsire. I had to break a twenty dollar bill for that nineteen cents.

I left there and went to the next megastore looking for oversized switch plates. They had what I needed. As I was standing there, a guy walked in front of me and picked something up. He stopped and looked back at me. “Did you drop something?” he asked. What a fucking stupid question. I went through my pockets and pulled out some wadded twenties. I pocket my money like a seven year old, and it looked like it could’ve all been there.

“If you found a nicely folded twenty or something, it’s not mine. Enjoy.” It might have been, but I didn’t think so. I never would’ve seen it on the floor anyway, so I figured, “Fuck it. Someone should have a lucky day”. He walked away happy. I was feeling like Mr. Lucky. I went back to the house and started working on the attic again before a piano fell on me.

The contractor called to tell me that one of his guys would be by to help me install our bathroom mirror and sister up the beam that had to be cut to repair my insulation-filled vent stack. He asked if I could hang out and give him a hand. I would be happy to help because I was solidly clueless about how this mirror should go up.

The contractor’s guy showed up, and it was a 1.5 man job that required me to balance between trying to help and staying out of the way. Mostly, it was better for me to stay out of the way. I helped him install the mirror by watching.

#1GF! came home and I showed her the oversized switchplates to see what she thought of them. If she wasn’t keen on them, I’d plaster and paint the holes. Luckily, she was fine with them. We headed back to one of the Home Improvement Stores to return all the mirror stuff that we didn’t end up needing. It was late and I said that we didn’t have to go, but #1GF! wanted to help out, too. On the way home, we grabbed some subs, and I tried to figure out where the day went because I felt like I had been in motion all day without accomplishing anything.

Tuesday (Day 527): LOR Is a Day Late

Wrote LOR in the morning and then went out to wait for the plumbing inspector. We passed, but with the caveat that the water temp needed to be turned down. The inspector turned down the temp on the tank, but marked it on the permit anyway. He looked at our washer and dryer and made a comment that we obviously didn’t care how much we spent on the house. Even considering the guy didn’t know all the headaches and extra expenses we’ve had to get this job done, I still thought it was a pretty fucking flip thing to say. I just smiled because I wanted to pass. I guess that’s what it means to grow up. You can’t tell people to go fuck themselves as often as you’d like.

I went home to continue working on LOR. I was a day late, but it’s not a post that I think I can skip. I checked my stats for the first time in a week, and I had been running between 5-8,000 visitors a day, which really isn’t bad for me.

The contractor called and the basement door and attic window would be repaired today. I went over and let the guys in at around 3. I went home and published LOR. It was a day late, but I was working on the house for a week and didn’t have time to write it. I checked my mail for the first time in a week, and found an e-mail from a blond guy who was going to attempt a beard over the next couple of months. MaBeGroMo is coming, and we can use all the participants possible. I think a beard fills in after a couple of months no matter what the hair color, anyway, so I offered the guy what I could for encouragement.

I called the kitchen place to check on the status of our remaining drawer pulls and to see if they thought our faucet was operating normally. There was no status. The floor guy called, so I set up a meeting with him the following day to see what he thought of some of the floor issues.

Went back to the house to check on the window and door once #1GF! got home. It was all done. #1GF! dragged me out to dinner, but I won’t pretend that I was kicking and screaming. The contractor called in the middle of dinner, and because of his ringtone, the whole restaurant was subject to the theme from Good Times (any time you need a payment). Ringtones that bite you in the ass make life a little more fun.

After dinner, #1GF! and I went out to try to find some cheap rugs. The only thing we found out is that cheap rugs shed like mad, so when you’re trying to make a joke like you’re rolling around on one, you end up coated with hair. As we were walking through the store, #1GF! pointed out the “Valet De Douche”. I have no idea what it was, but I took a picture of it. Douche valet. Bwah ha.

Wednesday (Day 528): Dryer Vent Take One

I went through a week’s worth of stats in the morning, and then ran out to the bank to pick up a check for the plumber. After the bank, I went to the house to meet the floor guy to talk about a couple of issues. He fixed one of them with a floor guy magic marker. He’s really good at what he does, so I have to trust that he knows what he’s doing, but a magic marker just seemed wrong.

Three copies of the Sun came in the mail, and I was indeed in there. There was also a naked chick on page three. I had no idea Page three girls were naked. Call me American, but I do not expect to see boobies in the newspaper. That was a shock. Or a pleasant surprise.

The floor guys hung around to see my article, and on my first pass through, I couldn’t find it. On the second pass, I found it but it wasn’t nearly as big as the online piece. Even thought it was a blip on the page, it was still pretty cool. The floor guy was pretty surprised that the only reason that I was in the paper was for growing a beard. Honestly, I think it’s pretty surprising too.

We all left and I went home to check my e-mail. I got a call from the plumber to meet me at the house so that he could level the toilet tank and pick his check. He did both. He told me that our vent stack insulation story had become something to talk about around the plumbing supply house. Great. He also mentioned that he hoped we nailed the guy who did it.

When he left, I stayed to put in the new toilet paper holder. While I was sitting there reading the instructions, I heard someone talking and couldn’t figure out if someone was in the house or not. It turned out to be one of the contractor’s guys who showed up to trim out the front windows.

He put pine on it because he said that the plastic stuff would break because of the piss poor job the last contractor did. He didn’t want to put up the better stuff because I’d just rip it down when I fixed the rood in the next couple of years. It seemed a little like putting up the cheap stuff instead of the good stuff (and I will have to paint it), but the guy hasn’t steered me wrong so far.

I went home and floundered with writing. I had a bunch of half written posts, and no real desire to get them completed. I felt like I should be packing or doing something on the house, but I also wanted to get a post out. Instead, I just checked my e-mail over and over hoping something important would come in and need my immediate attention. Nothing did.

I got a message from one of my old college roommates, who we nicknamed B.A. BArakus. I was a real friggin’ douche to the guy (like most people back then), so I was surprised to hear from him. I’m always surprised to hear from people from the past.

In the evening, I got called back to the house to explain to the contractor where I wanted the dryer vent to go. I let him hear his ringtone, which is the theme from the show Good Times, because “Gooooood tiiimes” has become somewhat of a catch phrase on this job. I explained where I wanted the vent, and after a test cut in the wall, we found 3 wires blocking the path. Why wasn’t the vent already installed before the walls went up you ask? Have you been paying any attention? My first contractor had no idea what he was doing.

So we’re standing there looking at the hole in the wall, and my options were to cut through the newly installed shelving and go through the roof, or call the appliance guy who already told me that a bottom vent for this dryer was too complicated to install. In either case, we were going to have to cut through the floor and the outside wall to vent the thing. I don’t really know how I got nominated to cut through the outside wall with a hammer drill, but I said that I would. You know I’m going to measure fifteen times and then fuck it up. I always fuck up the first try and learn from my mistakes. If I had to cut two holes, the second would be perfect, but the first one is always a wreck.

#1GF! showed up at the house and I explained all the issues to her. Nothing is fucking easy on this job. The vent was the final thing that we needed done before the floors, and it had turned into a huge thing. We came to the decision that there was no good way to do it, but bottom venting the dryer would probably be the best solution. #1GF! and I went home and had some pasta, which for Italian blood, is like a carbo loaded pacifier.

Thursday (Day 529): Dryers, Granite, And Frustration

I woke up before the alarm because I couldn’t help trying to solve the dryer vent problem. I ate a couple of packets of instant oatmeal for breakfast that had been sitting in the pantry since 1996 because I hadn’t done any shopping all week. As I tried to get #1GF! out the door, she realized that I was giving her the bum’s rush because I really felt like I needed to go to the house to try to solve the dryer issue. She resisted, and I freaked out a little.

I just started in on a tirade about how fucking frustrated I was with the whole dryer issue. I was wondering in what universe it made sense for me to cut through the outside wall of the house. #1GF! asked me why I had agreed to do it, and I had no idea. The previous night, I spent a lot of time facing a crew of guys asking me what I wanted done. I would tell them, and we would hit an impasse. They would suggest something else that would require ripping down the shelving, and I would shoot that down. It was constantly trying to figure out a way to vent a fucking dryer. When I got asked if I could cut a hole in the wall, I sort of agreed to it just to keep the process moving without realizing that it didn’t make any sense for me to do it.

#1GF! asked if I wanted her to take the day off. I told her it was a waste of her time because I was just frustrated and tired of hitting issues with every little fucking thing that had to be done. I explained that everything would be fine, but I was just doing it all wrong.

In business, things change all the time. You don’t get frustrated about it. You simply adapt and find a new course of action. I couldn’t do that here. I think it’s because when I worked I knew that people could change things a hundred times and at the end of the day, I would take the same amount home with me to relax. In my current situation, there is no check, and there is no place to relax. As much as I want to, dealing with this shit is not as easy as it is dealing with business issues because I have more invested in the outcome.

When they change things at work, you go home and find some peace. When your life is about changing specs, there is no peace. There’s no balance. There’s no payoff. There are no vacations, there is no paycheck, and there is no reward. Plus, if you’re working, you get paid whether it’s a shitty day or a good one. If you do really well, maybe you get paid more. On my good days, I pay. On my shitty days, I pay more.

