Bob-A-Lago

 I am down in Florida now. 

I was laid off by my job at the cabinet shop in Lancaster, PA back in January, then made myself an LLC so that I could give running my own business a try- for the most genuine attempt to date. I knocked out a few smaller projects; fixing a tongue and groove roof, $900, repainting a kitchen $1,400, doing some fencing and millwork for a friend, ~$2000 something like that, extensive interior drywall repairs, $1,300, drywall helping another friend out, $1000, and so on. But I got an unexpected call from my dad about his difficulties with remodeling his kitchen down in Florida. He asked; "is that something you have any experience with?", which showed his hand a little bit because I had been specializing in kitchen remodels for two years at that point, and he asked if I would be interested in coming down to help. 

I memed it to Heather several times, "Do you want to go to Florida?!", teasing it as a kind of vacation opportunity (because I imagined in reality it might be a slog and a stressful arrangement), but actually she began coming around to it and after a few weeks batting it around, we set a date and got our house in moderate order for a winter without tenants. We shut down the houses water and gas, drained some lines, and hit the road. The car was full for the drive down. Edith was a cool 11 months old and just getting used to walking. We tried to drive strategically to ensure that she would be tired for the long stretches i.e. early mornings, long breaks for a morning/noon walk and lunch, then a short afternoon drive, then drive into the night until hotel. We did this twice staying once in Virginia or North Carolina and the second time... I forget where. 

The second day I believe it was we stopped for our long break in a National Park in South Carolina near Columbia called Congaree, which was a preserve of the largest remaining tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States. It was a great chance to let the dogs run free for a couple hours and for Edith to explore nature 

and follow us on a trail. 

The end of that day we stretched out the evening drive until we arrived, baby absolutely crying from 

a sore butt, and cranky mom, 

at 12am on the dot, into my dad's house. 

The plans for the kitchen were varied. Bob, my dad, wanted a hole in the wall like a pass through, 

and his friend had demo-ed all of the cabinets anticipating something bigger and better. 

Bob had gotten Home Depot rendering of some cabinets that they were ready to sell him, 

and another friend of my dad's had mocked up a different design of the cabinet scheme. 

Each design revolved around a four foot by four foot pass through window as the main modification

 of the kitchen. 

I was prepared to project manage the kitchen for a flat rate agreed upon between my dad and I, which in hindsight was way too low (I gave him number commensurate to my wages as an employee at a company, then doubled- but it is very expensive being on the road and without a kitchen, and living out of a suitcase etc. We will need to re-discuss the rate but let me not get ahead of myself). SO I hit the ground running down here somewhat, I contacted many cabinet shops and tried to find material for building cabinets, or lead times for shops in case I wanted to contract out the cabinets. Well, everyone's lead time was six weeks, and I was not impressed with the quality compared to the price. Of course, hang this back on a rookie mistake maybe, but I really had no clear plan so I was just data gathering. I went to a City arts festival event with my mom and sat down for dinner with her friends, one of which is a realtor gay guy who is good at taking real estate and design. I appealed my problems to him and he advised (because he was the one who sold it to my dad so he knew its features), what kind of kitchen would be appropriate for this house. Instead of a Home Depot kitchen, it called for a high end throwback kitchen, with real materials and good cabinets. Most of all, instead of a pass through window, I was advised to open it up. 

