This is week 105 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing 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 728): An Uneventful Sunday

It was a lazy Sunday. I finished You Suck: A Love Story, and thought that it was neat how some of the scenes and characters overlapped from Moore’s novel, A Dirty Job. Finishing a book would be the closest that I’d get to an accomplishment for the day. I watered the plants, picked a couple of flowers for #1GF!, and generally relaxed. We we went to dinner to avoid cooking, and talked about an upcoming interview.

Monday (Day 729): LOR, Resumes, And Baby Prep

Wrote LOR until 5:30PM and then printed out a few resumes. The pages were coming off of my 400 year old printer with splotches, so I spent some time cleaning the rollers with some q-tips and glass cleaner. Fifteen minutes later, the pages were coming out splotch free. While they printed (and on various breaks throughout the day), I looked through my book of interview questions to brush up on the answers to some of the tougher questions. I figured that if I could answer some of the trickier questions, the easy ones should flow right by. I shut down the computer at 8PM.

I went to bed a couple of hours later, and fell asleep almost instantly. It was as if my mental exercises were as tiring as physical ones. As soon as I fell asleep, I was woken up by the phone ringing. I didn’t get aggravated because it was a family issue. As soon as I fell back to sleep, I was woken up by another phone call. I found myself thinking that being woken up randomly is a part of parenthood, so I had better get used to it.

Tuesday (Day 730): Highway Robbery

I got up, buffed my shoes, threw on a suit, and went to a job interview. I know, you’re thinking, “But what about the dream, J-Dawg? How am I going to quit my job and write if you’re giving up on the dream?” I’m not giving up on the dream, but there’s nothing wrong with exploring options when they’re presented.

I was thirty minutes early, but elected to have the receptionist notify the interviewers instead of wandering around and then pretending that I was perfectly on time. I’m not sure if that was a good decision, but I made myself available anyway.

I sat in the lobby waiting for a bit, and then had a 45 minute interview. I had an hour break and then a ninety minute interview with someone else. Both seemed to go well, and I was out of the building by 2PM. The only extraordinary thing that happened was that I was robbed while leaving the building. By a woman. Wielding a cash register. Now, I knew that parking could be expensive, but $30 for a couple of hours seemed relatively insane. I had crossed the 2+ hour mark, and could’ve parked for the rest of the day to get my money’s worth, but I wanted to get home. At least while I was being robbed, the woman had a face on that indicated that she felt bad about taking my money.

I got in my car, drove up the squeaking ramps from deep under the city, and headed out to the highway. I had nothing to lose at all. As soon as I made it a few exits into suburbia, I felt zonked. It didn’t seem logical for me to be as tired as I was, so maybe it’s about time to get back on the workout train and rebuild the pythons.

I went home, took off the suit, wrote some thank you notes, and tried to find some technical writing samples to that didn’t include any swears or humor that I could forward to the interviewer. Given my propensity to joke, that exercise took longer I expected.

By the time I sent out thank you notes, it was already 6PM. I made Mexican food for dinner and watched the first disc of Weeds Season 4 with #1GF!. The food ended up being better than the show, although neither were that great.

Wednesday (Day 731): A Short (But Complete) Rough Draft Complete

I woke up thinking it was Friday. Let me tell you this my corporately enslaved brethren and sistren: even if you don’t have an office to go into, thinking it’s Friday on a Wednesday doesn’t lessen the suck factor.

When I got to my PC, it wouldn’t power up. This was the same thing that happened before my last power supply failed. It seemed like a fluke, but it didn’t give me a warm, fuzzy feeling about my home wiring if I was facing the possibility of a second power supply failure since moving in. I shut the PC off by the switch on the power supply, and once turned back on, it booted normally.