Imagine if you were at work and personal issues cropped up every two hours that required you to leave work at a moment’s notice. Even if you hated your job, you’d end up frustrated because you would never get anything done. That’s where I’m at. I can’t write because every minute I take to write feels like it has to take a back seat to the neverending house renovation. When I finally have a minute to sit down and write, half the time, I’m too irritated or distracted.

The contractor called in the middle of all this looking for a status on the dryer. I didn’t have one because I hadn’t called the appliance guy yet. I was too busy whining like a cranky baby. I got #1GF! out the door and then called the appliance place, who told me that the appliance salesman wouldn’t be around until 11:30. That fucked half a day. I looked up bottom vent kits for the dryer and then went to the house to see if I could find a solution. After an hour, the only solution was still to bottom vent the dryer, which required having the dyer taken apart.

Because I still had too much time before 11:30, I tried to plan out the phone, cable, and network wiring. I went home at 11, feeling like I was just wasting my time. At 11:30, I headed over to the appliance place and took Neutral Milk Hotel with me. For some reason, I find that their disc, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea hits a nerve and calms me down. I have no idea why.

I went to the appliance place at 11:45 and the salesman told me that the dryer couldn’t be bottom vented. The manual said that it could, and he once told me that it could be, so I got him to agree to send someone out to look at it. The soonest that he could get anyone out was the following Monday. I asked for sooner, but there was nothing that he could do. That pushed cutting the dryer vent and refinishing the floor off a minimum of four days. Days that we are quickly running out of.

I let the contractor and #1GF! status messages and drove home. Any frustration that was lost in the drive over was back full force. On the drive back, I started narrating what I was doing in my head in the third person. It seems crazier now than it did then…

“Random leaves darted over his windshield as he drove down the winding New England road. He turned his head to the left to make it easier to scratch a frustrating itch on the back of his head. He knew it was more of a mental itch than anything else, but even mental itches need scratching. He passed a grandfather and grandson, and noted how happy and relaxed the looked walking through the autumn leaves. It gave his mood a benchmark that made it seem even worse than it was. At least he wasn’t driving on the sidewalk and laughing maniacally. “Just breathe,” he thought. “Everything will work itself out.” If he only believed that he might not have mashed the accelerator…”

During all this, I kept rewinding “Two headed boy” whenever it hit the two minute mark, not allowing it to finish or help in any way. I was really aggravated by things that were way beyond my control, and instead of trying to calmly work through them, they were working through me.

As I drove, I realized that being a man has something to do with convincing your loved ones that everything will be fine, even when you think that it won’t. It’s about pushing everything down and being a shield. It’s about having conviction. That’s something that I seem to have lost somewhere along the way.

It could’ve been the loss of religion. Realizing that there is no god for you means that there is no one out there watching over you. You are on your own. Bad things can’t be brushed off as happening for a reason, because there is no reason. When everything is fucked up, you have to dig deep and deal with it. There is no master plan for you. There is no comfort for you. Things don’t happen for a reason. They happen, and they are not necessarily going your way. You are here, and you are alone. There is no one in your head but you.

I really thought about taking a long drive to sort of clear everything out, but realized that I couldn’t go anywhere because the granite people were scheduled to come in and fix our backsplash. I was trapped. I drove right by out apartment because I didn’t want to give that thought four walls to highlight it. I went to the beach and sat in my car writing all of this down as people walked by.

I went to the house and waited for about an hour before the granite folks showed up. It’s the story of my life these days. I wait for people. That’s what I do. When they finally arrived, I found out that they were waiting for me at the wrong address up the road. They got started and asked if I had any wood to mount the granite. I didn’t. I had to look through my attic to find some. Then they asked if I had a saw and a screw gun. I said that I didn’t, but I’d go to my apartment and grab one.

I brought back a portable saw and screw gun, and they weren’t powerful enough for what the guys needed. They ended up cutting the wood with a granite saw. I guess the guys thought that they were just coming in and the supporting wood would already be in place, but they took care of everything and it came out great.

They finished up around 4, and I went home to read some feeds and ended the night watching Dexter, a show about a serial killer. It seemed to help.

Friday (Day 530): Laughter Makes For A Good Day

I wrote a single post all day long and included a video as part of the post. I think it got a little out of hand, but I was really happy to be able to write all day.

While I was reading a few of my feeds, #1GF! called. She told me that a friend of hers had called all the way from Florida specifically to tell her how funny she thought I was, and she wasn’t talking about my fashion sense. That was sort of cool. It really was turning out to be a pretty good day.

As if it couldn’t get any better, #1GF! saved me the trouble by doing a full load of grocery shopping. When she had a minute, I asked her to look over the post that I had been writing all day because I wasn’t sure if it was funny or not. I was laughing at it, but usually that is the kiss of death for a post. If you laugh at your own jokes, the odds are that they’re only funny to you. She went through it and laughed harder than I could’ve expected, but at the wrong time.

It was harder than I had seen her laugh in a long time. Whether the post is actually funny or not, when she laughs hard enough to cry, whether it’s funny to anyone else is sort of inconsequential. She is a large part of my target audience, and if she’s laughing, I might not necessarily think I’m funny, but I think I’ve done my job.

Saturday (Day 531): Family Parties and Balloons

#1GF! made coffee and pasta salad while I sat around like a dumbass. For some reason, I couldn’t seem to get moving. We went to her family’s for a birthday party, and had a pretty good time. You know when there are balloons, people will feel compelled to keep them up in the air? Well, there was a room full of people of various ages, keeping a room full of balloons in the air. It went on far, far longer than you would’ve expected.

I got a couple of phone calls, and one pissed me off. It sort of went like “Hey, know what I’ve been sitting here laughing at? Your girlfriend introducing you to people and telling them that you have no job. And then that you can’t even afford a razor.” I just sat on the phone and wondered if the guy was working a bad angle for a joke or if he thought that I was some sort of asshole.

I blew off the whole conversation rather than explore it, but it has stuck in my mind for a few days. Leeway is something that I give in appreciation, so if you see me backing up, don’t take it as sign that you can back me up. That just going to lead you somewhere you don’t want to be.

#1GF! and I left there to go fix her mom’s internet issues, and then went out looking for new furniture. We zeroed in on both a couch and a mattress, but didn’t buy them because I don’t trust the house and I always feel like there are thousands of dollars of repairs lurking around every corner. After that, we went out to dinner and headed home.

What I Learned

• Chaotic business dealings are easier than personal dealings because you have less invested in the outcome.
• This house refuses to let me tame it.
• I’m getting very close to my boiling point.

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Sunday (Day 518): Lord And Lady Douchebar

We started the day by bringing all the lights over to the house because the electrician was scheduled to finish up this week. After everything was loaded in, we opened the bathroom mirror and found that it was broken. We sort of stood over it for a minute before making the trip to Lowe’s to get another one. I opened that one in the parking lot to make sure that it was fine, but it ended up being broken the same way that the last one was. We returned that mirror too, and didn’t take our chances on a third. We were now back to square one on what we were going to do for a bathroom mirror, and we were not too psyched about restarting another decision process.

So, we didn’t. Instead, we went out looking for a regular, screwed to the wall shower curtain rod because I hate tension rods. I have many reasons for this, but very few of them are valid. After searching at least three different stores, and yet another simple thing was turning into a process. I was not amused.

I was amused by being able to ask #1GF! if we needed a “douche bar”, and then would point to the package with raised eyebrows and say that I was just reading what the manufacturers wrote. She was unamused, but it ended up being the highlight of my day. I’m even considering referring to shower curtain rods as a douche bars on a permanent basis. Thankfully for #1GF!, douche bars don’t slip into conversation all that often. Douche bar. Doooouuuche Bar. Douchebardouchebardouchebar. Heh heh.

In our search for a solid douche bar, we occasionally veered off to look for some cheap rugs. We didn’t really find anything, because it seems that “cheap” and “normal looking” aren’t necessarily compatible in the world of rugs. It was like going to buy a cheap sweatshirt and finding that everything in your price range had a cat in gold sequins glued to the front of it.

#1GF! got frustrated because of my irrational hatred of tension shower rods and my inability to accept any of the cheap rugs we saw, and I don’t blame her. Sometimes living with me can’t be the easiest thing in the world. Sure, everything comes with a side of humor, all your spiders get sqooshed, and you have someone to defend you until the bitter end, but I can see how my irrationality over seemingly inconsequential details could be maddening.

We went to buy some vitamins and other stuff at the giant super drugstore that really does sell sweatshirts with gold sequined kitties on them, and then went to Chili’s for a late lunch. I’m going to write this as a reminder to myself: At Chili’s, you pay $9 for a friggin’ sandwich, and that sandwich is invariably going to suck ass. Next time you go in there, you are not allowed to bitch about it, because you knew the deal ahead of time. The place is a pit, and it always smells like industrial-strength cleaner mixed with something stale. The next time that you suggest Chili’s and #1GF! reminds you how much you hate it, you are not allowed to dispute that fact. And if you do, you can’t bitch about the dog shit that you pay $9 to eat. #1GF! may point to this paragraph as proof of how much you hate it there. Yes, you do.