I Contacted an engineer and an interior designer. The interior designer echoed to open it up and the engineer confirmed there was no load bearing with our existing wall. I interviewed a few guys from craigslist to help me with tiling, drywall etc, and one of them I went with for a while. He picked up the materials for me (my cabinet plywood) and all of the supplies to do the tile. He did the demo for the most part and we together installed a beam for the non-load bearing wall. (a beam to support the dropped kitchen ceiling). The kitchen was open but it looked a little too exposed. I fired the demo guy before he had a chance to do the tile, because he did some very dangerous moves (almost dropping the beam on my head, drilling through electrical wires, etc,), and generally I felt like he was going to Ruch the tile job, and he had already installed the dur-rock subfloor incorrectly and used the wrong thickness material too, such that a bad job was ensured, so I asked him to leave. I likewise fired the interior designer after we had a follow up meeting where she proposed tile, appliances, and sink basin, but I felt as though all of her selections were cheap and lacking harmony or relevance to the kitchen in question. I brought this up in a tactful; way, but she had no alternatives to her selections. Moreover, she sent us a bill afterwards reflecting her hours and rate which was $150/hour, and totaling close to $900. My dad and I went to a countertop store she recommended down in Tampa to look at the stones and I told my dad; "The idea of stone yards like this, is that you fall in love with a stone, so if that happens to you, just go with it, because your house is bold and your kitchen can handle it" He fell in love with a bold green stone very different than what the interior designer had recommended, (which was white), rendering the interior designer's vision void (it was basically a Home Depot grade Pinterest board anyways). I called an appliance company to have them assemble me a list of appliances to my specifications, and they replied with three appliance packages with pricing and install included- much better than selections from the designer. Not to just rag on her, just the price tag took me aback after I didn't like the selections. 

My dad started getting nervous about recommending any more of his friends to me, because I also burned a bridge with his friend who wanted to charge $2600 for putting in the wall passthrough. Me and the Crackhead from Craigslist demoed the whole kitchen and put in a header beam for about a hundred bucks. Make no illusion, I realize that I am not trying to race to the bottom with pricing and all that; but it feels good saving buck if you can use rough workers for rough work, and find the right skill for the fine work; and it takes vigilance to not get screwed. 

My dad's house is called Bob-a-Lago, a joke referring to Trump's Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach. My dad is a liberal who watches the news and gets his info that way. He gets sold on the narratives that dominate corporate news cycles, and dislikes Trump very much, (as do I but for different reasons), but somehow Bob-a-Lago is what he chose to sardonically name his property. Well, I think about the name when I fire people during this project, because of how Trump came up in development. That's an aside, but it is really necessary knowing when to cut ties in construction- and when you're working with new acquaintances, that is often. 

I found some good house painters off Craigslist and they quoted the inside with a good price. My dad liked them, and we had them paint the whole interior and now the exterior. Bob mentioned I am really just a property guy while I'm here, doing what he no longer wants to direct or personally do. Bob had some half's landscaping up front, and some cracked and aging pavers, which I pointed out, and got wrapped up in fixing. This felt inevitable so I bought $800 of Railroad ties, some stone base, and some large decorative boulders, and re-hardscaped his front entryway, giving a brilliance to the arrival on the property. I subbed out the techo-block pavers. 

I got an electricians number from my dad a friend of his, and he and I rewired the kitchen together to the new plan, which I had modified into a mostly-open design with a little cafe high wall next to a cooking station behind a partition wall. It should feel very functional while keeping a public-private relationship for entertaining without feeling too exposed. I hired out to a new tile guy, a friend of the electrician's, and he laid travertine in a French pattern to the material specifications of someone who quoted ~$6000 for the job. I wrote down all of his specs, said thanks, and had a gigger type install it for about $1600. We used Mapeielastic, which is a fiberglass membrane with a sticker back which bridges the subfloor like a decoupling membrane while providing a lot of anti-cracking strength- good for the natural stone. The tile store said it was overkill, which I loved because we used 1/4" dur-rock instead of 1/2" to keep it low profile, but I didn't want to sacrifice any strength. Tile is in and I have all of my carcasses cut and assembled. I am doing all of it on a job site tablesaw It took me a week at least to procure all of the tools to begin this woodworking. I hope I get to keep all of the tools. I wish my family would move down here, because I would be able to use my dad's property and outbuildings to begin a cabinet shop, but at the same time, I have some customer base and much to do in Lancaster too. I look forward to being home after these past few days. Heather is in West Palm Beach visiting her aunt Sue in her condo, and I am on the back side of a bad fever that everyone went through, but especially the baby, and more especially me. I think I got it worst because I had to crawl around in the attic and crawlspace below the house to run the electrical. I believe I encountered fiberglass and mold and dust which are still wreaking havoc on my system. The trades are interesting to learn but so much of it is unhealthy and it is a shame the rates for building is so low (and at the same time hardly affordable for the middle class). Crawling towards affluence in trades is bittersweet because so much damage is incurred. Anyways after sweating out a fever for a couple nights, I have felt drained. I developed hives> Thank goodness Heather chose this weekend to be away. I am miserable, and I have barely the gumption to begin my woodworking tasks each day. Nevertheless, the goal is to get drywall in, cabs in the kitchen, face frames on by mid next week, and then try to get drawer boxes and doors hung and finished and all that by two weeks from now, because I have some demand in Lancaster when I return and I don't want to miss my first spring rush as a new business owner. I focused on starting the business in March (as well as the birth of Edith last year, because those things that begin in March have lots of inertia). I am trying to eat healthy, despite not having a car. I bought 7 grapefruits and am trying to slam two a day with some vitamins. Hugo the dog and Stella the dog are down here. Today a neighbor follows Hugo back to this property because he was out and about on her property. She was upset because Hugo had eaten all of her Chickens and Ducks last week, (first we heard of it), and now he had come back now that they had bought their replacement chicks and were raising them in their garage! He didn't get the chickies, but he was sniffing their brood-boxes! It is Hugo's nature to do such a thing, but that is no excuse. We placed too much freedom on his little dog shoulders and from now on the regimen will be buttoned up, and we are all the sudden ready very real to leave. 

My goal is to get the cabinets beautiful and installed, with drawer boxes, and doors, and appliances, and the countertop scheduled, and the backsplash scheduled, the lights in and perfect, the drywall perfect and textured, and get outta here. I will not see the finished kitchen on this trip but rather after many months presumably away again.  

Started a Business

Got laid off from a job as a cabinet maker/ kitchen remodel/ woodworker. I initially took the job like a vanity project, where I wanted to learn the skillset so badly that I took a slight pay cut to work there. It was an okay arrangement. The shop needed a lot of help in the beginning which is why they hired me, but as winter set in and the shop transitioned to new ownership, the work dried up and layoffs were discussed briefly. I offered to take some time off to work on my own projects, and customer's (side work) projects, of which I always seem to have a short list, to which I received a 'go for it' from my employer. Well, a couple days turned into a week, and then my dad down in Florida needed his kitchen done, so I asked for a month off, and they said, well, let's just talk in the spring, but yeah we will take you off of payroll etc. 

So all this to say, and since now I have Edith and the dogs and Heather is full time mom; I have little choice but to go off on my own. And I am excited about it, but I just hope I can step up to the plate and stay organized. Already I am treading water with my small clientele, and new pay rate; my hourly, which I need to increase to really make the business work, but the projects I have so far done are at my old side work rate, and not a support my business outright rate. I am for example, currently undercharging for a kitchen repaint job, in order to help out the parents of a friend of mine, who helped me install my kitchen cabinets (which I built through that cabinet shop I was working at, and deserves a post of its own). Prior to that I repaired someone's porch ceiling boards which may lead to another job in the spring I can hope. Also I busied myself with a plaster repair job which was extensive throughout a woman's house for a good cheaper rate based that she was a former customer and I hadn't yet lost my job. 

My business is called The Philosopher Carpenter; in part because I feel distinguished from others in my quality of work; it has a certain logos to each move. In part the name refers to my connection to Goethe, among the greatest philosopher I know of, and of course the greater allusion is to Christ, the philosopher (an agnostic friendly undersell even) carpenter. It is through my work that I aim to be more christ-like, to reach toward christ-consciousness. To serve and to love, etc. 

Ironically some of the customers I attract with the name are liberal arts types, which, I should choose my words carefully, would consider themselves very smart while balking at any reference to Christ, but that's a slight digression and not the point, just something I think about sometimes. 

