Gym Whims

In just two months, I'll have been a member of a real life gym for a full year now. It's been 300 days and I'm still amused by it. While my attendance shows no real strategy to my exercising, I do stop in somewhat consistently which would lead one to believe that I have some kind of a plan - not like those folks who sign up in early January and don't show up again after March. I never thought I would feel superior to anyone at a gym but I feel it's ok to acknowledge one's preeminence over the New Year's crowd. 

Sixty percent of the time I go to the gym with Mom. We walk on the treadmills together for a half hour or so and then we go about our separate routines. She does a full body thing while I tend to focus on leg strength. Occasionally we're on neighboring machines and a few times we've gotten so tickled that we'll be silently crying and wiping tears away with towels meant for disinfecting the equipment. Admittedly I do a better workout on the days when Mom isn't around. 

I joined the gym for an intersecting collection of reasons. First, it was after my months of not being able to eat and the doctor told me I was six pounds of muscle underweight. Second, Mom was given some kind of early diagnosis of osteoporosis which made us both look at me with my equally dainty bones and realize that I should try to get ahead of this. And three, I had just quit my exciting job and needed something to get me out of the house. 

And so ten months of observa... I mean, exercise has taken place. I like going to the gym because the people in there are very cute, what with their grunting and flexing and intentional outfits. I like watching the pair of guy friends take turns lifting the same weight and secretly competing with each other while chatting about their weekend. I like the young girls in their matching sets and water bottles who only seem to be working on their glutes. If you go early in the morning, the older crowd will be there and my favorite is a group of five men in their late 60s. One of them walks on the treadmill while the other four hang on the sides of the machine and shoot the breeze. They're all dressed like they came to exercise but I never see them do anything. 

I love the pairs of older women sitting side by side on rowers or bicycles, so deep in their conversations that they're barely moving any of their limbs. I like catching a buff guy striking a pose in the mirror, and there's also a lady with huge balloon boobs and too much lip filler who makes a real show of her workouts. It's just all so terribly human - and when they aren't bothering you, humans are adorable. All of our little hopes and intentions.

I'm also terribly amused by how no one looks at anyone else. People keep their eyes down. They give everyone their space and privacy. That's nice. But they won't smile at you if you accidentally lock eyes, so obviously my real goal at the gym is to make someone smile at me. I try all kinds of tactics; looking thrilled, looking worn out, acting like this will all be the death of me... but most people avert their eyes. Girls in their twenties are most inclined to return my smile. I successfully made one guy laugh and now we are friendly passersby. "Oh hello again. Nice to see you." Also, the staff is very friendly.

Oh! And even as a novice gym person, I can tell that lots of people are doing the exercises wrong. That's fun to watch, though I do worry they'll get hurt.

So that's all the fun, external stuff. Internally is less fun, more intimidating. It's a lot of wondering what to do with yourself between exercises. There's a lot of down time at the gym and nowhere for you to be in those moments. I've just finished on the stair-stepper but need to catch my breath before the hamstring curler, so I just stand in the walkway and pant and try to act confident and casual. Why don't they have benches for breath-catching? I find myself rushing from thing to thing just to avoid the awkward in-between time. I think people are looking at me because I know that I've secretly been looking at them. I worry that I will put too much weight on a machine and hurt myself and I also worry when I go to machine right after someone my size and they're using 90 pounds more than me. Am I especially weak or are they especially strong? Where should I be in this process? And is there anything more embarrassing than overestimating yourself and then having to decrease the weight?

Once, on the thigh-squeezer machine, I had a great big fat lady to my left and what had to be a 80 pound college girl on my right. Both of them looked like they've never exercised before and I smugly thought that I must be what they both aspired to. Look at that normal-sized girl with the shiny hair and the mustache. She is so lean and presumably strong. I hope I can be like her someday. I was lost in my self-aggrandizement when I looked over and saw that the tremendous woman on the left was squeezing something like 180 pounds together with her thighs. I was shocked! I whipped my head over to check the tiny's girl's machine - she's squeezing 130. I whipped my head back to my weight rack. 60 pounds. What do you mean! I shouted to myself. I checked all the numbers again and came back confused. How do I justify this? I asked myself. And I'll tell you. They were both doing five reps and then waiting around for two minutes. I had to show them, so I just kept squeezing. 5 reps. 10. 20. 35. My thighs trembled with fatigue. Slow and intentionally. I told them in my mind. That's how you build strong muscles. Not this, blasting out a few reps. That's just for show. I told them everything I've gathered about exercising and then fled the scene and soon as it seemed plausible.