We returned to the house later to try to figure out what height to install the bathroom light given #1GF!’s fancy mirror requirements that, in all likelihood, will be forgotten before they are met. We had a minor argument over it, but got over it quickly. We went home, and didn’t end up eating dinner because of the late lunch. I think I might have had a bowl of cereal or some corn chips, but I can’t say for sure.

Monday (Day 519): Damn You, Douche Bar!

I wrote LOR until 2:30 and then went to a small, local hardware store in my quest to find a non-tension shower rod. They didn’t carry them because they dented so easily, so he sent me to an even smaller hardware store that seemed like it had been jammed into a house against its will. They had exactly what I was looking for in the attic in what seemed like it had once been a small bathroom.

By the time I got the bar back to the house it was 3:30, and I had an hour to install it because the sun was going down and I still didn’t have any lights installed in the bathroom. I tore open the packaging, and found that the rod was dented. Sunufa. I sat and stared at it, but that didn’t make the dent go away. Saying “Come on, man” didn’t seem to work, either. Normally, I would’ve returned the rod and got another, but it was under $8, and I decided that I just didn’t fucking care. That rod was getting installed in the next hour, and if the dent became a problem in the future, I’d spend another $8 to replace it.

I installed the rod and was home by 5. I tried to write a post for Tuesday, but ran out of time before I had to make dinner. I made the raviolis that my uncle bought for me for fixing his computer. He was right: they really were some of the best frozen raviolis that I have eaten. He estimated that if I was really hungry, I could probably eat ten of them. I ate twelve, and later realized that I should’ve stuck with my uncle’s recommendation. Twelve big raviolis is a lot of cheese.

After dinner, we watched Run, Fat Boy, Run, which had way too much romance and far too little humor to hold my interest for long. I decided to clean up the dishes before it was over, but #1GF! watched it through to the end.

Tuesday (Day 520): Slave Mentality

Before she left for work, #1GF! mentioned that she wanted me to schedule the floor guys to come in. Because I wasn’t sure how long the electrician and the contractor would need to get their work done, I wasn’t ready to schedule it. #1GF! really wasn’t happy with this, but there was nothing that I could do. I wasn’t going to pay to have the floors redone just to have some workers come in and accidentally scratch it up.

Once she left for work, I headed over to the house to explain to the electricians where the various lights should be installed. They were a half hour later than expected, so I wandered around the house trying not to notice all the plaster and paint issues staring back at me. I eventually went down to the basement to pick a spot for my work bench because there isn’t much to look at down there.

The electricians showed up and said that it would two or three days to get things done, so I was glad that I didn’t call to schedule the floor guy in. I left them to their work, and headed out to do the food shopping.

The minute that I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, the electrician called to tell me that we had bought the wrong type of under-cabinet lights. I needed low voltage lights, but had bought lights that were wired for regular voltage. They would have to be returned for something that was compatible with the under-cabinet wiring. I didn’t mind running out and picking up whatever it takes to keep the job going, but now I had to drive twenty minutes back to the house. I had just taken a pointless, forty minute drive to see a parking lot.

I arrived at the house, and the electrician was waiting for a call from the electrical supply place to see what king of lights I should pick up. They called back while I was there, and we found out that they didn’t have the lights we needed, so the electrician would have to figure out something to make it all work. He would compile a list of things that he needed by the end of the day so that I could make a single trip to the store and wouldn’t waste time running back and forth.

Unfortunately, I had wasted the time to come all the way back to the house for nothing. He asked me to weigh what my time was worth versus the cost of driving back and forth a couple of times. That’s when I said it.

“My time isn’t worth anything. It’s free,” I said. And when I got in the car, I started to stew.

My time isn’t worth anything. I can run around on everyone’s fucking whim and do whatever they need because my time isn’t worth shit. I don’t have a job. Oh, I’m getting one because this IS FUCKING BULLSHIT. I’M TIRED OF FOOD SHOPPING AND RUNNING AROUND LIKE A FUCKING IDIOT. IF I’M GOING TO RUN AROUND LIKE A FUCKING IDIOT, I MIGHT AS WELL GET PAID FOR IT. MY TIME HAS NO FUCKING VALUE. The only people who’s time isn’t valuable is a slave’s. I have a slave mentality. FUCK.

I pulled over to call #1GF! to tell her about the lighting situation and tried not to be a frustrated prick. I failed miserably. She suggested that I go back to the house and work on something so that if the electricians needed something, I’d be there. That was just about the worst suggestion I could’ve heard given that I was feeling like a slave to the fucking money pit that we call a house. I didn’t explain why. I just sort of got off the phone. She had shit to do at her job and didn’t need to listen to me, and my job is being a fucking slave to the house. FUCK.

I tried not slide all four wheels around the rotary in out complex when I turned around to go back to the grocery store once again. I had a decent headache, even though I had downed a couple of Excedrin and a Coke to keep myself at least functional. I wanted to put my foot on the floor and ram cars off the road, and then back up and ram them again before peeling away to ram someone else off the road.

Of course, I didn’t. I drove back to the supermarket under the speed limit and sat in the parking lot listening to “Muscledog Shot” by Milligram. I didn’t want to get out of the car. I wanted to just get on the highway and drive somewhere. Oh, but I couldn’t, because someone would call from the house and need something and if I’m somewhere else, I wouldn’t be able to be their fucking bitch.

When I finally walked into the supermarket, I knew that the expression on my face was a mixture of “stay back 500 feet” and “do not touch” that rarely surfaces anymore. I couldn’t help it. I almost walked out right back out to avoid throwing cantaloupes across the store. I stood for a minute. “Breathe. Your frustration is your problem. Not anyone else’s. Deal with it. Get what you need, and don’t spread misery.”

I relaxed enough to grab a basket and do some minor shopping. I picked up about a dinner’s worth of food and only bought what was written on the list because I just didn’t care. No food in the house? Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m tired of the fucking domestic routine. I’m tired of paying for the house. I’m tired of people needing more and more money. I’m tired of getting pushed off and pushed off until there’s no time left. I’m tired of having to make do with all the mismatched shit I have in storage that sucked five years ago and probably sucks now. I’m tired of holes in my socks. I’m tired of pushing down the frustration and smiling when I want to punch someone in the fucking face and tell them to get the fucking job done. I’m tired of biding my time and storing up “evidence” against the last contractor. I’m tired of it not being socially acceptable to choke someone out when necessary.

Fuck.

#1GF! called in the afternoon, and I was better. I still had a headache, but at least I wasn’t pissed. I tried to resize some pictures for the kitchen people’s website, but they were coming out at 100kB, which is far too big for the web. I took a break to make #1GF! some plain pasta for dinner (I said I barely shopped) and watched one show before I felt like I should get back to work. I headed back upstairs to my PC where I remained until bed. I realized that I had forgotten to go back and check on the electricians and never called anyone I was supposed to because I had gotten so wrapped up in the pictures I was retouching. I needed to be distracted by minutiae, and the pictures did the trick.

Wednesday (Day 521): Running Around

The electricians returned to install lights, and I ran out to pick up some items for the electrician. The electrician was going to rewire the lights we had, but he still needed a transformer and some switches to make it all work. I was also going to return our dining room light because it was not only ugly, but it was bent.

When I got to the store, I bought $300 in various electrical devices, and once the purchase was done, I was told that I couldn’t return the light because it had been installed. I countered that it was broken, which we didn’t notice until it was up. The woman said that she’d have to speak to her manager, but he wouldn’t be in until Friday.

How do you drop $300 and then get told that you can’t return something? I’ve seen people return obviously used paint sprayers to Home Depot, and they take them back without blinking. I buy a broken light, and I can’t return it unless I have authorization that is going to take two days to procure. Sometimes shopping with the little guy can end up being a big pain in the ass.

I put the light back in the car and drove back to the house. I dropped the stuff off to the electrician and he asked when I was going to install all the switch plates. I mentioned previously that I didn’t mind doing it, and he later said that he would do it, so I thought I was off the hook. I don’t like to give anyone a reason to do anything but the best job, so I said that I’d take care of it the next day. He’s been good about getting things done and this was a grey area in our contract, so if installing the plates sped the job along, I was perfectly willing to do it.

I think I spent the rest of the day researching and building The Beard Playlist.

Thursday (Day 522): Putting On Switch Plates And Cleaning Up

I went to the house to put on switch plates while the electrician finished up. Yes, I used a level and turned the screws in the same direction. The fire inspector did his inspection, and we passed. In the testing process, I found out that we had talking fire alarms that tell us where the location of the fire is. It literally said something like “DANGER! THERE’S CARBON MONOXIDE IN THE HALLWAY / BASEMENT / ETC.” before beeping insanely. Yup. That’s going to be annoying as fuck when I’m burning dinner.

I also found out that running a shop vac on certain circuits trips a maintenance mode in the fire alarms. The electrician called the company and they said that it happens all the time and there’s no solution to it. I know you’re thinking this sounds like bullshit, but the phone was so loud that I could hear what the guy from the smoke alarm company was saying. It might be bullshit on the part of the company, but at least the electrician isn’t bullshitting me.

