The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 448): The Floors and The Wall

#1GF! and I went over to the house early to rip up all the paper that the contractor had used to cover what amazingly bad job the floor people did. They filled in holes with foam and silicone caulk, and left other gaping holes untouched. They didn’t bother to sand things down, leaving rings and discoloration, and didn’t bother blending in patches. They simply cut out big squares and replaced it with whatever wood they had laying around. They literally cut corners wherever they could. I wish that I could say that I was surprised, but all I can do is shake my head at this point.

When we were driving back from ripping up the paper, we saw all the people peppering the sidewalks in front of the local restaurants and lining their cars up to get into the parking lots. “Ha! Look at them all,” I said pointing at the long line of cars. “Can you imagine having to plan to come down here? You have to decide the day before, worry about the weather, get up early, pack the car… Fughetaboutit. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just pack up and move down here.”

That’s the nice thing about living at the beach. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass to get anywhere, but that’s sort of the point. Even vacations spent at home feel like you’re far away from the bustle to make vacations to a beach somewhere else feel sort of like a waste of money. Your leisure time becomes a string of unrelated snap decisions instead of a series of schedules and plans. Within moments, I realized that this isn’t something that everyone values enough to pull up stakes for an out of the way beach town, but when I said it, there was a part of me who really didn’t understand why people don’t just pack up and move here.

When we got home, I made some bagel sandwiches for breakfast, which included an experimental portion where I fried up some salami to see if it added a new flavor. It definitely added something to the mix, but the salami itself was never put on the sandwiches because that something added wasn’t something that tasted very good.

We thought the tide was high at noon, so sat around and watched Dexter to avoid having the tide chase us up the beach. Once we realized that the tide was actually low at noon, we packed a couple of sandwiches, threw our books in the bag, and headed down to our usual spot. We climbed over the boulders and sat where someone had built a sand wall to keep out the last encroaching tide. Even though building sand castles isn’t a very adult thing to do, I had a good time nonchalantly using my foot to reinforce the sides. I didn’t think we’d be there long enough to see how it fared against the tide, but it kept me busy for a while.

Some people walking by would smile and make comments like they had never seen a wall of sand without a seven year old in front of it, and I would nod and laugh as if it wasn’t the tenth time that someone had made the exact same comment. They would seem to appreciate the stupid and pointless nature of it, and even though they wouldn’t waste the time themselves, they seemed to enjoy the fact that someone else did. In contrast, the cool people would walk by with their bad sunglasses and meaningless tribal tattoos, scowling at the world as if they were aggravated by how boring it was, while the lonely, single women were busily using the beach as the set of their own desperate cliche.

It’s not like I even built the wall. I was merely the current curator of something pointless and transient, that was built six hours too early to be useful, and 30 years too late to be normal. As I looked at the wall, I started wondering why I felt the need to take useless things and change them. Was I building up the wall to see if I could stand up against something as impossible as the tide, or was it merely to provide people something futile to smile at? In either case, it seems that the entertainment value of things in my life tend to carry as much weight as things with the substance.

Once I gave up on the wall, I sat down and finished Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture by Deena Weinstein and #1GF! got ideas from Better Homes and Gardens. We didn’t leave the beach until 5:30, partly because it was nice out, and partly because I wanted to see how the wall fared against the tide. It did really well, but that seems like something that a seven year old might talk about. I certainly won’t mention that only a single splash made it over because, like I said, I’m not seven.

Once we got home we watched 21 Birch Street, a documentary which is the closest you can get to pointlessly suffering through two hours of someone’s home movies, without going to a senile relative’s house. I made a leek, bacon, egg, parsley dish for dinner, which has been one of the few recipes from Bon Appetit that I’ve been able to find both the patience and ingredients for. It’s always turns out so well that leftovers are scarce.

Monday (Day 449): Writing

Wrote LOR and then went over to the house to get an estimate from the plumber. I thought it was interesting that even though he did his best not to badmouth our old contractor, he didn’t think that the old contractor should be allowed to walk away considering the way the house was left. I agree. This wasn’t a few small scratches or differences of opinions, but a very costly and very involved set of mistakes, but right now, I need to get it done. I’ll sort out the blame once we’re in.

After the meeting, I was supposed to mow the lawn, but it suddenly was 800 degrees out and I was in no mood for it. I went home and put together my summer shadow people Polaroid and wrote LOR.

I got an an e-mail from a writer who had chucked his job a couple of years ago to write, who told me that he had gone back through the archives and read all of the Life of Riley posts. I thought it was pretty cool that the posts struck a chord with him, but cooler that he dropped me a note letting me know. You might not know it with the “marathon grocery list” style that this post can take on sometimes, but I can spend hours rearranging some of the words to get them to express exactly what I mean. There are certain descriptions (like the gum on the sidewalk from last week) that I wait for #1GF! to read just to see if she has the same reaction reading them as I did writing them. There might only be a couple of phrases in each post, but it’s cool when people pick up on them. When you don’t know those people, it’s even cooler.