The interesting part of gyming, is that you can be perfectly proficient at other forms of exercise but it doesn't translate into anything impressive at the gym. The gym is its own specific kind of exercise. Nevermind my Youtube Pilates training to hold a plank for two minutes - you can't use that at the gym. So there you are, curling 8 pound dumbbells like a middle schooler, and no one in there would guess that you can hold an L-sit longer than they can. I bet people look at me and write me off as skinny. An outrage! I'm quite strong - much stronger than people expect me to be. And I know this is true because I have surprised many a stranger at the grocery store (carrying all my grocery bags on one arm) and the lawn care centers (heaving 50 pound bags of soil) and even at a self defense class I took in college where the instructor couldn't release themself from my grip, told me I was "abnormally strong" and then made me sit out the exercise. This struck me as counterproductive seeing as most attackers will be men, no doubt larger and stronger than Laura Union, so maybe the instructor needs to come up with a better maneuver.

But at the gym I just squeak out a few dainty weighted moves here and there and then go back home and get a real workout via YouTube. I'm just not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing in the gym, but it think it's all awfully cute. 

(Photos curtesy of a handstand gone wrong.)

Big Lue's No Good Very Bad 10 Days

The bad luck festival started with a Nicolas Cage movie. It was a Sunday night. We didn't know anything about the film but wanted to get out of the house, so we raced across our little island and came screeching into the theater parking lot just about five minutes late. Subsequently, we had to sit in the front row. Not only do I find the front row uncomfortably close, I hate that you can't take in the whole picture - you have to scan your eyes from one end to the other to see what it is you're supposed to be looking at. 

About thirty minutes in, I began to feel queasy. I thought back on my lunch that day and admitted to myself that all of it was iffy, probably mere moments from being past due, but I ate it anyways because Mom and Dad taught me not to throw away food. Deciding that my lunch was the cause for my discomfort, I forged on, watching Nicolas Cage sweating beneath a hot Australian sun. About an hour in, I realized I was sea sick. 
It's not entirely uncommon for me to get motion sickness in movie theaters. The screen is so big and the lights are so bright. Things are swirling and flashing... it's a recipe for vomit. I recall a submarine movie I saw in high school that really set me off (K-19, Harrison Ford) and most recently, one about airplanes left me queasy for a few hours (Top Gun; Maverick, Tom Cruise). And now I add Nick Cage to the list. Despite being the toughest person you know, even a rouge woosh in a hammock can send my stomach into pirouettes. Being in-transit of any kind makes me a little queasy. Even swimming in a strong current can send me out in search of a ginger tea. I've always been this way really, though it does seem to get a little worse every year. So knowing myself as I do, I watched the rest of the film with my hand acting as a visor, only glancing at the screen occasionally. For the record, and in my defense, we go on to find out that the movie was meant to be a fever dream of sorts - made to disorient and discomfort you - we looked this up on account of what happens next. 

We left the theater, went to dinner and carried on with our normal routine and went to bed feeling fine. The next morning, I opened my eyes, smiled at my beloved partner and sat up to start the day. That's when I felt all the liquid in my brain moving in circles like someone had flushed the toilet up there. Instantly dizzy, queasy, nauseous and panicked. "I have vertigo!" I shrieked to Brett. I'll fast forward and tell you that it was awful, certainly not a way a human could live out their days. Dad had vertigo once and declared the intention of suicide if it didn't go away. I have since told this to my friend, Jenn, who said the exact same thing. "I thought I was going to have to kill myself." So I'm not just being dramatic. I sat very still in bed all day, alarmed, and unhappy. What I've written up there has simplified it. It was a truly horrendous experience that I now live in fear of experiencing again. So, there's that.

I told Mom about the movie and my symptoms and shortly after we hung up, she called back and informed that I had a vestibular migraine - brought on by visual stimuli. Diagnosis made me feel better. Shortly after that, she sent me a Yahoo News article entitled "Is Nicholas Cage's New Movie Making You Sick?" It made other people feel bad too, ok? 