Once everyone left, I went home for a quick sandwich before going back to clean up all the boxes and mess that had accumulated over the week. When I had all the usable moving boxes separated from the trash, I headed out to two home improvement stores to pick up a mirror and some house numbers. I brought them back to the house, but it was 4PM and I just didn’t feel like working on the house anymore. I went home and had to redo all the pictures for the kitchen people because I had somehow lost all of the previous day’s changes. Hey, if you don’t save early and often, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Friday (Day 523): Mystery Money, Jesus Freaks, And The AutoEscalator

I met the electrician at the house for the electrical inspection, but the inspector didn’t show up because of some personal business. The electrician had to call the inspector to reschedule for 4:30. I said that I be at the house to meet him so that the electrician didn’t have to make another trip. The kitchen guy was supposed to come by at around 10AM to install the kitchen and bathroom knobs, so I figured I’d clean the attic while I waited. I had to call #1GF! for something, and she asked if I actually brought the knobs to the house for him to install. I didn’t. I had to run home to get them.

The kitchen guy showed up on time, but he didn’t have all of the pulls, so he was going to have to come back another time to finish them off. While he was working, the doorbell rang. He answered it because I was up in the attic trying to find the floor. It was a lady spreading the good word.

By the time I made it downstairs, the kitchen guy was in the middle of a conversation with the lady. He looked like he was trying to extract himself, and she had the blank, smiling stare of the preacher from Poltergeist 2. As I was covered in insulation and dirty as a mule, I stood back like the kitchen guy’s lackey.

Preacher Lady: Are you the owner of this house?
Kitchen Guy: No. I’m only working here.
Me: [thinking] De-fense [clap clap] De-fense [clap clap]

Preacher Lady: Do the owners live here.
Kitchen Guy: [not even looking at me] No, they don’t.
Me: [thinking] Goooooooooaaaaaaal!

Normally, I don’t mind talking to people who want to chat. I’ve been known to stay on the phone with telemarketers and even get poked by people in wheelchairs, but I really didn’t want to get into a discussion on the origins and status of my soul right then. It was nice of the kitchen guy to run interference.

Me: Hey, thanks for that.
Kitchen Guy: Well, it’s not like I lied. I answered her questions. Plus, if you haven’t heard it all by now, I doubt she would’ve told you anything new.

I went back upstairs to clean the attic and the kitchen guy continued on with installing the knobs and pulls. Once he installed everything that he had, he headed out, and I figured I’d run over to the big home improvement store to pick up some mirror hanging supplies. They had nothing, so I had to go to their competitor. I picked up everything I could, still unsure of what I really needed. I was getting tired of going back and forth to the store, so I figured it was better to have to have more than I need than not enough.

I returned to the house and started cleaning the attic yet again. I found light bulbs, empty tubes of caulk, and even lumber thrown into the blown in insulation as if it were a giant garbage bin. I also found a part of a newspaper from 1944 that had an article about a man getting arrested for running around with a loaded shotgun. I also found some some dollar sized bundles of stapled tissue paper. Old house plus hidden bundles of tissue paper? I was sure that I had finally hit the mother load.

When a fire ripped through my old house, I gutted it to the studs myself, and was positive that I would find some money hidden in the walls somewhere. I tore through every inch of that house, and know what I found? Nothing. Nothing at all. When I was rebuilding it, I made sure that I slipped $20 into one of the walls with a note that said something like “Eureka!”, just in case someone like me from the future happened to have a bad reason to tear down the walls, and needed a good story from it.

Now that I had these four bundles of tissue paper, I was positive that an old lady in the forties had stuffed them in the insulation to keep them safe. And her name was Helen. Or Gertrude. No, Helen. And she wore an apron around the house and stuffed money under floorboards and such in case the banks failed again.

I sat there in that dusty attic for a couple of minutes looking at the brown paper wrappers. Hell, I didn’t care if they only contained a dollar. I popped open the first one and unrolled it carefully to keep the paper from disintegrating in my hands. I got to the end, and found… tissue paper. I realized that Helen would surely hide a few dummy packets around to make the ones stuffed full of money look ordinary. You are a wily one, Helen. Wily indeed. I started on the second packet, but less carefully. Still nothing. I tore open the third and fourth and expected nothing and that’s what I got.

I was not happy with the old lady for robbing me of the thrill of finding treasure, but thought that she probably deserved to spend all that money she earned it by secretly servicing airmen during double u double u two. She earned it. I didn’t.

I thought it was funny that I still hope to find treasure hidden in old houses though. I found it more amusing that I didn’t care how much the treasure was worth. I would’ve been happy with a nickel. I shook my head and threw the paper in the trash, completely unaware of the secret map written on it in lemon juice that would lead me right to the mountain of silver certificates and jewels buried in the yard. I didn’t have time for fancy maps and digging, Helen. I had an attic to clean.

Late in the day, the electrical inspector showed up and failed us because we had the wrong types of outlets in the basement and on the outside of the house. I called the electrician, and he said he’d get those replaced for us as soon as possible. By then, it was 5PM and I thought about installing the bathroom mirror, but you know that starting projects that late is never a good idea. You’re tired and disinterested, so you’re bound to screw up, and by the time you figure out that you’re missing something all the stores are closed. I gave up and went home.

I felt 110% better after a shower and a cold piece of pizza. I got a message from the lighting place that we could not return the dining room light, which only slightly dampened my mood.

Later at night, we went to the airport to pick up my parents. They said that they would take a cab home, but I don’t get to do things for them that often, so I wanted to give them a ride home. Plus it’s nice to have someone meet you when you get off a plane.

On the way to the airport, #1GF! and I stopped by my parents’ house to clean out their fridge of overdue produce and leave them enough food to get them through the following afternoon. We also short-sheeted their bed. The good stuff was #1GF!’s idea, and the short-sheeting was all me. We’re perfect compliments for each other. Thinking that we were really clever, we jumped back in the car, grabbed some coffee, and headed to the airport.

We wandered around the terminal, but at night, there isn’t a whole lot going on at the airport. The shops and ticket counters are closed, and the few people who are waiting for a flight are too tired to give off an excited vibe or do anything interesting. We walked to the end of the terminal and were looking over the railing at the most interesting thing that we could find: an escalator. No one was using it, yet it whirred on endlessly revolving its stairs from top to bottom.

#1GF!: What a waste of electricity. They should shut that thing off.
Me: They should have it run only when needed.
#1GF!: Maybe put a button at the top that turns it on.
Me: OR… They could put tiny motion sensors all along the track, that turn the thing on and keep it on only when people are riding. And maybe a minute or so after.
Me: [calls engineer friend]: Listen. I need you to develop a system of sensors that keeps an escalator on only when people are riding it and maybe a minute after. I’ll only take a $100,000 cut. The rest is pure profit for you.
Engineer: [clearly confused, but not surprised by the call] What?
Me: I’m at the airport
Engineer: What are you doing at the airport?
Me: Picking up my parents, but never mind that.
Engineer: [laughing] Ok. Hold on. [reads back a patent describing the idea]
Me: Not the same. My sensor idea has nothing to do with balusters. Completely different.
Engineer: [laughing] Ok, but have you ever seen people navigate an automatic revolving door? It’s a tragedy. Do you really think the average American can handle an automatic escalator?
Me: Look it. This isn’t about what people can handle. This is about selling a cost cutting system to the airline industry. Hell, we can market it as a “green” technology if we want to.
Engineer: It will cost millions.
Me: Yea, exactly.
Engineer: They’ll never buy into it.
Me: That’s it. You’re off the job. You just build it and get the same $100k cut that I get. I’m going to call [salesman friend] and let him have the millions. If anyone can sell this idea to executives it’s him.
Engineer: My Dad has this idea about walking bomb sniffing pigs down the aisle of a plane…
Me: Look, I gotta go. I think my parents are going to show up soon.

We picked up my parents and dropped them off at their house, and once we were halfway down the driveway, I leaned over to #1GF! and whispered, “Heh heh heh.” By the time we were halfway home, we got the call about the short-sheeted bed. I had so many things going around my head about the house that I had already forgotten the prank.

Saturday (Day 524): Attacking The To Do List

I had a minor freakout in the morning because I had finally reached the breaking point for writing checks that were above average and still having to go into the house to do minor stuff. For what I’ve paid out on this job, I shouldn’t have to do anything. I don’t mind it, but given what I’ve paid, it should all be taken care of. Unfortunately, most of the money was paid to someone who had no idea what he was doing and vanished, so it’s not like it’s the fault of anyone that I’m paying now. I’ve just about hit the breaking point.

I’m tired of kissing people’s asses to get them to do the fucking job and then having to fix things once their gone. Nothing is going to be perfect. I understand that. But, with the amount of money that got sunk into this job, it bloody well should be.

#1GF! sat quietly and let the freakout run its course, and then we tried to be pragmatic and figure out all of the things that still needed to be done. Once we got a good list, we started in on it. We dropped by the house to check on things, and then to the granite place to schedule getting our backsplash finished. Then, went to the light store to return the light that couldn’t be returned.