I was checking mail by 8AM, and then had to tackle the dispute with the plumber who opted to install a different boiler than we paid for without telling us. I wrote a response to the plumber’s lawyer and sent his correspondence to the mediator, which the lawyer had decided to cut out of the process. I took the letter to the post office and sent it certified mail because it’s gotten to the point where I can’t trust that the lawyer will respond to letters without proof that he got them. The whole process is as tedious as playing a board game with a misbehaving child who has a tendency to cheat.

After I dropped off the letter, I went home and started working on the ol’ novel. I didn’t make it very far. I started writing posts about the Italian Spiderman, an internet phenomenon that I was a year late to the party on.

I didn’t really get cranking on the book until late afternoon, but I wrote another 4,000 words, and unexpectedly completed the rough draft of the story. The whole thing is still pretty rough, and I’m not sure that the story works in all the right places, but having a nearly 30,000 word framework roughed out was pretty exciting and a little disappointing: exciting because I had a rough draft of my first novel complete, and disappointing because I had no idea where I was going to be able to find the other 70,000 words I needed to complete it. The LOR posts tend to double or triple in size during editing, but I wasn’t sure if that would apply.

Thursday (Day 732): Bionic Parts And Library Mind Tricks

I took #1GF!’s mom to her appointment, and I think it was relatively uneventful. She may have offered nice looking clouds as proof of god, but I didn’t want to tell her that it would probably take god himself showing up with Captain Kirk and Han Solo as his wing men to get me to entertain the idea, and even then, I would probably just assume that I had gone insane and check myself and the robot in to the nearest mental hospital.

On the way home, I stopped into the library to grab a book. I had a list of books that I wanted to pick up, but I couldn’t remember any of them. Instead, I looked up some Hugo award winning science fiction. None of the books that I looked up seemed to be on the shelves. I eventually had to ask at the desk as to where they were.

The librarian showed me to two shelves full of science fiction that were separated from the normal books, I assume, to prevent cross pollination between species. She told me to come get her if I couldn’t find what I was looking for, which sort of made me think that I shouldn’t walk away without a book in hand, or she’d think that I was blowing her off, or that I had used a need for science fiction as a librarian pick up line.

I couldn’t explain it, but I felt like I was committed to a course of action. I don’t know why. I picked up something from the rack and left, wondering if the librarian’s technique could be used in negotiation to somehow prod the other party into a choice that they hadn’t intended on making.

As soon as I fell into the seat of ROCKET CAR! and slammed the door, I suddenly remembered a book that I was looking for. It was called Flood. I went back in and looked through the millions of books named Flood in the card catalog to see if any of the descriptions or authors jogged my memory further.

Unless I had unwittingly become a fan of family dramas, I couldn’t find the book. I left the library without the book, not knowing that the book that I was looking for was actually called Foop.

I did the food shopping, and listened to Cannibal Corpse on the way home. Even thought I found the blaring death metal relaxing enough to make a long range sniper shot, I eventually shut it off to listen to some pop, rock, or whatever was on the radio at the time. Sometimes the radio can make you feel less isolated for the simple fact that you know other people are listening to the same thing that you are. You’re loosely connected to other humans because you’re not ignoring the world with your own private musical cocoon.

I stopped into a second supermarket on the way because I couldn’t find fresh basil in the first. I ended up walking around like an idiot looking through the dill, oregano, and other spices to see if the basil had suddenly appeared since I looked two minutes before. I eventually tried another aisle, and the fresh basil was next to the tomatoes. I guess supermarkets don’t keep fresh basil with the other fresh spices. I have no idea why, but it certainly smacks of basilism.

The weather was way too nice to write, yet I wrote on and off for the rest of the day. I was working hard at working, and getting no real work out of it. I only managed to get out another 1500 words. When I rubbed my eyes and checked the word count, I had exactly 29,999 words. I wanted to open the file and add a random F bomb just to hit the 30k word mark. I didn’t because it was a joke that only I would see, and it wasn’t particularly funny.