The dizziness retreated slowly over many days but, being the toughest person you know, I got back to work on the renovations the next day. A few days later, I banged my knee so hard that it burst open on the spot. I was home alone, and on account of the dizziness, I hadn't eaten much in days. I'm not sure if it was the deep panting one does when experiencing big pain, or the generalized weakness of my body at that moment in time, but I started to black out. Oddly, this struck me as quite funny in the moment and I heard myself chuckle out loud. I once read that if you laugh while in pain, it won't hurt so bad. I noted then, that it is simply not true. I staggered over to the couch with dark spots crowding my vision. I laid on the floor and put my feet up on the sofa and then imagined Brett coming home to find me unconscious in this position with blood oozing from my knee. That also made me laugh. I can't say why I felt so calm teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Perhaps the lack of blood flow? Anywho, I laid there a good while but never passed out and then just got up and carried on with my day, except that I couldn't bend the one leg. No worries, I'll just limp around.

A couple days later, I electrocuted myself at the job site. A surprisingly bumpy experience. Not smooth and electric like you might think.

A couple days later, Brett took me to a concert so loud and aggressive that I had a panic attack. Brett suggested this might happen, but I scoffed at him. "I'm really quite tough," I remember telling him. Sure, screamo punk isn't my preferred genre, but I didn't want him to miss it just because no one else we knew could go. A concert is a concert, right?.... turns out, no. 
The thing about panic attacks, is that you don't just have one and then go back to your routine. There's a sort of "come down" that takes a few days - like any wound or pimple that you just have to wait to let heal. This means I was unable to eat for a few more days, which most certainly added to the dizziness I still had. 

Still hobbling around with the one knee that won't bend, a few days later I ran into a bench, right at knee level, which caused me to hyperextend the injured knee, during which time I heard a loud and distinct pop come from the area, and know I can't straighten that leg.
And to top it off, on day ten, I put in some earrings that assured me that were nickel free, but they must have lied and now I have disinfectant for my achey earlobes.

Do I think this is funny? Sure. 
In the debut moment of each of these experiences however it's a sort of frustration marinated in fear. Many times over the last ten days I have thought about people who live with these kinds of limiting ailments; perpetual dizziness, headache, hunger, or mobility woes. Ugh. What is this life? For the first time ever, we were watching an action movie, and when the main characters jumped from a balcony to the street below, I felt the impact in my own knees, right there in my living room! I commented on it, just like my parents do. "Oh that would kill my knees!" Brett, with his double ACL surgeries agreed. 

I am so accustomed to not feeling badly and being able to move in any way that suits me, that the sudden realization of what aging is going to do to me, has me entirely spooked. It's going to be awful!

And I have never been burdened by the thought of aging before. I've actually looked forward to it, but I realize now that my mental picture of aging was incomplete. It was only the visual stuff. I love gray hair and think people are their most beautiful in their 40s and 50s. Before that, they just look like they aren't done cooking yet. But I left out the physical parts of aging. I couldn't dream up the aches and pains because I hadn't felt them before. Somewhere in all this, my good knee took on sympathy pains for my bad knee and then they were both hurting me, just getting up for a glass of water. My ankles took the brunt of my walking strangely and suddenly, they felt like they were made of glass. What's happening? This isn't my body? What do you mean I can't change it?

It has reinstated some enthusiasm for going to the gym, and I know that will help heaps, but there is a part of me that knows I'm kidding myself. There is nothing I can do that will keep my body moving the way it does now. That is terrifying. How is no one freaking out about this?

As it stands today, I'm only dizzy for the first few minutes of waking up. I have a gash on one knee but I can straighten and bend the leg if I do it gently. The migraine is at 5% of what it was and the sense of panic has finally retreated, resulting in reaching 90% of my usual meal consumption quota. 

My earlobes hurt the most.

The Flip

As it is my morning routine to fix a hot cup of something indulgent and then sit at the computer and look at houses for sale, I stumbled upon a little foreclosed apartment right around the corner from our house. I took in the sights of this little place; the surprisingly low asking price, the cute little patio, the way you could really open up the place if you knocked out that one wall.

I showed it to Brett. "We could flip this. It just needs paint and an updated kitchen." I kept the demolition bit to myself for the moment. Brett's eyes glittered with intrigue. 

I called Dad. "Hey Dad, there's this place around the corner..." While Brett and I were still working through the very adulty idea of an unnecessary real estate purchase for the sake of making a profit, Dad called back. "I've set up a showing at 11:00. Meet you there."

Well, I guess we'll just go look at it. 

Brett's and Dad's excitement built as they wandered through. "You're right. Just a little work would have this place looking great!" That's when I mentioned my solution for the awful kitchen. "So I was thinking, if we took out this wall, we could make this whole side into an island."