The manager was busy, so I had to wait, which only made me more aggravated with them. I kept it together, though. I was just as nice as a possible, and reserved the seething demon inside in case I needed it. Everything is a negotiation. Work out all points and counterpoints ahead of time. Start nice, try to find a common ground that gives everyone a win, and if that doesn’t work, make a fucking scene and start nailing people to the walls until you get what you want.

Most of the time you can get what you want once you get to a person who doesn’t want to deal with you anymore. Fortunately, it was a nice little exchange that took 15 minutes to complete, and I think everyone came out happy. I didn’t get a straight return, but I got something that I could live with and the manager got something that he could live with.

I got a call from the electrician while we were there, and he was going to the house to fix the outlets that the inspector didn’t like. We drove from there back to the house to meet him. He only had a few outlets to replace, so we cleaned up a little while we waited. He finished in about 45 minutes, and we all went on our way.

We went home for lunch, and then ran to the library so that I could pick up another Orson Scott Card book. I was out of there in fifteen minutes with a book in hand, which is pretty amazing for one of my trips to the library. Most times, I just wander around for an hour before giving up and leaving with nothing. This time, I spent more time looking for #1GF! than a book.

From there, we headed over to #1GF!’s mom’s house to work on her PC. It seemed like she was having a drive issue, but the drives turned up fine in several hardware tests. It almost seemed like the drive had a stuck head that I may have inadvertently unstuck while troubleshooting. I hate those type of fixes because the issue usually comes back later.

Fixing the PC took a few hours longer than I expected, so we didn’t get much done on the house list as we would’ve expected, but I don’t mind doing PC work for relatives. From there, we headed over to the local home megastore and picked up some supplies for fixing various holes that had been left around the house (around the light sockets from the bad plasterers and the electrical service from the original contractor.). While we were there, I called my parents to see if they had my ladder. I hadn’t seen it in over seven years, and I wasn’t sure if it was in storage or merely a figment of my imagination.

My father hadn’t seen it recently, but he had seen it before, meaning that it was either in storage or a casualty of my divorce. In any case, I needed a ladder. I bought a cheap six footer instead of the expensive ones because I have the feeling that I could easily get $40 worth of use out of it before it broke down, if it ever broke down. Generally, I don’t need the durability of contractor grade because I’m not a contractor.

We went to a local restaurant for dinner because the odds of us cooking were getting slimmer and slimmer with each passing hour. It’s so easy to get a table in a beach town in the winter. It’s awesome actually. The restaurants that are packed in the summer are barely operating in the winter, meaning that you hear “sit wherever you want” more often than not.

What I Learned

• I think I would die laughing if I lived in Europe because douche is such a common word.
• It’s nearly impossible to find a regular douche bar. Everyone sells tension rods.
• Chili’s sucks (you know this, but you keep forgetting.)
• A dozen large raviolis is too much food. Stick with ten.
• The Kirkland Signature Four Cheese Ravioli from Costco is some of the best frozen ravioli that I’ve eaten. I’m as surprised as you are.
• I still have a slave mentality.
• Sometimes you need to remind yourself that your problems are your own to avoid spreading the misery around.
• Sometimes giving your business to the little guy can end up being a big pain in the ass.
• Fire alarms talk now.
• Orson Scott Card writes really good books.
• The auto-sensing escalator is in use in Europe but is barred from use in the US because of concerns that people would get injured.
• There is no money in the walls.
• Short-sheeting a bed is sill pretty amusing.
• There are no good beard music playlists out there (until now).

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Most of the songs lean toward the heavier side of the scale, but if you’re growing a 70’s, peace-loving beard to nest tiny woodland creatures in, I threw a few tracks for you, too. So, let’s get some cold air on your face and music into those ears, and let’s get those whiskers on the outside where they belong.

All the songs included either mention facial hair or are performed by bands with one or more bearded members. Yes, ZZ Top is in there even though they’re included in every musical beard list ever.

If you have track suggestions, be sure to throw them in the comments, and a full track listing (with explanations) is included below.

Enjoy!

All 66+ Tracks on Beards By Playlist (And Their Explanations)

1. “A Bid Farewell (Album Version)”
   by Killswitch Engage
   The End Of Heartache
   Reason: Justin Foley (drums) has a beard.
2. “Ace of Spades”
   by Motorhead
   Ace Of Spades
   Reason:Lemmy Kilmister has a badass pair of friendly chops.
3. “Aqualung”
   by Jethro Tull
   ‘M.U.’ The Best of Jethro Tull
   Reason: Lyrics refer to an icy beard.
4. “Attack of the Dungeon Witch”
   by He Is Legend
   Suck Out The Poison
   Reason: Schuylar Croom (vocals) has a beard
5. “Beard And Wifebeater”
   by Endeavor
   Constructive Semantics
   Reason:Title
6. “Black Leather Mustache”
   by CABLE
   Last Call
   Reason: Title
7. “Blood On Our Hands”
   by Death From Above 1979
   You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine
   Reason: Jesse F. Keeler (bass/synth) has a beard
8. “Bomber”
   by Motorhead
   No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith
   Reason:Lemmy Kilmister has a badass pair of friendly chops.
9. “Born With a Beard”
   by Supe & the Sandwiches
   the Springfield Chronicles
   Reason: Title
10. “Burning Beard”
    by Clutch
    Robot Hive / Exodus
    Reason: DOUBLE WHAMMY! Title + Neil Fallon (vocals) has a badass beard
11. “By The Beard Of Zeus (Album Version)”
    by Red I Flight
    The Years
    Reason: Title
12. “Catamaran”
    by Bear Vs. Shark
    Terrorhawk
    Reason: A couple of the band members have beards.
13. “Crush The Skull”
    by Unleashed
    Shadows In The Deep / Across The Open Sea
    Reason: lyrics mention a beard.
14. “Crystal Skull”
    by Mastodon
    Blood Mountain
    Reason: Both Brent Hinds (guitar) and Troy Sanders (vocals/bass) have beards.
15. “Easy Tiger”
    by Every Time I Die
    Gutter Phenomenon
    Reason: Andy Williams (guitar) has a beard
16. “Family Tradition”
    by Hank Williams, Jr.
    Hank Williams, Jr.’s Greatest Hits
    Reason: Hank has an outlaw beard.
17. “Fire It Up”
    by Black Label Society
    Radio Single
    Reason: Zakk Wylde has an insane beard.
18. “Gentle On My Mind”
    by Glen Campbell
    The Very Best Of Glen Campbell
    Reason:lyrics mention a beard
19. “Granite State Destroyer (Album Version)”
    by Scissorfight
    New Hampshire
    Reason: Ironlung (vocals) has a massive beard and a bald head.
20. “Hat And Beard (Rudy Van Gelder 24Bit Mastering)”
    by Eric Dolphy
    Out To Lunch (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)
    Reason: Title
21. “Have Fun”
    by The Beautiful South
    Blue Is The Colour
    Reason: The lyric “You should grow a beard” is true.
22. “Heatseeker”
    by Valient Thorr
    Legend Of The World
    Reason: Every member of the band has a massive beard with the exception of Eidan Thorr.
23. “I Got Mine”
    by The Black Keys
    Attack & Release
    Reason: Dan Auerbach (vocals/guitar) had a beard.
24. “Holland, 1945″
    by Neutral Milk Hotel
    In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
    Reason:Scott Spillane (horns) has a pretty massive Amish style beard.
25. “I Know”
    by Barenaked Ladies
    Born on a Pirate Ship
    Reason: Lyrics mention a scary guy with a beard.
26. “I’d Have to Be Crazy”
    by Willie Nelson
    Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits (And Some That Will Be)
    Reason:Double WHAMMY! Willie has a beard, and the song lyrics reference a beard
27. “In Regards to Myself”
    by Underoath
    Define The Great Line
    Reason: Tim McTague (guitar) has a beard
28. “Jessica”
    by The Allman Brothers Band
    Brothers and Sisters
    Reason: Gregg Allman’s long standing beardedness.
29. “Kyle From Incantation Has A Mustache”
    by A/C
    I Like It When You Die
    Reason: Well, he does.
30. “La Grange”
    by ZZ Top
    Armageddon (Soundtrack)
    Reason: Most famous beards in rock.
31. “Leave The Biker (LP Version)”
    by Fountains of Wayne
    Fountains of Wayne
    Reason:Lyrics mention crumbs in a beard from the seafood special.
32. “Love My Lips”
    by Veggie Tales
    Veggie Tunes 2
    Reason: In the lyrics, Aunt Ruth had a beard.
33. “Mambo Sun (Album Version)”
    by T. Rex
    Electric Warrior
    Reason: lyric “I got stars in my beard.”
34. “March Of The Fire Ants”
    by Mastodon
    Remission
    Reason: Both Brent Hinds (guitar) and Troy Sanders (vocals/bass) have beards.
35. “Metal Gods”
    by Judas Priest
    British Steel
    Reason: Ian Hill (bass) had a beard. Yes, he did. Look it up.
36. “Midnight Rider”
    by The Allman Brothers Band
    A Decade Of Hits 1969-1979
    Reason: Gregg Allman’s long standing beardedness.
37. “Mustache T.V. (Album Version)”
    by Atom And His Package
    Attention! Blah Blah Blah
    Reason: Title
38. “My Beard”
    by Shel Silverstein
    Where The Sidewalk Ends
    Reason: Title
39. “Now You’ve Got Something To Die For”
    by Lamb Of God
    Ashes Of The Wake
    Reason: Mark Morton (guitar) has a beard.
40. “Open Up The Border”
    by Clutch
    Pure Rock Fury
    Reason: Neil Fallon (vocals) has a badass beard
41. “Overkill”
    by Motorhead
    Overkill
    Reason:Lemmy Kilmister has a badass pair of friendly chops.
42. “Portobello Road”
    by Cat Stevens
    On The Road To Find Out
    Reason: Lyrics and performer.
43. “Push It”
    by Static-X
    Wisconsin Death Trip
    Reason: Wayne Static has a beard
44. “Raining Blood”
    by Slayer
    Reign In Blood
    Reason: Kerry King’s Van Dyke outsizes most beards.
45. “Razor Burn”
    by Lagwagon
    Hoss
    Reason: Lyrics and Title
46. “Red in Tooth and Claw”
    by Rosetta
    Wake/Lift
    Reason: Bruce McMurtrie Jr. (drums) is bearded.
47. “Rezerection”
    by Valient Thorr
    Legend Of The World
    Reason: Every member of the band has a massive beard with the exception of Eidan Thorr.
48. “Rip Van Winkle (LP Version)”
    by The Devotions
    Doo Wop Classics, Vol. 8
    Reason: Rip Van Winkle had a massive beard.
49. “Rip Van Winkle”
    by Witch
    Witch
    Reason: Rip Van Winkle had a massive beard.
50. “Saddle Up”
    by Viking Skull
    Born In Hell
    Reason: Waldie (bass) has a beard.
51. “Salivation”
    by Burn The Priest
    Burn The Priest
    Reason: Reason: Mark Morton (guitar) has a beard.
52. “South Of Heaven”
    by Slayer
    South Of Heaven
    Reason: Kerry King’s Van Dyke outsizes most beards.
53. “Strange Times”
    by The Black Keys
    Attack & Release