The words weren’t flowing like they had been since I declared the rough draft complete, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. Nothing was clever or well written, and it all seemed like a wireframe. Of course, it was a wireframe, but I had hoped that the rough draft would be a little more clever and a lot more amusing. It really wasn’t either, and it made me miss writing blog posts every day. I knew that there was no future in that, and convinced myself to get back to the book. I eventually gave up at 6:30 and read a few feeds to reacquaint myself with the bloggers who cram my feedreader full of amusing and interesting posts.

#1GF! came home minutes later, and we ate some leftovers and started watching TV. Don’t ask me how, but we ended up in a dispute. We rarely end up in disputes, but this dispute revolved around something important: the bionic man.

I started it out with, “…it’s bionic tshk tshk tshk tshk tshk…”

“Nananananana”, said #1GF! playing along.

“Tshk tshk tshk tshk tshk”

“Nanananana.”

“It’s tshk tshk tshk tshk tshk”

“Nanananana.”

“Okay, we’re looking up a clip because there is no way that the bionic man made that sound.”

I looked up a clip of the bionic man jumping. The sound wasn’t quite what what either of us had said, but it was definitely closer to my rendition than #1GF!’s. “Well, not jumping. My sound is from when he’s throwing. Can you find throwing?”

“It’s the same sound.”

“It’s the bionic woman then.”

I looked up a clip of the bionic woman jumping. It sounded the same as the bionic man.

“It’s the bionic woman’s hearing then.”

I look up a clip of the bionic woman’s bionic ear, and it sounded like sonar mingled with voices talking through an old telephone.

“Can you look up the intro to the bionic woman?”

I looked up a clip and left the room to go brush my teeth, feeling satisfied that I had won #1GF! over to a more correct vocal representation of bionics.

From the other room: A parachute accident?? [pause] Oscar Goldman?? [pause] There it is. Nananananana.”

The sound was exactly the same. I stopped flossing my teeth and called out, “Are you kidding?”

“There it is again! Nanananana!”

“IT’S THE SAME SOUND!”

I looked around the corner at #1GF! who was smiling at me on the couch. I rolled my eyes

“Nanananana.”

Friday (Day 733): Staining The Door

Instead of kick starting the day with some writing or diving into some house project, I sat and watched a documentary on the Navy SEAL’s Hell Week. I’ve seen a few BUD/S shows over the years, and I always end up watching them from end to end. #1GF! came in during this one and sat down next to me. She watched as the trainee’s got yelled at.

“Why would you have wanted to do that?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s nice to know where your breaking point is.”

“Are you going to leave me and go join up?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Of course not. I’m too old. You have to be 28 or under.” We sat for a minute while the instructors dumped shovels of sand on a trainee’s head while he did pushups. “I probably would’ve failed out anyway…” I think that was the first time I ever admitted that.

#1GF! went off to work, and I went out to see if I could get a window replaced that we broke way back on day 535 while cleaning the basement. I strapped one of the windows in the back seat and drove to a lumber store that was marked on one of the screens. I listened to Cannibal Corpse and noticed that I was once again completely calm and barely breathing. When I showed up at the shop, I gave them the window and every detail that was on the screen, and they eventually found the original order. They ordered a new window and said that they’d have it in two to three weeks. It seemed like a long time to wait for such a low quality window, but maybe the guy who makes them is touring with the circus at this time of year.

I strapped the window into the back seat again, and went to the home megastore nearby. I picked up a bracket to hang a closet pole, and a tarp to protect the door while I stained it. I looked at bug killer, plant food, and grills, but didn’t buy any of them.

I went home with the intention of taping off the front door in preparation for staining. I looked in all the usual spots for the painter’s tape, and couldn’t find it. I stopped after about fifteen minutes. “You can either tear this place apart for a roll of tape, or you can spend five minutes and five bucks to get a new roll at the town hardware store.” I nodded and headed out to get the tape.

I returned home ten minutes later and taped off the door. It was already 11AM. #1GF! called and told me the painter’s tape had been in her car for the last few months. I realized that that was the place that I remembered seeing it.