Fatherhood is going great so far. I mean, it is very difficult of course, and it is a full time thing, but I am tasked with living a less toxic life in terms of foods and libations, and chemicals from work. I am tasked also with managing my time more effectively in order to reserve time to be with the family, or too to relieve Heather of her long shifts of taking care of the baby and dogs. We are very lucky as a family to have each other. Edith is miraculously cheery and well coordinated and clever. I am very proud of her and have been since she was tiny tiny. She always understood the mission, from in the hospital where she was adamant to stand (she enjoyed being upright) to her milestones of walking, waving, clapping, babbling. It is very rewarding. And she give very sweet hugs and calls for "DA", "DA, DA, DA". 

This is among a small handful of early mornings I have pulled off since my layoff. It is something I have a great embarrassment about; not being an early riser, especially sine I have met the milestones of being a sole provider, homeowner, father, etc., yet I love to learn at night, or draw or push into a task into the quiet hours. Two sides of the same coin I suppose, but few can argue that the night brain is any better than the morning. Edith has adopted a later schedule as well, but last night I got an earful about my schedule not being that of the professional. Women know right where to jab it's embarrassing. So we shall see if we can turn it around a little. 

Lots to do, just for posterity I have to write one of these every now and then. 

A blog post interrupted by mom and baby walking in the door

 Mom and baby are on a walk. I'm researching Cabinetry specifics because I mentioned to Heather that we could redo the kitchen before my mom comes in November for thanksgiving. I also demoed the mudroom and stairway to the basement because it was all ratchet as the tide rises quality-wise the next projects always reveal themselves in this old house. In the mudroom there lies a drain line underneath concrete, and there used to be a flush out line but someone filled it with concrete and framed and finished a wall on top of it. such, that room always was dank and smelly subtly, and now we know why. It was always seeping out moisture and gasses below the flooring. we will have to amend this. 

Baby is currently under the weather. I think I brought something home from work 

...

Three lifetimes have passed!

 Hey, been a long time. 

SO my mother gave me this computer about a year ago. I'm such a spoiled guy, the youngest of two, and a blessed financially family, that I have been clued into a trick, that I can lament to my mom anytime that I don't have a functioning computer, and she will oblige sending one of her old ones, or in this case, a refurbished one from the factory. 

A band I listen to called Krill has a line; "if you were having a good time, while everyone else was suffering, then you're the oppressor, you're the oppressor". Well that's what I think of when I get treated so nicely from my family/mom. That's also why I seek out hard work and try to challenge and improve myself. I try to be a good person, and it takes constant effort, and I'm not always so good. 

I hung out with a friend Dan here yesterday. I met him through a social media app centered around homesteading- I mentioned I do landscaping in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and he messaged me that his place needed some work. Wildly long story, but I did work for him at the rate of $30/hr through a Native landscaping company I was working for at the time; and I'd damaged the Landscaper's truck, and this homesteader guy, Dan was a welder who could solve my goof-up, and I solved his yard problem. 

Anyways, that was a year back, and yesterday, my birthday, he called me again and said "it's that time of year!" I thought he meant my birthday, but he actually meant, time to do more yard work for him. 

Allow me to describe my birthday; but first, something I probably should have lead with. I'm a father as of three months to Heather and I's beautiful Daughter, Edith!

Since my last writing, I was on my way to grad school at UDEL, The University of Delaware, in Wilmington, Delaware, and I did go and teach classes, and participate in weekly critiques of my co-students' works, and I did work for their maintenance department doing as the joke of MFA's goes, literally 'Moving Furniture Around'. And I did take pedagogy class, and I did teach one semester of core painting to undergraduate students, and I did get in a bunch of trouble for not sticking to the School's prescribed curriculum, instead having my students paint on too-small of surfaces, or in the 'wrong' color palettes, and I did not do a great job at applying for fellowships or grants, or appealing to the staff at the college, but rather I did the strategy of holing up in my studio and producing as much work as I could, and tried to push my painting's imagery and themes, and admittedly I did assign to my peers in our art theory class excerpts from Ted Kaczynski's 40 page manifesto, (but in my defense, or whatever, the dean of the college had us read from Weather Underground's Bill Ayers' graphic novel about reforms in teaching ie. deskilling and listening to the students in a bid to decentralize education into feelings). But I heavily digress, point is, they could smell something on me, and I did get invited to leave the school in my final review before the board of faculty. 