    Reason: Dan Auerbach (vocals/guitar) had a beard.

54. “Take This Oath (Album Version)”
    by Killswitch Engage
    The End Of Heartache
    Reason: Justin Foley (drums) has a beard
55. “The Birthing”
    by Baroness
    Red Album
    Reason: John Dyer Baizley (vocals) is bearded.
56. “The Girlie Had A Mustache”
    by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
    And In This Corner…
    Reason: Title and lyrics. Slick Willie style.
57. “The Gruesome Death of Edward Teach (Album Version)”
    by Scissorfight
    New Hampshire
    Reason: DOUBLE WHAMMY!: Ironlung (vocals) has a huge beard, and Edward Teach is otherwise remembered as Blackbeard.
58. “The King of the Carrot Flowers Pt. 1″
    by Neutral Milk Hotel
    In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
    Reason: Scott Spillane (horns) has a pretty massive Amish style beard.
59. “The Lime Green Net”
    by Valient Thorr
    Legend Of The World
    Reason: Every member of the band has a massive beard with the exception of Eidan Thorr.
60. “The New Black”
    by Every Time I Die
    Gutter Phenomenon
    Reason: Andy Williams (guitar) has a beard.
61. “The Ripper”
    by Judas Priest
    The Essential Judas Priest
    Reason: Ian Hill (bass) had a beard. Yes, he did. Look it up.
62. “The Seduction”
    by He Is Legend
    I Am Hollywood
    Reason: Schuylar Croom (vocals) has a beard.
63. “Thrash Unreal (Album Version)”
    by Against Me!
    New Wave
    Reason: Two band members have beards.
64. “Turned Inside Out [Reissue] [with intro effect]”
    by Obituary
    The Best Of Obituary
    Reason: Donald Tardy and Trevor Peres both had beards.
65. “Tush”
    by ZZ Top
    The Best of ZZ Top
    Reason: Most famous beards in rock.
66. “Waitin’ for the Bus”
    by ZZ Top
    The Best of ZZ Top
    Reason: Most famous beards in rock.
67. “Warning: Perfect Sideburns Don’t Make You Dangerous”
    by Crime In Stereo
    Explosives and the Will To Use Them
    Reason: Title
68. “Weird Beard”
    by Fu Manchu
    King of the Road
    Reason: Just an awesome song. Oh and the title. And lyrics.
69. “Well All Right!”
    by The Hives
    The Black and White album
    Reason: Lyrics mention trying to grow a beard.
70. “Wishbone”
    by Clutch
    The Elephant Riders
    Reason: Neil Fallon (vocals) is the balls.

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Basically, you take a screenshot of a couple of words from the font you’re trying to identify and upload the picture to What The Font. Within seconds, it suggests several fonts that it thinks are close matches.

There are two drawbacks to the system:

1. It seems to fail miserably when letters touch, meaning cursive fonts are beyond its abilities, and
2. I’ve never seen it return any free fonts. Every font that it suggested was sold by myfonts.com.

The site easily identified the Choose Your Own Adventure font, and was able to pick up a minor detail that identified Despair.com’s demotivational posters as being in Caslon 3 Roman and not Times New Roman.

On the other hand, it failed miserably when I tried to identify the fonts in the headers of several sites including Just A Wee Bit Closer, CO-OB, The Learned Fangirl, and Savage Chickens.

So, the system isn’t perfect, but might at least get you moving in the right direction when you’re trying to find a specific font and don’t know where to start.

Check it out here: What The Font?

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Sunday (Day 511): Closet Shelving and House Cleaning

We picked up shelving from a local home store and brought it back to install it in the master closet. #1GF! cleaned the house while I tried not to screw things up too badly. We got home a lot later than expected, but I still managed to edit and publish six full posts for Halloween week. I posted ahead of schedule so that I could get some house stuff done during the week without worrying about having to write.

Monday (Day 512): You’d Want To Bone Me, Too

I went to the house first thing in the morning because the plumber was going to install all the faucets, the toilet, and the rest of the finish plumbing items. I finished up with the closet shelving from the day before, and then went outside to re-grout some cracks in the house before the winter filled them with ice. I proved within a reasonable doubt that I’m not a mason.

By noon, the plumber still hadn’t shown up. I called him and he said he’d gotten sidetracked by a big job, but he’d be by later in the day. I didn’t care when he showed up, but because the plumbing is a priority, I needed to know when he was going to be there so I could schedule my day around him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t schedule what I didn’t know.

I went home, showered, and found that #1GF! had put my ping pong eyeballs all over the house. Had I known that this would be the highlight of my day, I would’ve stayed to look at them longer. At about 1:30, I let the plumber into the house, and went to do the food shopping.

I ran through the store at a decent pace, and went into the self check aisle because the only regular checkout that was open had a long line and no bagger. This is where I learned that you don’t do the self checkout when you do large amounts of shopping. For those that don’t know, the machine stops you every so often to tell you that the bagging area is full and makes you bag them before you can continue scanning items. I had to stop three times to bag groceries.

I was so aggravated at the machine constantly slowing me down that when the capicola wouldn’t scan, I left it right there with the gum. I felt bad that a human would have to find it and put it back, but I was so annoyed with the machine that I wanted to annoy it back. Because it had no arms, I somehow felt like the machine would suffer more knowing that there were some Italian cold cuts stinking up the gum right under it’s half awake scanning eye. Sure, it was irrational, but as far as I’m concerned, our new robot overlords can just suck it. Suck. It.

I drove home, put away the groceries, and cleaned out the vegetable drawer because it was full of rotted veggie juice. What a blast! I mean how do you let a vegetable get so rotted in your vegetable drawer that it leaks brown juice all over the place? Sure, a younger version of me may have been known to throw every pan and plate in the sink in the trash and declare a do-over rather than try to battle whatever organisms had taken root, but that was a long, long time ago. How does this type of thing happen now? I’m not 22 anymore. I’m friggin’ mature now. I have no idea how it happened, but I had to pull that drawer and clean it before I could put the rest of the groceries away.

To make things more fun, I decided to take it up a notch and clean the bathroom. Seriously. While you were working at your mundane job, tacking away at your stupid, boring spreadsheet for jerks, I was fully on track to have my most fun day in the world. While I was busy enjoying the mixture of bleach and envy (I could smell your envy all the way at my house) in the air, the plumber called. I was expecting to hear that he was done, but he told me that I had, and I quote, “big problems”. Because I was already having the best day in the world, I thought he was kidding and laughed it off. He wasn’t laughing.

He said that once he had completed all the finish plumbing and tested the system, things went very wrong. No water was leaving the house, and all the water was draining down the plumbing stack and onto the basement floor like a giant waterfall whenever the water was turned on. He mentioned that he might have to open a wall to fix it. I jumped into my car and after yelling, “FUCK” through gritted teeth in a rapid fire manner that is reserved only for the insane.