As is common with both of these precious men, the initial knee-jerk reaction is that of denial, or often in Dad's case, the exclamation of "it can't be done!" But mere seconds later, they began working out the logistics, and piling their ideas on top of each others. "I think y'all should put in an offer," Dad said, "I think it's a good investment." Brett and I looked at each other. "Want me to draw up the papers?" Dad asked, as though it's a simple as buying groceries.

After talk of contracts, finances, interest rates, and a remodel cost analysis, our low-ball offer was accepted. Something like four days later, we were the proud new owners of yet another fixer-upper. 

Now, I grew up on the fringes of the Chris Union School of Renovations. He had a roller my hands at six years old, repainting a townhouse over on Crosscreek Drive. I have absorbed a surprisingly large amount of knowledge simply from listening to him bark at contractors on the other end of the phone. I know that you need to move quickly. Every day you spend working on it adds up to another month of interest payments. Dad likes to stack the contractors on top of each other, but in this case, Brett and I were mostly going to do it ourselves. I know that you will have annoying surprises along the way and that "you have to spend money to make money, baby!" 

Now, I've also been living with Brett 'the sloth' Eisenhauer. As the one with superior knowledge on this undertaking, I barked at him on day two that we weren't going to be treating this like the projects at our house. "We've got to move fast. We can't go piddle around for an hour or two each day and then come home to read. We have to treat this like a job..." and blah blah nag nag to which Brett responded graciously, and then I woke up sick the next morning and was in bed for ten days while Brett did all the work. "What was that about wasting time," he'd ask me at the end of his highly productive days.

Dad came in initially to help do some electrical work and to let us run our plans by him to make sure we weren't way off. After helping knock down the kitchen wall (men can't resist demolition), Popples politely left his little birds to renovate the nest. Off we went. Quite quickly I realized that my superior knowledge on the logistics and paperwork of this undertaking was much less important than Brett's superior knowledge on how structures, appliances, and plumbing works. Turns out he doesn't really need help from anyone with less upper body strength than he has. 

I'm the brains, but he's the brainy brawn.

So I started painting. I went into it real cocky too - on account of wielding a roller since the first grade. "I can paint this whole place in a week tops!" I declared with pride. I have since determined that there is likely a little pocket of hell where you paint an entire room white but come back the next day and can still see the purple wall through your new paint. Again and again, day after day, like that guy carrying water around in a holey jug. At least Sisyphus gets to be outside.
Painting took about four weeks but I became enraged about it somewhere around day three. "I can't do it anymore, Brett! It's like painting with milk!" 

That's when dutiful Mama stepped to help trim out the rooms. It helped as much mentally as it did literally. Also, we got to chit chat and yammer like we used to at my flower setups. 

Meanwhile Brett hit assorted snags, we took odd detours, we'd purchase things in the wrong size or finish., We found out too late the refrigerator we bought sticks out too far, but we should have tried putting it in sooner because you can't return it after 48 hours, so we had to buy a second refrigerator and find somewhere to store the first one. We've learned lots of little things about such undertakings and while I think it's an exhausting way to make a living, Brett is enlivened by it all. His problem solving brain gets to run wild and I've had a hard time getting him out of work-mode at the end of the day. "Are you thinking about PEX fittings?" I'll ask him while we eat dinner in silence. We've both been falling asleep pretty early.

As we wrapped up the project, it became a family affair again. Dad had to come troubleshoot a real plumbing conundrum and Mom clocked-in touching up doorways with the milk paint while I tiled the kitchen backsplash and Brett installed vanities, mirrors, fans, and light-fixtures. 

We kept everything white and bland (bleh!) so that it will appeal to the masses, and now we're getting the place ready to be listed and shown. What a ruckus. 

Brett wants me to find us another to flip.

For years now I have started my mornings peeking inside peoples' houses purely for thrill of it. What wild decor decisions did they make? The multi-million dollar homes for sale Downtown are usually garish and tacky, and I enjoy cackling at the pompousness of their owners. On the other end, I really love the small, old, dusty places. I redo them in my mind and make them bright, airy places with a new lease on life.  

There is something to having pulled the trigger on this little apartment flip. It suddenly all feels very possible and not that crazy, so now I find myself at my computer in the mornings, hot cup of something in one hand, scrolling through the listings with the other, while a mild sense of urgency and competition builds as I make my way to the end of the hot sheet.

Another Two Month Roundup

I haven't told you what we've been up to since February. That's the worthless power of a bi-monthly update. There I am, wondering aloud what we'll do with our lives and then I'll ramble on about Japan and house projects and meanwhile two full months will pass. I'm still stalling now as I type this... because mostly we still don't know. 