Tuesday (Day 450): The Bush Vandals

I left a message for the new contractor and then wrote all morning. I changed the picture on my about page from just an eye to my whole head. I was told by different people that I looked retarded, cross-eyed, and old in the picture, but that’s only because I’m sort of old, sometimes cross-eyed, and quite possibly retarded.

In the afternoon, I went over to the house to mow the lawn. The neighbor had mowed half of my lawn already, so even though I was thankful, I felt like I cheated on the yard work. The bushes hadn’t been cut since before we bought the house, so I shrugged and decided to give one of them a little trim to make the house look less like a haunted construction site.

I attacked the first bush as carefully as I could, but despite standing back a number of times, the more I cut, the worse it got. I eventually shrugged, and moved on to a second. I might’ve learned something from the first bush because even though the second bush was a hack job, it didn’t come out as bad as the first. Confident that I was improving, I moved on to the third. Sometimes you have to quit while you’re ahead, because the third bush somehow came out worse than the first. As I was standing there shaking my head and wondering if the bushes would ever grow back, a friend called…

Hey, what are you up to?

I’m just working in the yard.

And how’s that going?

Oh, I am in trouble.

What’s going on?

I’m cutting the bushes.

Uh huh.

I haven’t seen a hack job like that since my Dad tried to cut my hair when I was a kid.

[laughing at me]

I think #1GF! is probably going to be mad about this.

You didn’t tell her that you were going to cut the bushes?

Of course not. Like everything, it just sort of happened.

Jon…

What?

Well, what did you do, man?

I don’t friggin’ know. It was going ok, until this final bush made me mad…

[laughing at me]

…so I ripped it out.

[laughing at me] I shouldn’t laugh. A bush made me mad once, so I threw chains around it and all of it’s little friends and ripped them out with a truck.

Oh, she’s not going to like this at all. What time is it anyway?

5:30

Ok, good. That means I have about an hour to hide the evidence.

The evidence? What the hell are you going to do?

I don’t know. I guess I’ll clean up the cuttings the best I can and then when we pull up in front of the house next time, I’ll say “WHAT THE FUCK?” and act like there’s a bush shredding vandal on the loose.

The conversation went on like this for a while until I noticed a small hole underneath our new bulkhead and tried to kick some dirt into it while I talked. Unfortunately, the more that I stepped on it, the more the hole opened up. I had to hang up because within minutes, I had a hole that was a couple of feet wide and deep enough to swallow a rake. It’s rare that the contractor mistakes that I find these days have any emotional impact, but I’m almost sure that I said “What the fuckin’ fuck kind of asswipe shits the fuck on that bullshit?” I was like a smurf of swearing. I don’t know if it was more disturbing that I was making absolutely no sense, that I emphasized “that” as if it were an important word in the sentence, or that I was talking to a bulkhead. In any case, I was lucky that the bulkhead isn’t a gossip because no one else was around to hear me.

#1GF! made dinner, and I made a half batch of cookies because they take less time to cook than actually driving to the store to buy a package to drown my frustrations in. They didn’t wipe out my concern for the state of my house, but they certainly put it off for at least the amount of time that it takes to drink a cold glass of milk.

Wednesday (Day 451): Fighting Domestication

I was eating my cereal and The Money Pit was on again. I couldn’t help but watch it because it’s a lot funnier on the screen than in real life. When I went to tell #1GF! that it was on, I mentioned that I would probably have to skip a post this week because I couldn’t get any of my drafts solidified. She reminded me of what day it was, and I realized that I was on track for the week. Thank goodness for editors.

Once #1GF! got off to work, I wrote several half posts then checked my stats. I then went to the library to drop off the heavy metal book that I had finished and replace it with another one that K recommended. I also looked through their music section to ease my craving for flipping my fingers through racks of CD’s that unemployed record junkies can’t justify buying. They had mostly classic rock, country, and one hit wonders, but I still managed to pick up ten or so. The only metal they had was Ozzy’s Diary of a Madman and the Scorpion’s Love At First Sting. Either all of the metal was all checked out, metalheads don’t give up their metal to the library, or there is some sort of anti-metal conspiracy going on.

I headed over to the supermarket, and unlike last week’s attempt, I got there without an issue. Even though I had only a handful of things to pick up, I wasn’t too happy about doing the food shopping that day. Maybe there were too many people there, or maybe it was because I found myself staring off into space and trying to plan meals for the week like I had a household to run. I don’t really have an explanation for the feeling, but the shopping felt like a chore.

Once I dropped the food off, I had to head back out to see if the drawer pulls from our old kitchen would turn out to be some nice antiques to use in our new kitchen. I thought about bringing my new heavy metal book in case I found somewhere to sit and read it, but I didn’t have a post done, and I thought, “What the hell am I going to do out there anyway? Sit on a sea wall and read a book? Why don’t I just wear a bandanna and bring an acoustic guitar along to complete the asshead look?” I left the book at home.