When I got to the house, I expected to see the bathroom wall soaked and destroyed. It wasn’t. I went down to the basement and the other plumber turned on the water. More water than I could’ve imagined poured down the plumbing stack like a waterfall. The plumber suspected that there might be an unglued pipe in the wall, and thought that he would have to open the wall up to find it. He also suspected foul play because one thing wrong is plausible, but two (a dislocated pipe and a blocked drain) were pretty unlikely on a single section of pipe. The plumber said that he’d get a drain company out to check the drain the next day, and then he’d work on getting the pipe fixed.

I went home and called the contractor, who had already talked to the plumber and wanted to meet me at the house to see what was going on. I drove back and met him at the house, and he created the waterfall again. He then reached up the side of the plumbing stack and found that it had been cut with a saw. It had been cut below the basement level, so a wall wouldn’t have to be taken down, but so close to the floor, that it would require cutting through the floor joists to repair. Ignoring the fact that I had more plumbing bills coming, not having to open a wall almost seemed like a plus. A cut in a pipe meant it could’ve been an accident, and the clog might just be a clog.

I ran over to the building department to see if the rough plumbing inspection was ever completed. I didn’t know how that information would’ve helped, but I wanted to do something. Unfortunately, (or fortunately given the warlike look in my eyes), it was 4:30, and the office was already closed. I went home, cleaned the bathroom, and made dinner. I know. I built a closet, re-grouted some walls, did the food shopping, handled a major plumbing issue, cleaned the bathroom, and cooked dinner. Admit it: If I did this all for you on a Monday, you’d seriously consider boning me and making me your house bitch. Even though I’d rather they didn’t, I think even straight dudes are thinking about it.

I sat on the couch and finished Syrup by Maxx Barry. The book was a fast read and seemed to have potential, but it turned into a romance novel and fizzled out. It was the literary version of listening to a story told by that guy in your office who doesn’t know how to tell a story and always forgets the ending. It was not a great reward for the day. I decided to tear into the Halloween candy, and by the time I was ready for bed, I had a massive, sugar induced headache, which seemed to be a more fitting end to the day.

Tuesday (Day 513): No Change

I tried to watch Squirm (a 1976 horror movie about killer worms) while eating my Cheerios, but #1GF! got freaked out and asked that I change it. The movie was so bad that I couldn’t understand how it could freak anyone out, but I complied. I ate my Cheerios with no laughter.

Once #1GF! was off to work, I checked stats until 11:30 because I had a number of days to go through. I read a post where someone said that I was more awesome than Bruce Campbell (I’m exaggerating, but here it is), and I threw my arms up into the air like I was the champion of something. Of course, I cou’dn’t agree, but it was really cool to read something like that from someone who doesn’t know how truly uncool I actually am. I worked on poster and a t-shirt ideas, but didn’t come up with much. I checked my e-mail and found out that I was going to be in The Sun next week, and publications from Russia and Shangai were looking for interviews.

I drove some folks to the seaport in the afternoon, and even though I’ve been to South Boston a million times, I had never been to the seaport before. The buildings down there are huge and nondescript, and the actual terminal is like a tall valley of buildings that looked a perfect location for a 40’s style gangster shootout.

I drove back to the house, and the plumbing still hadn’t been fixed. The toilet was still as full as it was the day before, meaning not a single drop of water had drained out the pipe in the last 24 hours. I called the plumber to ask for a status, and he said the drain guy would be there the next morning. I thought he was supposed to be there that day, but what can you do? You can’t piss off the people working on your house, and you stay as flexible as you can with scheduling. Otherwise, in my experience, wait times get longer and things get worse for people.

I went home and read some feeds to take my mind off of things before making dinner. When #1GF! got home, we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was from the same guys who did Superbad. There were a lot of great one-liners for the guys, and a lot of dong shots for the ladies. A lot of them. It really had something for both sexes, despite having a romantic comedy base.

Wednesday (Day 514): I Can’t Stand It, I Know You Planned It

The day started with me going over to the house to let the drain guy in to fix the clog in the pipe. Because the guy was a sub of a sub, I thought that I should hang around until he was done. I worked on scraping down the windows of the French doors that had been painted over as if the painters thought glass was just a less opaque type of wood.

The first thing the drain guy did was open the cover to the four inch exit pipe to the house. The second thing he did was call me down to the cellar so that I could see what was causing the drainage problems.

The whole drain was packed solid with expanding spray foam insulation. Someone had intentionally opened the cover, sprayed in a full can of expanding foam, put a cut in the vent stack, and then screwed the drain cover back on. I was a little more than pissed. I had officially been sabotaged. I wanted someone’s head.

I calmed down enough to called the main plumber, the contractor, and #1GF!. They all were just dumbfounded. This was obviously intentional, and we didn’t do it. The new contractor was still working with us and getting paid, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to do it. That left the old contractor and his subs. The only party I had a contract with, and the only person who had a key to the house was the old contractor, so if anyone is going to take it in the ass for this one, it’s him. I’m not talking about anything rash, violent, or vindictive. I’m just taking pictures and adding this to the pile of evidence. We’ve had to undo plenty of things that the old contractor did before we could move forward on this job, but we always thought it was because he was lazy or incompetent. If he or one of his subs did this, he just crossed over into the destructive and malicious category.

When the drain guy was finished, he said that the lower portion of the stack would have to be replaced because enough spray insulation had been blown into the pipe that it expanded upward and out of reach. The stuff is so sticky that the pipes would had to be replaced, or we’d always have problems with stuff catching on it and forming clogs. He hit me with a $200 bill, which was like flushing the money down the toilet because the pipes that he cleaned out now had to be replaced anyway. He also said that he had been instructed that this job was to be C.O.D., so I had to figure out how to pay him right there in my driveway. Fuckin’ A.

Once the drain guy was gone, I headed over to the building department to see if the rough plumbing inspection was ever completed on the job. It had been completed back in April. APRIL. That didn’t tell me anything about who sabotaged me, but it fueled the fire. I had the rough plumbing inspection completed in April and we’re still working on this job six months later.

From there, I headed over to the police department on the off chance that I could file some sort of police report. I knew that all my evidence was circumstantial, but if this could be considered vandalism or destruction of property, I wanted it on record. I apologized for wasting the officer’s time with what was more of a civil matter, but she was nice about it. She explained that she would write up the report and add extra patrols by the house to make sure that the old contractor wasn’t seen in the area. I didn’t think it was necessary, but she felt that if he was angry enough that he did destroy my plumbing stack, there was a chance that he might do something else. I thanked her for the help and headed out of there.

I went back to the apartment because I had to try to fix some virus issues on my aunt’s PC. I was gearing up to save a trip by e-mailing her an application that would allow me to control her PC from mine. Unfortunately, my host had shut down my site once again for using too many server resources. If my site is shut down, so is my e-mail. I tried to calm down and send the app through gmail, but gmail doesn’t allow people to send executables. It also won’t allow you to send zipped executables. Fucking great.

I wasted a half hour trying to get the app to her, and when my site was finally back up, I finally mailed it to her. Unfortunately, she had trouble opening the file because the virus she had kept shutting down her PC. Ever have one of those days? I hopped in the car and drove to her house because I knew the drive would take less time than blind troubleshooting over the phone.

It was a good decision. The drive calmed me down, and I cleaned a whole bunch of crap off of their PC, including a piece of spyware acting like an antivirus app. In a half hour, they were back up and running. While I was cleaning out the PC, my uncle actually drove out to the store to buy some raviolis for me to take home because they were the best raviolis that he’d ever eaten. I tried to refuse because I was happy to help them out with something I know about, but I was overruled. I left with raviolis and two huge cans of tomatoes.

I drove home, and as soon as I got onto my street, the plumber called to tell me that he was at the house but couldn’t get in. I went over and let him in so that he could start work on fixing the plumbing stack. We talked about how stupid putting foam insulation in the drain was, and neither of us could understand why it happened. The old contractor stopped calling me back and abandoned the job, so why would he sabotage it? The only thing that I could think of is that one of the subs did it because they wouldn’t be getting paid by a contractor who abandoned my job. Why take it out on me? What the hell did I do besides pay a lot of money for work that wasn’t done?

Even though there’s a little maniac inside my head that wants blood, I’m simply adding this to the file. Having a bulldog of a lawyer chasing you down can create more havoc and stress than any bad thing that you might want done to the contractor after hearing this story. I don’t want any bad things to happen to him. In fact, I want the old contractor healthy as a horse so that he can work three jobs to pay me the money for the damages he caused on this job. And hopefully that job will be sucking shit through a straw at the shit sucking factory. That’s what I’m after. The money and the license.

Thursday (Day 515): Moment in The Sun (UK)

I went to the house in the morning to finish scraping down those windows that the painters painted over. I finished up in a couple of hours and went home to check my stats quickly before heading back out. I found out that my interview in The Sun came out. Sure they’re a tabloid, but they’re the largest English speaking daily newspaper in the world (they sell about 3 million papers a day) and it’s not like I have a very serious story to tell.

I didn’t have a lot of time, so I forwarded the article to #1GF! and a couple of ex-coworkers before running back to the house to scrape more windows down. I called the appliance place because we were missing a bottom mounted vent attachment for the dryer, and he told me that there was no such thing. We were counting on that bottom mount and had talked about it a number of times, so I was pretty surprised. The only thing he could do was give me a vent attachment that might be of some help. If I really needed a bottom vent, I’d have to swap out the dryer.