So! Scenes from the last two months:

Papa; dutifully fixing toys since '89.

My chicken group has set our sights on Food Lion. This weekend we have our third parking-lot protest. I'll go ahead and tell you that Food Lion staff have been lovely, as have the local police who come read us our rights. I hope corporate will cave soon, but this has been a delightful campaign.

Since his return from east Asia, the Big One has officially stopped working for the old firm, bought the required computer and softwares to do structural engineering from his guest-room office, made spreadsheets about finances, and somehow managed to be just as busy as he was when legally employed. I thought his temporary "retirement" would result in lazy mornings, whimsical afternoons, and periods of stagnant boredom, but I was wrong. I think I've just now learned that Brett Eisenhauer doesn't really relax. He takes breaks of course. He often leaps around the living room to incite the pups, slaps me around, goes surfing, and reads books in the hammock, but he doesn't wake up wondering how he'll fill a day with luxury and leisure. He finds things to fix, study, or improve. 

I'm slightly disappointed. 

I did not get the job I interviewed for while he was out (what a relief!) and suggested that the universe simply prefers me to be unemployed. What with all I do for the chickens...

It's actually that I want to do volunteer work professionally. I have too many good things I'm working on. It's a shame I don't get paid to do it, because it thrills me and there are so many different pots on that stove that things are always different and exciting. I've loosely decided to try to build a local coalition of sorts. It's still in the beginning stages but I've got a partner in this endeavor and she's much smarter than I am. She and I did go spend Earth Day at the College of Charleston - talking to kids about food systems and what not. I loved it a surprising amount (and now secretly want to work on campus with all the neat kids I met. Think they'd hire me to just encourage their good thoughts?) The kids I spoke to were so much more knowledgeable about things than I was at their age, and they're plugged into efforts and initiatives that you couldn't have paid me to participate in back then. I found it all encouraging and enlivening. 

Big Mama found a last minute deal for a beach house at Edisto, so the family loaded up and headed out. We had a near full-house with Ellen and Lee's squirts accompanied by Owen and Ethan, but that brand of chaotic goodness was short lived as the little ones still had to go to school. We snacked, napped, lounged in the sun, and played one full round of Shanghai. A cast of characters came in and out throughout the week but the home had one full-time resident, Big Mama U, who appreciated every second of being on Edisto. 

Ellen has moved into a new position at her workplace - something she's been waiting months for - and Lee Lee has officially earned his captain's license. Cap'n Lee it is! 

Olivia has taken an interest in outer space while Nick works on not wetting his pants. He's been doing a good job, but the excitement of an egg hunt proved to be too much this Easter, and he arrived back to the adults with a full basket, a big smile, and a sizable stain on his pants. I thought it was most amusing and when Ellen asked him about it, he ran to the end of the yard and hung his head in shame. 

Ah the next generation. 

Finally, in pet news; Pippa has developed a new mystery ailment and Grace has found a way to escape the backyard. Both of these inadvertently take a good hour out of affected days. Ferguson arrived home with a large puncture wound in his back (he's not bothered), Nora has taken to challenging Pippa for prime sofa real-estate, and one of my feral cats has had two kittens. One is orange and one is black and they are both so tiny and cute. They are afraid of me, so no pictures yet.

Brett told me I can't feed them. 

I understand.

New blooms in my wildflower patch!

Longing to escape for good.

While He Was Out

Enough complaining about the burden of love. 

With my beloved roadblock out of the way, I tackled a handful of house projects. Brett has lots of opinions on things - as most people do - but while he may feel strongly about about say, the color we paint the hallway, he doesn't feel strongly enough to ever put thought into it. So I may say, "Hey, I think I want to paint the hallway a sunny yellow or a broody blue," and he'll respond with, "Hmm... ok. Well, that's something we could talk about." and then I'll say, "Oh yeah? Don't want me to just do it? Be done with it? Change it if you don't like it?" To which he'll respond, "I just think we need to consider all the options." I've already done that, of course, so I'll say, "Ok, why don't you get on Pinterest and look at paint colors you like?" And then he'll grunt. 

I'll ask him a few times to do this and he never will, because he doesn't really care. He just wants some say - I get it. But meanwhile, weeks and months later, I'm left trying to determine how betrayed he'll feel if I just go ahead and do it. 

That was a real example up there, so no, I  haven't painted the hallway (and Brett probably hasn't remembered that conversation). But, while we was out, I had 4 projects to complete (none of which would result in feelings of betrayal): paint all the trim in the house, fix the ceiling in the main room, sand and paint a drywall patch in the bathroom, and pizzazzy up the patio. 