They accused me of not wanting to be there, which an hour and a half's drive to and fro each day, no income permitted outside of the stipend granted by the school itself ($1100 pre tax per two weeks excluding holidays etc, which calculated to about $11/hr for the required work stipulated), having a car die out in me, buying a motorcycle to continue to attend, riding through whatever weather was in the cards; rain, hail, snow. 

I was doing well at the college, I thought, a true hero's tale of perseverance and my peers saw progress and began to 'get' my art, and laud compliments during what should've been critiques. 

Anyways, technically I was put on academic probation, and asked to paint a new body of work over the summer to resubmit to the school for re-admittance, but I was already stretched very financially thin and, overall Fuck them, and, also, they were probably right to do what they did, and may they enjoy their insulated ass community. 

Admittedly, my attention was split. During school to help with finances, I worked for my friend's native landscaping company almost full time for a while, and when I'd first started school in the fall of 2022, I worked maybe three days a week helping a guy from Craigslist build decks and additions. 

So, after getting the boot from school, I scrambled around to find a job in residential construction, because I thought it would be practical to learn about home flipping and improvements, as I imagine I'll derive some income from that as I continue the rat race towards a small empire of family, land, self-reliance etc. Heather and I made the conscious choice to try for a kid, and I thought if we can land one in March, that would be cool, because I thought we'd land an Aries baby, or one whose perspective originates in the springtime, plus the pregnancy would go through the winter, and it seemed like a sensible time frame. I got a job at All Phase Construction LLC. in Lancaster when Heather was about five months pregnant, and stayed with that company for until two weeks ago. Until my resignation, I assisted an electrician and did a wide variety of home remodeling tasks. I took the role of the f.n.g.- the 'fuckin new guy', with a twist of self awareness, and excellence. All my life, I'm used to being the scapegoat, so the shit roles downhillism of being the new guy is something I excel at. Also, like any good hire, I was already proficient at most of the tasks I needed to do on the job, and eager to polish up and learn new skills. Well, it was all good until a new new guy joined the crew, and he was a 45 year old former marine, and he was terrible to work with. A know-it-all and a bully. His work was fine, but his need to put others down, (specifically me), was untenable, and to make it worse, he was stupid, so good rhetoric wouldn't land on him. He would often corner me out of work because in his estimation, he could do it better. He would demean me while nudging me aside to take my task away, always simple tasks which he would often overcomplicate. Over the course of maybe five or six weeks, my work dried up, absorbed by an over leveraged meathead, so..what was I doing there? My whole goal in working trades is to learn new skills. 

Meanwhile I was clocking in after work to a cabinetry wood shop of a neighborhood friend, who is from Finland and has a lifetime's worth of expertise in the Northern European furniture making craft. I was building a mudroom bench in his shop as a commission from a customer I'd met on a worksite. The Finnish man's name was Petteri and his wife's was Michelle. They bit the bullet opening this wood shop only a year prior, and by chance Heather and I had met them at some Halloween dance night at a bar maybe 8 months before she was pregnant. Well, one night Heather and I were volunteering for our neighborhood's garden alliance, offering free rain barrels to neighbors, and we knocked on Petteri's wood shop doors and what a great surprise to see him! I told him that I had some furniture to build, and offered him the contract in full, but he said, "why don't you just build it here?", so over the course of a few months, I did and he helped greatly, and educated me on several tools and concepts. So as this All Phase Construction job was going sour, I asked Petteri, "Hey, how could I do this kind of work full time?" 