I ran over to the appliance place, and the salesman gave me the dryer vent for free. I then went back to the house to scrape more windows. I thought that the contractor was supposed to show up, but I left at 3:15 and he wasn’t there yet. I called the kitchen place to try to schedule them in to get our knobs and drawer pulls installed, but the pulls weren’t in yet. They did have some pictures ready for me to resize for their website, so I told them I’d drop by to pick them up on Friday.

I went home and called #1GF! who was having a great time with the Sun article. From what I heard, my ex-coworkers were amused. I thought about putting together a press clippings page on my site, but I thought that might be a little pretentious. Maybe I’ll set it up anyway to give myself something to remember when my fifteen minutes are up.

I e-mailed the article around and ended up talking to an old friend who I haven’t talked to in years. He now has a kid, as everyone seems to these days. In the days when everyone was fucking around smoking pot, working shitty jobs, and having a good time, I was working as an accountant and trying to stay sober. Now that they’re all up to their ears in responsibility, I’m unemployed and have very few things (besides the house) to worry about. It’s sort of like I’m living life backwards, but without all the drugs.

I spent the night looking for a new web host because my contract runs out in 14 days and my host keeps suspending my account whenever I get a 8,000+ visitors in a day. I didn’t think that my site was all that big, but the only way that they say that they can keep up is if I upgrade to a more expensive plan. I have no job, I make no money, and unfortunately, I can’t justify quadrupling my hosting costs. Even though I tried, I wasn’t very successful at finding another host that offers the same features for the money, so I’m a little stuck with the devil I know right now.

I gave up the search and started answering e-mails. One reader needed help getting his blog template under control, so I spent some time trying to help him out. Another asked me who owned the copyright to my beard chart. When I told him that I made it, he asked if I was an illustrator. I thought that was sort of funny. Yes. I’m a crappy illustrator, web designer, graphic designer, music maker, and beard grower. The only things that I’m really good at are Perl, fixing things, and making people chuckle. I’m a jack of all trades, and a master of none.

Friday (Day 516): Whoreloween

I spent the morning checking stats and answering more e-mails. I put on a Monster Magnet T-shirt with a skeleton hand giving the devil horns on the back. The shirt only fits when I neglect my lifting and get too thin. It fit perfectly, and was the most that I was going to dress up for Halloween.

I went to the kitchen place to pick up some pictures that they wanted retouched, but I showed up unannounced and had to wait for about an hour. I sat for a bit and wrote in my notebook. Then, I read through my book to see if there were any ideas that I had thought of in the past and forgot to write about. Then, I watched the electrician hanging some lights in one of their showrooms. Then, I went over the room with my eyes to see if there was any detail in it that I had missed.

I didn’t mind waiting. After the crazy week, it was sort of nice to be sitting quietly in the presence of other people without feeling like I had to talk or do anything. The kitchen people said they had been recommending me for web development to other people that they worked with, which was cool, but I told them that they should see how I do fixing their pictures before they recommended me to anyone.

I went home and wrote a post for the start of November Beard Month. I created a “Choose your own beardventure” book for the post from scratch, but I don’t think anyone noticed. I thought it was a such a good replica of the originals, (spacing size, font, hell, I even created a fake publisher in the upper right hand corner), that I couldn’t wait for #1GF! to see it.

When #1GF! got home, I showed her the book, and she had no idea what it was. None. She had never read one of those books. Gah. Hey, it happens. She’s not really a nerd or a geek, so explaining references is part of life around here.

We ordered pizza for dinner, and I ran into our usual joint to pick it up. The girl asked me where my costume was, and maybe the smell of pizza had taken over my brain, but I was unable to come up with anything better than, “No costume for me”. As I turned and walked out the door, I tried not to pay attention to the scantily costumed girl sitting by the door who was probably half my age.

I jumped into the car and repeated the conversation to #1GF!, who suggested that I should’ve said (because of my crappy stubble) that I was half of Wham. I told #1GF! that I had completely forgotten that it was whoreloween, and women everywhere would be out in their slutty finest. She didn’t respond. She may have been overwhelmed by having both pizza and George Michael sitting in the car with her.

We had four episodes of Heroes waiting at home, and the pizza was absolutely perfect. I mean absolutely. It was a dream pie. Unfortunately, Heroes sucked so badly that we gave up on the entire series after two and a half episodes. We enjoyed the first two seasons, but this one was pure crap. We decided to stop taping it rather than waste our time. Robert Forster is on the show? Really? And he’s not a detective? I guess it had to end sometime.

Saturday (Day 517): Shelves and Face Poking

We went to the house in the morning to measure the bathroom closet for shelving, and then went to a local home improvement store to pick it up. We also picked up a couple of mounting rings for a closet pole that was never installed. When we got back, I installed the shelves while #1GF! worked on getting the thirty pounds of plaster to let go of the tub.

When I was almost finished, we ran over to the local hardware store because I wanted something a little beefier than the screws that came with the shelf mounting brackets. I went in, and #1GF! sat in the car. The clerks were talking with other customers, so I tried to figure out where the screws were on my own.

I’m used to the way that large home store lays things out, so this was a lot different than I was used to. Instead of a screw aisle with mega-packs of screws, the little hardware store had a screw wall with a lot of drawers and you bought each screw individually. It wasn’t hard to figure out, but I was trying to match the exact type of screws that I had been using, so it took longer than expected. I liked buying only what I needed, but I could’ve driven all the way to the home improvement megastore in the time it took me to find what I was looking for.

I put all 15 screws in my pocket and headed out to the car to find a bored girlfriend who was wondering what happened. All in all, It cost me $3 for 15 screws. I have no idea if that’s good or not, and I don’t think I really want to know, either. We went back and finished installing the shelves, put a closet pole in the front hall, and cleaned up the basement before heading home. Rather than going out to dinner, we cooked up sausages and onions because they were dated to go bad that day. If they had another day left, we would’ve had someone else cooking for us.

After dinner, #1GF! went into the other room to change or something, and I was standing there trying to think of something funny to do when she walked around the corner. I do that sort of thing all the time, and have my whole life. I don’t know if you live with someone like this, but I imagine that it’s like living in a loony bin. Anyway, #1GF! took too long, and I drifted off into space because I’m a man, and if you leave a man along too long, they inevitably drift off into space and think about boobies, fixing something, or nothing at all.

Dragging me back to reality was the sound of #1GF! returning to the room. I freaked out because I had nothing remotely amusing prepared, and suddenly, I found myself frantically disco dancing. I don’t know what the hell happened.

Because I’ve been known to do things for long periods in the off chance that #1GF! will look over and laugh, she just cocked her head and asked, “How long have you been doing that?” I stopped and stood there slumped and a little ashamed. “I just started. You took too long that I drifted off into space, and when I heard you coming into the room, I sort of panicked and this was the result.”

She turned and walked into the kitchen still shaking her head, leaving me to wonder what portion of my brain thinks that disco dancing is a valid comedy routine. It’s only a matter of time before I’ll be talking in puns, forgetting the endings to long, drawn out jokes, and ending my sentences with “Waka waka waka!” Save yourselves.

At some time in the middle of the night, I awoke to realize that I had stuck my arm straight up in the air, and without bending my elbow, brought it down and poked #1GF! lightly on the face. I think it was my index finger touching her face that woke me up. I retracted my hand and felt like I did something wrong and was about to be caught. I listened quietly to see if I had accidentally woken #1GF! up. I heard nothing. Little did I know that she was listening quietly, probably half paranoid trying to figure out what the hell just happened. I’m no scientist, but I have the feeling that portion of my unconscious that was looking for a laugh with frantic disco dancing may have been getting some light retribution. I think I went back to sleep before she did.

What I Learned

• Every time I think I’m done with the house, there’s something else.
• I don’t forget the wrongs, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten easier to put the retribution on my terms.
• The Boston seaport looks like a 40’s gangster movie set.
• My sleeping self pokes #1GF! in the most roundabout and dramatic way possible.
• There is a portion of my brain that thinks frantic disco dancing is valid comedy. That portion needs to be singled out and expunged.
• Getting an interview in a newspaper is pretty cool even if the reason for your interview is pretty ridiculous.
• Selling T-shirts and posters seems like a pain and Cafepress’s t-shirts are substandard.
• Choose your own adventure books aren’t as common as I had thought.
• Heroes sucks badly enough that I no longer tape it.
• I still say “tape” when I mean “record”.
• Don’t use the self-check checkout when you have a full grocery order.

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You’re not dressed like Ralph Macchio, but you find yourself sitting in the middle of a dusty crossroad. You check your watch like you always do when the world around you lacks stability. It’s November 1st and it’s morning. I guess that’s something.

To your right, the road degrades into a stony path that leads to the abandoned mansion of the November Beard Club. To your left, the road vanishes into fields and sunshine. Something in the air vaguely smells like hope. In front of you, way in the distance, you see a man who seems to be smiling and waiting. You can’t tell if he’s giving you the finger or throwing you the horns.

Which path do you take?

If you go to the right and explore the ancient rights of November Beard Club,