The painting went as expected, so I'll spare you a play-by-play. Dad hooked me up with two guys that could come fix the ceiling. Their names were James and Ricky. James was the head honcho, but anytime I poked my head in, James was sitting on a bucket playing on his phone while Ricky did all the work. They had to do a bunch of sanding while they were working so I emptied out the main room as best I could and then draped the place in plastic. 

James and Ricky helped with the renovations when we first moved in here, so they were interested to see the finished product. While they worked, I sat in my little office, typing away at my computer, occasionally answering phone calls, and being what would appear to be, a busy, working person. And I know they saw me, because sometimes they would poke their heads into the office to ask me questions, and it wasn't like I had cartoons playing on multiple monitors. 

One morning, Ricky asked, "What does your husband do?"
"He's a structural engineer," I responded. And then Ricky nodded his head and looked all around and out the window, taking in all the prettiness I suppose. James grunted his approval. I waited for Ricky to ask what I do for work, but he didn't. Instead he asked, "How many kids y'all have?"

"None," and I smiled.
"Y'all ain't got no kids!" James exclaimed from his bucket.
"Why not?" Ricky asked, a sense of urgency in his voice.

If ever there was audience who wouldn't understand a young woman's reason not to reproduce, it would be two men in their 60's who have spent a lifetime doing back-breaking labor. They did their part - I should do mine. So I simply said, "I've never wanted any." That is true, but the real answer would involve touching on philosophy, psycology, and a whole host of somewhat progressive concepts. They would never hear me out.

"What about your husband? I bet he wants kids?" 
I smiled but just shook my head. They looked at me in silent confusion for a moment.
"She's just not ready," James told Ricky. Ricky turned around to look at his friend and nodded in consideration. 
"How old are you?" Ricky asked.
"Thirty four." 

Then Ricky grimaced, flexing his neck muscles and exposing his bottom teeth in the universal sign for 'uh oh.'
"She's just not ready," James repeated. "She will." Ricky nodded again, comforting himself. 

"Yeah, she will," he repeated after James, "She will. She's not ready."

I waited for them to ask me what I would do instead ... like a career or life goals or hopes for myself, but they didn't.

"Who gone take care of you when you're old?"

They continued to heckle me about it for a few minutes, proud of themselves for each having four kids and suggesting that even if I adopted one, I'd be better off. I went back to my office tickled, only slightly offended, but mostly wondering what James and Ricky's lives have been like so far. And the lives of their wives, for that matter.

When they left that afternoon, I prepped the patio; sealed up and leveled out big cracks in the concrete pad and put down a coat of light gray concrete paint as the base layer. I ran out of paint right at the end, leaving a little 2x5 foot patch unpainted. I'd have to go back to the hardware store for more. I'd do it tomorrow.

Ricky came back the next day to finish the job without James. Again, he stuck his head in my office, no doubt noticing my multiple screens of USDA protocols and legal petitions on food distribution, and asked if he could borrow a bucket. I took him out back to the garage and on the way back in, he saw the unpainted patch of patio and noticed that it all looked different than yesterday. He pointed at it and looked at me, quizzically. "I ran out of paint," I told him. 

"You did this?"

"Yeah," I said cheerfully, "I'm going to paint something on it."

"Why?"

"Just trying to make it look nicer. It a dirty old cracked slab but I don't want to repave it." Ricky thought about this a long time before nodding his head and saying, "Well that's good. I guess it gives you something to do." 

Then he turned and went back inside.

I had to keep from laughing out loud. His lack of expectations of me is unprecedented. I've never met anyone who regarded me as a vessel for domesticity so openly. So singularly. Ricky finished up work on the ceiling and packed up his truck. I asked him what he was going to do with his weekend and we spent a good half hour talking ... only about him of course. I waiting for him to ask anything about me, but he didn't.

He's known around his town for his grillin'. He cooks for crowds almost every weekend and has people traveling to his neighborhood to taste his food.

"You should start a restaurant, Ricky," I told him, "Or least hire some folks to help you so you can take on all these jobs you have to turn down."

"I want to, but I don't know... I can't find any reliable help," he told me. He went on to show me several pictures of roasted animals - fully intact. "Here's a whole hog I did last weekend." I looked at the charred, blistered skin on what looked to be an adolescent pig, an image that normally perturbs me, but I had to keep from laughing. He swiped to the next, "Here's a turkey and a half dozen chickens." He swiped again. "And see here. Twenty-four beef cheeks," he declared proudly.

Ricky managed to hit all the highlights. His outdated patriarchal views, offensive lack of curiosity about the human he spent three days with (me), and now he's showing me the live animals he buys and roasts -  animals I spend hours each day earning tiny rights for. Ricky had no idea just how big he was fumbling for this particular audience.

I found him hopelessly endearing.

"Ricky, if people are paying for the food, they need to be paying for your time too," I told him. "You're staying up all night smoking these meals. Those are working hours."

Ricky looked bashful.

"Don't sell yourself short, Ricky!"

The last bit I'll tell you about is the patio. I wanted to paint a checkered floor on it. Now, I challenge you to do a googling about this because people frequently put in checkered floors - they are charming and whimsical - but, some people fail at it and they don't even know it. How can you fail at something as simple as lining up squares? Well I'll tell you. They line them up parallel to the surrounding walls. No! This is wrong. It will only look right, if you place your squares on a diagonal. Here, I'll show you.

            Classic and Soothing                                                                Alice in Wonderland - Funhouse floor 

It's all about the diagonal! (Tile size and contrast are also important considerations.) So, herein lies my problem - how do you draw out the lines for a painted checkered floor if you can't just mark every 24 inches and draw a line? I spent half a day tracing a square stencil (a roughly-the-right-size square painting I pulled off the wall) at an awkward diagonal on the concrete floor. I knew some engineer type could probably tell me a simple mathematical way to draw the lines, but the only one I know was in Japan. Google didn't help either. So I'd plop down my square, butt a loosely-straight board up against it and then drag my pencil as far as I could. The farther I got from my original square the more splayed and rectangular the sections became. Also, I took a step back and decided the square size was too small. But only barely. Should I start over with a bigger stencil? I've already invested so many hours and it was so hard to keep the lines straight.

I called Mom. 

It took a lot of hemming and hawing before she agreed that they probably are too small. "But I'll help you re-do it!"

Mom and I spent the next day trying to draw out the lines. It was no easier the second time around but it was significantly more amusing. We giggled and schemed and messed up and laughed, and when we'd step back, our squares were splaying out and becoming rectangular.

"Well wait a minute. How did that happen?"

"Hmm.. let's start again from over here."

"Ok."

We'd redraw the line, feeling great about it this time ... and then it wouldn't line up with the ending point.

"Well wait a minute. How's that?"

We'd carefully line up our wonky board, double check that the starting point and the finishing point were accounted for and then we'd start in the middle and each trace the board in a different direction. None of it ever really lined up properly and we were dumbfounded every time. Sometimes one of us would catch the other messing up in real time and then we would chastise and laugh at them, and one time I realized mom and I were both drawing the same line in the same direction - my pencil dutifully following behind hers. 

"Go the other way!"

We finally finished drawing them, stepped back, and agreed ... they're too big.

But we weren't starting over, so we starting painting. We had to make educated guesses on which of the many scribbled and scratched-out lines we intended for us to use as THE line, so painting proved to be challenging too. None of the corners meet up, the grey paint dried blue, and we were both astonishingly achy from three days spent working on a cement floor, but we got it done... if you don't look too close.

That Thing Where Brett Stunts My Progress

When Brett left for however long to go to Africa, I got heaps done around the house. All of us present at the time remarked on my productivity. What was this new leaf I had turned? Then Brett came home and I went back to being a slug, struggling to complete everyday tasks. 

This trip was no different. My calendar burst at the seams with options and accomplishments. I took on small projects for a couple nonprofit organizations, applied for a job and had a first interview, painted all the trim in the house, redid the patio floor, hosted a social hour for my volunteer group, walked the dogs twice each day, and still managed to cook myself proper meals (right up until the end there). I wasn't even watching TV at night. I was reading - like an adult would be doing!

Then Brett came home. And oh how I wanted him home. Life is so bland without him. But that first day, he woke up and set about how he wanted to use his day and I found myself becoming increasingly irritated. The sensation shocked me and I had to retreat into my sticky inner-workings to figure out why I was annoyed that precious, peaceful, wonderful Brett's presence was present. 

"Hey, you wanna walk the dogs?" he asked, innocently.
I did not want to walk the dogs. I already had a dog walking schedule going and his suggestion felt like an attack on the highly effective dog strategy I had been using for two weeks. I'm not a morning person and don't like to participate in physical activity before breakfast. He knows this about me. Why would I want to walk the dogs? Has he even considered me? Doesn't he know we can take care of this later? 

Who is this bitter Lue? So I said yes, and we walked the dogs but I stayed privately mad the whole time. Don't be mad at him, he's just getting tasks done. Don't you want him here? Of course I do! Well then stop being grumpy!

My calendar was suspiciously empty all the days ofter the one marked 'Brett Home!' I flipped back to the pages from the last two weeks and combed through the chaotic scribbles to look for jobs to do, anything I may have missed. But there was nothing. Meanwhile, Brett was very busy. He had to unpack, catch up on work emails, visit his parents, pickup something from somewhere. He even went surfing one morning. And I followed him around; running errands, grocery shopping, sitting bundled up on the windy beach while he surfed, scrolling instagram while he had a quick work call, but I was stupefied. Angry at my unreasonability. Thrilled to have Brett home. Disgusted with my vanishing drive. I retreated back to my sticky inner-workings. 

"Why you mad?" I asked myself.

Because I was handling everything fine; quickly, easily, on my own schedule and now everything takes twice as long and has extra obstacles. But surely that's just the price of living with another human; spouse or otherwise. It's not a reflection of marrying a doofus.

Ok, so why are you doing nothing now that he's home? 

Because I don't want to be busy when he might be available to go play. And because he'll have lots of opinions on how I go about painting the trim or redoing the patio. He's liable to mansplain, my own project to me. Because I can't really deep focus when he's always coming around asking questions ("Do we have any quarters anywhere? Have you seen my glasses? What day do I have jury duty?") or running his plans past me for confirmation, and suggesting we walk the dogs or run some errands now before his 11:00 call or his 3:00 appointment. Because I do want to do those things with him when we can! Because I love him!

I continued mulling and came up with this pathetic thesis statement:
"If my desire is to spend as much time with him as possible, which it is, then I need to operate around his schedule." Hence my empty calendar and inability to things when he's around. I scoffed at this, hating it for multiple reasons. What am I, a schoolgirl with a crush? 

"I'm not obsessed with you," I told him with a sting in my voice. He looked up from his book at where I sat, perched on a stool watching him.
"What?"
"I like having you around. I don't need you around. I'm better without you. You hold me back."

"Ok?"

So, the romantic summary is that I will forgo all my wants and needs in a day for 10 minutes with Brett. 

The reality-based summary is that I probably need to set boundaries for myself. 

Surely I'll get over him soon, right? 

Scenes from Japan

The Big One is wrapping up a two week stay, bouncing from Tokyo to Osaka to Kyoto. He and Erik have curated a unique adventure by having loose ideas of things they'd like to do, surrounded by the whims of the day. They have had continuous grey weather. Quite cold (lots of snow) and quite rainy. Fortunately they are both bright-eyed, optimistic types so it hasn't stopped them from making the most of it. 

The fun bit is that I can see Brett's location through his phone. So at any point during my evening, I can look at a map of town and see that they have visited such and such museum, or are dining at this establishment. One time I checked it and they were at a barber shop. They seem to explore a town with no logistical strategy. In a six hour span, they've hit parts of town in all cardinal directions. There's no, "let's go to this part of town today, and go to the west side tomorrow." It's seems more likely that they are looking for attractions while eating lunch. "There's a sumo experience an hour away!" So onto the train they go, and I receive photos like this:

I receive email updates on their trip around noon my time. This is when they have come back to their hotel for the day and are winding it down. Brett's captain's log will be abundant but vague. "We were cold so we went to a hot spring - I've got a story to tell you about that. Then we found a great hole in the wall sushi joint!" Sometimes I write back an adrenaline filled report about my quiet life here with the pets, but other times I just wait to see when I'll hear from him - like the olden days of carrier pigeons. "I doth wonder on the whereabouts of my beloved." Then I'll churn butter a hope not to die an old maid.

They did go get their hair cut...together. They've visited temples, shrines, and museums. They have hiked in the mountains, taken some tours, taken a cooking class, gone to a baseball game, but mostly, they are eating things. Lots and lots of eating. I mostly get pictures of food. "You won't believe this miso soup! It's the best I've ever tasted. Nothing like what we get at home."

Pre and Post haircuts. I'll allow that Erik needed it.

My life here without him has been very quiet and extremely repetitive. Living alone really makes you realize how many of the exact same actions you take everyday. Here I am eating again. Let's check the mail again. Oh look, more dishes. 

This is all the same even when he's here, but I guess it's the talking out loud to someone that makes it so fun. 

I can't wait to see him!