I was already feeling like I would run out of time by the end of the day with only staining the door and washing down the crib, on my list of things to do. #1GF! didn’t know this, and mentioned a few more house projects that I could tackle if I was looking for something to do. I wasn’t really excited about the time I had for my projects, and I was a less than excited about new suggestions.

I explained that I didn’t think I’d have time for the door and the crib and told her that adding more to the pile wasn’t making me look forward to the rest of the day. She apologized and I laughed. “I’m just bitching, I said. I don’t think I want to work on any of these projects.”

“Well quit bitching and get on it then.”

I hung up and shook my head. I went to the basement to create a tack strip out of some old scrap wood that I had laying around. I was going to use it to tack the tarp over the front door so that I could leave the door open without having to worry about pollen or rain getting all over the newly stained surface between coats.

My table saw is still at my parents, and I couldn’t find a hand saw. The only things that I had available was a circular saw and a small, battery powered reciprocating saw. The circular saw blade looked like it would easily rip though a solid piece of lumber, but had a tooth baring scowl that said that it wouldn’t hesitate to send a thin, flexible tack strip hurtling like a javelin into my eye.

I grabbed the small portable saw, and quickly realized that the blade was worn out. It was actually burning through the wood instead of cutting it. Before I could use my newly found wood burning saw to write my initials or burn a cool Native American chief into the wood, the batteries wore out. “Things are just so much easier if you have the right tools,” I said aloud.

The robot rolled over to the toolbox and picked up a drywall saw. He looked at me like he was being helpful. “Don’t touch the tools,” I said, and his arm retracted and he pretended to sleep. The drywall saw fell back into the toolbox with a clatter.

I took the half cut tack strip, and started three nails through it. I headed up the stairs. The robot was watching me through a half opened eye. I looked at the window behind him. “Oh man. Is that water I see running down that wall?”

The robot wheeled his head around and his tiny radar popped out of the top of his head and started spinning. He had no idea that it was merely a decoration and didn’t actually sense anything. He quickly rolled over to the wall and stared at it, the gears in his eye whirring as he focused and refocused on what I knew were merely age old stains. I knew it would keep him out of trouble until I could move the toolbox up out of his reach. He didn’t notice that I went back upstairs.

I stood outside with a tarp and a tack strip, trying to figure out the best way to get the tarp hung so that it would protect against the weather. After a few minutes of wrangling underneath that blue monster, I found the right way. Put the tack strip back in the basement, and staple the damned tarp to the trim with a staple gun. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a workable solution.

I got into the meat of the project at around noon, and estimated an hour or two to get it done. After wiping off the pollen and cleaning the door with mineral spirits, I spent twenty minutes stirring the stain to get the globs of tar on the bottom to mix in. Gel staining fiberglass to make it look like wood isn’t nearly as simple or quick as staining a piece of natural wood. For one thing, you have to create the grain yourself. By the time I finished staining, it was 6PM. It was a gross underestimate of time.

I cleaned everything up, and went to the basement to get the hose and give the plants some water. The robot was still staring at the wall. His radar was facing backward, and it was whirring and clicking in place like it had slipped off track or stripped a gear out of pure robot excitement. I walked over to the bulkhead and cranked it open. It opened like an interior door on some rusted bucket of bolts owned by some space trader. As I opened the door, it started raining.

“Well, I’ll cross that task off of today’s list. Thanks, Mother Nature.”

I climbed back in and looked at the robot. He had fallen asleep. I pushed his radar down into the top of his head and it locked in with a click. I closed the spring hinged door, and the robot weedled and beeped. He was no more awake than he had been. “Take it easy, pal. You don’t want to strain yourself.” Of course I said it quietly because the robot is a lot less trouble when he’s asleep.