He said, "well, there's a lot of turnover in wood shops, but also few shops really do this type of custom building, but there is one shop, my friends; Cedars Woodworking. So, long story short I work there now. I interview very well. I probably have a 70% yes rate in my interviews, when I'm not batting way outside of my lane; (like for example three years ago when I got a wild hair and interviewed for several managerial office positions in construction management, and of CAD based departments, having no experience meanwhile other applicants had proper gone to undergrad in those fields. 

Well, I realized a quarter the way through that this should really be about six posts. let me try to sort those out for now before I conclude; to give me a leg up on the next time. 

1. Going to University of Delaware

2. The motorcycle and the Subaru and the Truck

3. My studio experiences at the University of Delaware, politics, my thoughts and actions, my income summer break, etc. 

4. Mayapple Native Landscaping

5. All Phase Construction LLC. 

6. Side work, side quests

7. The decision to make a baby

7.5. Heather's sister dies

8. Pregnancy and delivery, and Edith

9. the end of painting. 

10. Cedars and the future. 

Thanks for reading! baby is crying and I have to go. 

Along a Garden Path

 "I built horse barns the past two years"- is what I tell people. But really I was a helper driver carpenter on a horse barn building crew. I used to emphasize that they were Amish, and I had all these takes and experiences to share about the Amish. Not as much anymore. Year-and-change with the barn builders, and about four months with an Amish hardscaping crew. Hardscape is digging out footers and gravel drainage bases for paver patios, and applying stone veneer to CMU blocks, and building with CMU and stone stacking walls and fireplaces and that sort of thing. Mixing mortar, lots of digging, some demolition and finish work on outdoor kitchens and stuff like that. Those four months I count as six months, there's hardly time in my life to review and count the exact amount of time I was with them, so I'll call that a half year, and the carpentry I'll count as two.

Going to grad school at UDEL soon here. Delaware and I have no relationship; except I have been three times to graduate critiques in the UDEL arts building. Seems like a cool little school with a good intuitive vibe. 

I don't have further thoughts on the school that are valid here yet. They did say no outside employment, so I quit my job and now I'm just taking side work. I built some nice stairs for a good budget, and I dug a French drain for a high budget. Now I'm working on a garden path in a neighboring town and the budget is high. I subcontracted my best friend Riley to come up from Baltimore to help out; who's been spending his time bartending and making art and constantly networking- he's a scene kid. So it's a lot of work, and I'm trying to get a portfolio out of it kind of- (I mean, really the homeowner has a nice garden and the vision that appears to me happens to be a very beautiful project- even though it might be considered overkill).

Anyway, so Riley hasn't been doing manual labor and I'm trying to help him out with some money. He gets out of his truck from his drive up from Baltimore and announces that he just got his test back for Lyme's disease and lets the silence hang. I say, "Oh, jeeze, what is it?" and he says, "Positive". I say "Man, I'm sorry to hear that." Then I don't remember just how we got back around to the topic of digging out this path, but I described the project to him and we started cutting a flat plane out of the burm. He was alright at clearing the dirt; we were both fresh to the job and eager. The first day he put in six hours which we counted as eight because of his waiting for me to get to the jobsite (I was waiting on the contractor too, by running errands gathering supplies for the project, but whatever, I am expecting a bigger payout anyway, so I comped Riley for waiting around), Three hours the next day; he spent most of the day on the phone mitigating beef in his circles, and five hours the final day. His ethic really slacked off after the first day. It happens. He went home after three days and I gave him $400. 

I've worked myself to fatigue on this job too. We ran into a bunch of rocks in the hillside and either have to dig them out or break them apart with a sledgehammer. It's a railroad tie retaining wall along a hill to make for a garden pathway where the customer can service her garden while not climbing akimbo hillside. I'm building steps and a recessed walkway (below the level of the railroad ties, to accommodate for decorative stone. It's getting close but recently I've been returning home to collapse on the couch for a necessary nap. It happens on these big projects. How much can a single person tackle- that's the idea of designing a project. You vs. the project. A will-to-power kind of thing. Or the participation in the Power Process. It's a natural thing, as far back as I can remember, before I knew the terms, a challenge. blah blah. 

So this is what I have to deal with and wrap up soon here. Should go fine. I will staple those verticals into the hill with rebar, no deadmen to speak of but the wall has those LVL braces front and back and there's a good drainage system behind it, so the idea is that it won't need to do much retaining- plus half of that hillside is buried boulders. Anyways, the company that I'm subcontracted under is happy and thinks I'm going plenty overboard and is happy I'm working for him. As evidenced by my blogging, my mind is approaching a better state. I put in about seven hours of work a day in this fatigued state- once I get going it's not so bad, and I'm actually working the whole time. That's a huge improvement from the hardscaping job where I had little say in my tasks, often felt useless and I was.. I don't know, it was demoralizing and I lost a lot of respect for them. 

My guilt has to do with how I treated Riley. I got to step into the lead role, which rhymes with what I'll be doing in UDEL- teaching the undergraduates, and I got to see what juggling cats was like a bit. Compounded by the fact (idea) that he's my friend, I have to pay him well and accommodate his personal life. Well, my idea was to let him participate in the power process a bit; because that's what I needed so badly from my last job; agency, but when you're green you're green; and Riley was a green worker. It went alright at first, but at some point, when he asked for something to do I gave him a big trench to dig out, and he instead grabbed a push broom to brush out a big boulder to see how large it was before he got to digging. He set to cleaning off the rock with a push broom. It's very frustrating to interrupt someone's logic while also paying them to do work they're obfuscating. He was tired. I kind of invited him to leave. This will have to be something I get better at. 

I'm going to help the company owner who subcontracted me for this job today soon with moving his home from an apartment to a house outside of town. He's got a wife and a baby and a dog and is a good guy who I'm learning lots from and I'm very paranoid about the durability of landscaping projects, so I do a lot of research and my expanding knowledge base has proven valuable to him; so we are good friends now, at least symbiotic friends. 

That's it for now, My fiance is annoying me saying stuff like do you want to get a dalmatian. More dogs. I do not. Elsewise things there are good. She was watching me type so I jokingly wrote a dig. 

One Year since my last post

 I visited this site yesterday and noticed it had been a year. Well, I haven't stopped thinking about what I'm goin to write next. Gotta post later. It's almost midnight!

February through June.

I thought I'd make money in stocks and extra money by working construction. Well, I lost about three grand in stocks, one in particular called ENG. I sold after six long months. I vow to cut losses sooner next time, lesson learned. Heather quit a couple jobs and fell short on money. I hadn't gotten any covid money from the government, and expenses were up all around with the dog and cars. I had to pay a lot on taxes too. I had to cover a lot, but I did. 

March, April, May, June; The barn builders needed me more and more, and I needed money, so I worked in the shop in addition to on the road. I learned a lot about the process of building barns. We ripped through four modulars, from setting the sills to shingling the roofs and hanging doors. I thought of these days as my nest egg, but with losses from the stocks it was really just treading water. Some days I'd lose more than I'd made, and my body was being destroyed by the construction work. It was a very defeating feeling. 

After work I'd take the Hugo the Dog out for a walk at County Park. If I was lucky, I'd get an hour or two to paint in the evening upon returning home, then bed time and repeat. 

Barn work became less optional because of the nature of a two-month long project, to which I had to drive the crew, and therefore work the day. Some art deadlines flew right by because I was so busy. For a short while the dates with Heather went away, as I was usually working weekends too, and trying to make art happen, ironically, but they started to trickle back in when we could. We'd find a good Tuesday or Thursday or whenever to walk to a bar restaurant and grab a meal out. 

Heather's precarious employment was worrisome, but alas, now she has positioned herself well in two stellar employment positions, and it seems clear she has a north star. 

The barn work gave me a lung infection because I didn't protect myself while doing demolition work on a rehab project we've been on for a few months. I breathed in old barn dust, insulation, mold and rat and bird shit. Most of the damage was done in one day, and you know, sometimes you roll up to a jobsite not knowing what the nature of the day's work is going to be; so that's how that happened. I tried to breathe strategically, but it got me anyway. After the demo, the work got progressively cleaner, and the project has turned out very nicely. I am getting used to the work, and I think I will keep the job for a year or two, until I can buy a house. 

My sketchbook submission is being worked on. Some things take so much time that it feels as though you can waste a little and that would be okay in the long run. But enough of a little makes a lot, and that's what I'm dong with this blog entry- procrastinating. But also, these entries do help orient me and allow me to clear my head. If I have enough of them I begin to get into topics that I care about crafting a thought out of. The topical stuff needs to spill out into the sketchbook today, and the thought-crafting will go on inside of the minds of the viewer. 

I'm not sure whether or not my artwork is wicked or evil or anything. It is very often in consideration while I make it, because my thoughts are dark as I learn more about the world. Of course, the love becomes deeper and precious too, but the (perceived) realities are harsh often, so the work is dark. Dickens said after writing Moby Dick; "I've written a wicked book, and I feel spotless as a lamb!"  

Political leaders are clearly devoid of any moral anchoring; and that yields them upwards. Criminals go upwards so long as the state (or other competition) doesn't catch up with them to put a lid on the competition securing their monopoly. Statement making is a way of ratting oneself out, or pledging allegiance to the status quo, and so many 'statements' are built right into the status quo, like legalize weed, and gay rights and black rights, trans rights and the oft used 'what's next?'; they're rolled and doled out so long as the structures that be are further reinforced, never challenged; but perhaps I'm taking some the work of radicals for granted; just so much radical work is hacky and dumb- like why do you need the approval of everyone to live your life? Or why do you advocate for others' rights beyond just personally being nice to them and representing them well in your speech? Then also the other cannot be communicated about, though it is so often tried; marginalized groups are so often used as pawns. The kicker is that there are so many jobs on the market right now. Everyone is hiring. Get out there people! Not to be insensitive to.... what... those who choose not to work? Or 'cannot'? When I worked dispatch for a tow truck company, I'd call brokers and they'd clearly be at home taking care of kids; it can be done. In a way I think then that if you don't work or whatever, if you get left behind, that's a part of the whole process of change. I really wish the marginalized would get going (and many and most have), because that's the game. We can't grow weaker, the microorganisms are coming for us, if nothing else. Leave people alone too, that's huge. Shop as local as possible and as little as possible too. Take sustainability seriously. So now I'm like a working class hipster, equality seeking skinhead libertarian nationalist, who tries to shop organic and buy secondhand, and give back, like Jesus, but I also don't fucking know. Great, lol. So what is one to do regarding making art? What is to be communicated, to whom, and how? 

Therefore withholding opinions has become a part of the credo; to fly under the radar, and to what extent that has to do with a lack of conviction is where the art resides maybe. Because I don't know whether it's a lack of conviction or an allegiance to a lack of conviction. I don't know how to move forward. The matrix of it like fascia holding the thing together, begins to become palpable, tangible/physical. All the while I paint serieses of non-statements which I can only hope communicate a vision of what the thing is; wicked, beautiful but wicked, and all on the table; to be won or lost. 

. 

Lot's of free money out there- that's one last thing I have enjoyed saying recently; like it's a solution to my problems. It is so blanketing, the implication being that I have been severely scammed. And other's successes are unearned. 

I think the thing to do is keep this job, work it for a few years, get into a house, work work work, and paint; paint the whole time, and the network will work. Doesn't need to be New Yorker network or anything, just a network, and in my case with people I love and respect so much.

That should do it. Sketchbook due in July, Murals to come in July through October, Plein Air painting show in the hopper, and bringing me much monkey on my back energy, but in a good way. 

okay, godspeed.