The pulls turned out to be worthless, so I headed back to the apartment to get a post out. I set up appointments with the floor guy, the contractor, and a writer from London who was going to interview me for an article in the German edition of the Financial Times. I then made dinner, which continued feeling like a chore. I don’t know why. Maybe I was fighting domestication. I killed the feeling off with some of the cookies that I had laying around. Wait. Did I say the Financial Times? Yep, I did.

Thursday (Day 452): Interviewed For The Financial Times

I wrote a little in the morning, but was still floundering through incomplete posts. At 11 AM, I got a call from Louise Brown, a freelance writer from London who is doing a story on me for the German edition of the Financial Times. Considering that the Financial Times is the European equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, I couldn’t imagine how I had gotten on her radar. Don’t ask me what beards have to do with finance, but I wasn’t about to ask unless they questioned it themselves.

I got the call an hour before I expected because I’m a bit out of practice with scheduling international calls, but the interview seemed to go really well. We talked for a solid hour, which can’t be cheap for an international call, and the conversation ranged from beards to the difficulties of being a writer. Even though the interview was for a large financial newspaper, there was a good amount of laughing going on on both sides of the pond. I really think that it was the most fun that I’ve had in an interview.

The floor guy called during the interview, and I would’ve answered in any other situation, but considering I was on an international call and being interviewed by a newspaper, I had to put a busy signal through to him. Once the interview was over, I called him back and met him at the house. We talked about all the new issues with the floor, and our estimate ended up being three times higher than it had been while all the floor flaws were hidden under paper. Maybe I should’ve asked for the international bearded superstar discount, but I forgot because I still think of myself like a normal guy. Like Superman. Or Captain Kirk. Or Matlock. It’s not like I’m Mr. T or anything.

Afterward, I went home and called #1GF! to tell her that we’re going to go broke, but that I’ll be semi-famous in Germany, sort of like MC Hammer. I told her all about the interview and made her laugh a few times. I then wrote for four hours before continuing work on my heavy metal research. Today’s topic was doom and sludge metal.

Friday (Day 453): Inefficiencies

I checked my stats and then connected with some people through Facebook that I haven’t talked to in years. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Maybe the past should stay there, and things like Facebook just dredge up a bunch of things that you haven’t thought about in years. I don’t know. Maybe the new revolution of connectedness can provide touchstones and reacquaint people with their pasts, but maybe it keeps the current generation from outgrowing their pasts and moving on.

When I started verifying my death metal research, I knew I should’ve shut down the PC and read a book. It was similar to one of those days at work where you don’t want to do anything, but feel compelled to press forward anyway. Unemployed writers have those days, too. Next time this happens, I’m going to have to tell myself that I’m being inefficient and step back to recharge.

Saturday (Day 454): Working and Playing

#1GF! and I cleaned the apartment all morning in case we had company over the holiday weekend. The one saving grace was that I listened to Black Sabbath while I cleaned. Fact: If anything can make cleaning a bit easier to take, it’s punctuating bouts of scrubbing with bouts of air guitar. Once we were finished, #1GF! went out with her friend and I tried to figure out something to do. I made a few calls to people who didn’t call me back, and then even though I was against it, I flipped on the PC. I did some routine maintenance and backups, but I didn’t like having the PC on during the weekend because I inevitably end up writing. I’ve found that a mandatory break from the keys once a week keeps me from burning out.

I thought about installing one of the games that have been sitting on the floor next to my desk since I quit my job, but then decided to play a little Half Life 2, which hasn’t been played since I got stuck on a level back when I quit my job. I typically don’t play video games anymore, because I think it’s a dangerous habit for an unemployed person to get into, but #1GF! was out, and surfing the web is generally a huge waste of time. I figured that with a video game, I’d at least be working on my hand eye coordination and it would keep me from writing.

I played for 30 minutes on the same spot that I got stuck on a year ago, never advanced an inch. It was immensely frustrating. I went to play online, and just got destroyed. When #1GF! got home, it was a good excuse to stop the torture and shut the PC down. I went downstairs and stared at her for a while before realizing that if I didn’t get past where I was stuck in the game, it was going to bother me. I left #1GF! on her own and went back to the level until I beat it. Then, I kept playing long after it was time for bed.

What I Learned

• Bushes who make me mad pay the price.
• There are still situations that arise where I get angry about our old contractor.
• Don’t let a contractor put a covering over a repaired floor until you get to inspect it.
• Do not fry Salami.
• Writing even a failure of a book may provide me with a feeling of legitimacy.
• Sometimes it’s better to give up than be inefficient.
• Louise Brown is really quite nice.
• Black Sabbath makes cleaning tolerable.
• I’m going to be in the Financial Times.
• I finally suck at gaming, but indiscriminately throwing grenades around online is still fun as hell.

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Posted in Leisure