I went back upstairs and noticed that a lot more stain than expected had made its way onto my clothes. And hands. And legs. I didn’t have any stain in my armpits or naughty bits, so I sat on the edge of the tub and it off with a washcloth. The decision probably saved quite a bit of water.

When I was stain free, I threw on some clean clothes and went to the front of the house to examine my handiwork. It looked like I did a decent job of simulating wood grain, but I noticed one spot that seemed lighter than the rest of the door. I grabbed a rag and tried to blend it in. When I was done blending, I had a three foot streak that was lighter that the rest of the door.

I growled and re-opened the can of stain and did one section of the door over. It wasn’t difficult, but I had to clean up the tools and myself all over again. It was not very efficient.

#1GF! was off visiting her mother, so I sat down for a plate of leftovers. I emptied the dishwasher, watched Jeopardy, and went to check on the door at 8PM. I put two fingerprints in the stain in the middle of the door while testing if it was still tacky. A. Touch the fucking bottom or side of the door to test for tackiness, moron. B. If you’re going to test for tackiness, do it with one finger. Don’t give the door the sign of the devil and touch it with both your pinky finger and index finger at the same time. Fiberglass doors that are trying to look like wood do not “get” metal. C. See A and B.

I was not happy with myself. This was the second time that I would have to fix the door, and I had barely started. I went back down to the basement to get a paintbrush to feather the fingerprints in. I probably should’ve cleaned the brush after I was finished, but I figured that I’d screw something up and have to use it soon. I put everything away, and left the door open to dry.

I cleaned off my hands and sat down at around 8:30PM to write all this down for the next time I order a fiberglass door and want to do the finish myself. The door still needed at least two coats of polyurethane, and the instructions weren’t kidding when they said that gel stain needs to dry for 48 hours.

I stayed up until midnight to give the door a few more hours to dry before I closed it. While I waited, I finally watched an episode of the IT Crowd. It’s a British comedy about a couple of IT geeks and their non-IT boss working in a basement. If you’ve ever worked in IT, it should be up your alley, as long as you’re okay with British comedy and slapstick.

At midnight, the door was still tacky, but it had to be closed because this day had come to a close.

Saturday (Day 734): Popeye The Fix-It Ninja

I woke up at 6AM and then fell back to sleep. When I eventually awoke at 9AM, I was alarmed at the amount of day I had burned (although looking back it doesn’t seem like much). I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and opened the front door to let it continue drying. It had been over 15 hours, and a touch to the bottom corner showed that it wasn’t even close to dry.

I took a shower and while scrubbing off some of the remnants of stain that I had missed the night before, I had an idea for a passage in my book. I don’t know what it is about showers, but it seems to bring up some ideas for me (I wonder if listening to a recording of a shower running would produce the same effect.). I let #1GF! know what was going on, and sat down to write while she finished watching a movie. I stepped away from the PC at around noon with a little over 500 more words added.

#1GF! headed in to take a shower. “What are you going to do?” she asked me before going in.

“Whatever I want,” I said with the defiance of a seven year old who knows that he isn’t going to do whatever he wants.

#1GF! raised her eyebrows and gave me a smirk. “Okay, then.” She went in to take a shower and I explored my freedom by measuring the baby’s closet to put in a missing closet pole.

I had two leftover pieces of closet pole in the basement. One was an original closet pole, a full inch and a half dowel that had been stained and varnished about a hundred years ago. Just picking it up made me want to learn kung fu. I bounced an end on the ground, and it made a solid tonk.

Like Gandalf kicking up a vision by tapping his staff on the ground, I suddenly found myself thinking about being a kid and making nunchucks by screwing chain to a couple of old pieces of broomstick. I don’t know if there was a cultural obsession with king fu movies back then, but I think every kid I knew had a secret pair of homemade nunchucks stashed somewhere in their room. I snapped back to reality as suddenly as I had left.

My other option was the pre-primed (but not painted or sanded), 1 3/8 inch modern closet pole that had never been installed. I thought about sanding it, and then I thought about painting it. Then, I thought about being a ninja or possibly a firetruck. All the thinking was proving to be a waste of time and accomplished nothing. What was important at the moment was getting that pole up for #1GF!. Aha, no. Not what I meant. I meant, get that pole installed so that #1GF! would feel like things were progressing. I could take it down, and paint it later if I really cared.

I went downstairs to cut the modern pole to length, deciding to save the hundred year old pole for the off chance of being granted secret ninja powers at some time in the future. I donned my safety goggles, measured out what I needed, and made the cut with the circular saw.

When I got it upstairs, it was such a precise cut that it wouldn’t fit into the closet once the brackets were installed. I went down to cut off another quarter of an inch. I decided not to wear safety glasses because potential ninjas always have their eyes exposed. In that two second cut, a small piece of wood shot up and hit me in the eyelid. Thinking that I had better protect that eye from further projectiles, I closed it, turning me into Popeye the fix-it man. Fifteen minutes later, the closet pole was installed and #1GF! seemed pleased with it.

#1GF! also wanted some pictures hung in the bathroom, so I grabbed some picture hangers and a hammer. I held the pictures up, and moved them around until she thought that they were where she wanted them. The place that she wanted the pictures hung wasn’t centered on anything, which offended the secret engineer in me. She made me move one of the pictures so that it was more centered.

“No, that’s too far apart,” said #1GF!.

“But it’s not centered, ” I said over my shoulder. “It’s like insanity.”

“I knew this would happen,” said #1GF! as she folded her arms and waited for the secret engineer to get distracted by some unevenly cut blind cords.

I smiled. “Of course you did.” I got my measuring tape and started doing complex calculations involving angles, heights, picture widths, and the uneven centers of both the towel rack and the toilet. #1GF! stood with her arms folded and silently applied modest pressure from across the room.

“Okay, okay, fine,” I said. “What if I center this one over the toilet? I think we can agree on that one, right?”

I could see that #1GF! had reassessed this certain part of my character, and it had somehow been moved out of the “endearing” category. She sighed. “Yes.”

“Good.” I put the first picture up and started the measuring process again. I eliminated some variables, and placed the second picture up. “There?”

“Too far apart.”

She had not fallen for my “move the picture a little toward where the secret engineer wants it” ruse. I moved the picture closer.

“It needs to be closer,” she said. I moved it closer. “Right there. Stop. Perfect.”

I looked at the position of the picture from arms length. “That’s just crazy. The towel and the thing there? With all that? It’s just insanity…”

“I know, I know,” said #1GF! trying to sooth the technician’s precision that was trying to take control of my speech center, “but your way is too far apart.”

I moved the picture closer and made a mark where she wanted it. I took it down, and instead of trying to fit what she wanted to the calculations, I fit the calculations to what she wanted. It was the best that the secret engineer was going to get today. I measured the distance between the first picture and a cabinet and then the cabinet to the wall. Her placement made the two distances almost equal. I adjusted the mark a half inch, and tapped in a nail.

At 2PM, I shut the front door again, and we went to the mall. #1GF! was looking for a bedspread and I needed a graduation card. I know. Tagging along on a bedspread mission is neither the ultimate in manliness nor fun, but spending some time with #1GF! driving around was better than sitting home alone working on various painting projects around the house.

The bedspread thing didn’t go well, but when I went to get a card, one of the employees pulled open the card rack to reveal a secret shelf. To open the rack, she tilted four or five of the lowest rows of cards outward. I had no idea that card racks had hidden storage.

In our tour of what has become known as the “Gonorrhea Mall” (first mention in LOR Week 58), we ran across a couple of women who were suggestively dressed enough to looked way out of place. In Hollywood or in a posh city hotel, they would’ve looked normal with the way they sort of owned their outfits, but in the mall it seemed a little odd. It was interesting that both #1GF! and I immediately thought hooker, even though the outfits were more upscale than tightly shuffled sexual suggestion.

