Crazed Pandemic Projects

 This really is a ponderous time. I gotta say I'm kind of glad I'm not living in my van right now. I'm sure I would've moved to Mexico or Guatemala again because these are trying times here in America. But then I would've missed out on the insane amount of unemployment welfare that the future gave to me to finish these house projects. So, I guess I did the right thing buying this house when I did. Imagine that: Oggy did the right thing for once. Maybe domesticity isn't so bad.

Did I mention that I'm turning my garage into a stage coach station? It will take some negotiations with the city council but I think I can get it done.

Fans of the Sergio Leone movie Once Upon a Time in The West will recognize my sign.

This sign represents some serious themes in the film and in my life so it deserves more than a passing reference. The film concerns the complicated drama that Jill, the New Orleans hooker, gets into when she goes to the West to meet her new husband, