it me

That's ONE Way to Celebrate

Y'know, I've put several thousand hours of labor in while wearing this shirt, and none of them, not even the ones in 100+ degree heat in the hot sun for hours, made me sweat this much.

This week, I sanded over 4200 square feet of 100-year-old wood flooring, which would have been fine if it were in any way climate controlled, but no! Instead it was on the third floor of a building with zero circulation. I couldn't even crack the windows! And you can't quite tell in the picture above, but my shirt is a completely different color, 100% saturated. Never in my life!

WIP

Detail on the dust-- probably removed about 20 lbs of age and wear from this floor

Just What The Doctor Ordered

It may not sound like the ideal vision of a staycation, but this project was actually a delightful opportunity to daydream and reflect. Not only did I decide to come back to Steemit and start writing again, but it also reminded me where I've come from.

Around this time three years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Grand Coulee Dam on the fourth of July, which was AMAZING. I'd been obsessed with Woody Guthrie's music, especially the song about the dam, and it just felt like the right thing to do while I was in the neighborhood.

I was at a pretty big turning point in my life, and taking the time to drive there and take in the sights and sounds is something I still cherish. Like there's the story where I hit a bird on the way there, and somehow it was still on the front bumper when I arrived, and so out of crushing guilt and sorrow I made a makeshift grave for the poor thing, which resulted in some asshole family calling the goddamn cops on me and my friends. I used to think I was really good at talking to the cops, but it was around that time that I realized, no, I'm just white, and it's really got nothing to do with me (that was the second time I'd been accosted by the cops for no reason; fuck the snitch who reported us. The cops mentioned something about burying a bomb and blowing the dam on the 4th. I invited them to check the grave if they didn't believe it only contained a bird. Cops say the darndest things). Or there was the way the power lines crackled overhead as they carried off the energy produced by the dam-- I've heard transformers and transistors whine, but never anything as powerful or as ominous as the wires at that dam!

Grand Coulee Dam, after burying a bird and before the cops were called

In conclusion, I've never been good at the fourth of July, but for some reason the heat on that third floor, the long hours in the gritty dust, and all that time to think put some things in perspective for me. These were things about myself, and about the way I see my place in/relationship to the world at large, and that's really fucking valuable to me. Not a terrible way to spend a day, if you ask me!