Why is it an automatic reaction to think “hooker” when seeing a well dressed, fit woman in heels, who is out of place with the general crowd? Upon reflection, it didn’t seem very nice of us. Then again, them hookers are tricky, and if they think you’re too nice, they’ll probably hook you good when you’re not looking.

We left the mall with only a card, and I took a sip of an iced coffee that had been brewing in the car’s heat for at least an hour. It was not what I’d call refreshing or delicious. As we drove, we started discussing religion and particularly whether the daughter of an atheist gets baptized. I’m not anti-religion, but I don’t see baptism as a necessity.

Sometimes I think that the conviction provided by belief is worth its weight in gold, but I wonder if potentially delusional conviction about the unknown is good or bad for a person. Does it make them stronger or provide them a crutch? There is no real answer. To me, religion and the god or gods you believe in is an entirely personal choice. If it works for you, and get’s you through, great. If not, great.

I’ve studied a fair amount of religion (formally and informally), and found that despite what a lot of people think are inherent differences, they’re all pretty much the same (Sometimes, even monotheism nods to pantheism. Is there a big difference between a monotheist praying to a saint to return something lost or an ancient Roman praying to Fortuna, the goddess of luck?).

Because I think belief is a personal choice, I don’t necessarily agree with making that choice for a baby, who can’t possibly have the knowledge necessary to join a church on her own. On the other hand, if I think it’s all simply unnecessary ceremony, why should I have a problem with letting some guy pour water on the child’s head? If I truly believe that god and religion are merely choices that aren’t right for me, but not wrong by definition, what would be the difference? This coming from a kid who was once called a heretic by the nun teaching religious education because he asked one too many questions.

There are a lot of choices out there, and not all of them are right for everyone. And I don’t see religious involvement as important to the molding of a good person. On the other hand, I know that #1GF! doesn’t share this view, and I respect her ideas.

As with most religious discussions, we didn’t really come up with a solution. We simply decided to work together to keep the child from getting trapped in a whirlpool between two differently running rivers of what are, in essence, merely the result of a difference of opinion on something unknowable.

We were in the area, so we drove by a friend’s house to see his rebuild progress after his house fire. We felt a little sneaky stopping on the side of the road to get a glimpse, but we didn’t want to drop by unannounced and disturb his family. It looked like the foundation and walls were in, which was a good sign considering the war of attrition pace of insurance companies.

#1GF! and I went to the Fireside Grill for dinner, which is pretty much an old people restaurant. It’s probably why I like it. We discussed a few names for the baby, and #1GF! refused to include “Bonka” or “Arugula” as valid considerations.

After dinner, we stopped into the Christmas Tree Shop, which I generally refuse to buy stuff from because I have testicles, and it was the source of the poorly mixed candle that supposedly caused my house fire years ago. We went in anyway because I didn’t figure #1GF! would drag me through there for long (she’s good like that.). I don’t know if it was the dinner or the sun heated iced coffee, but my stomach was growling like a stray dog over a bone. We got out of there quickly and without purchase.

We got home early enough, but too late to start any substantial home projects, which was the intention of the trip in the first place.

What I Learned

• It costs $30 to park for 2 hours in town.
• Italian… Spiderman…
• Sometimes the ending for a book sneaks up on you before you’re ready to write it.
• Basil is the outcast fresh spices.
• #1GF! has a very different opinion on the sound of bionics.
• I now know how to make a fiberglass door look like it has woodgrain.
• Don’t test for tackiness in the middle of a door with the sign of the devil.
• Gel stain literally takes 48 hours to dry.
• The IT Crowd is a decent British comedy for geeks.
• I come up with some decent ideas in the shower.
• Heel wearing fit girls that dress more fancy than the people around them will generally be assumed to be hookers unless they are in Hollywood.
• Greeting card racks have secret compartments in them.

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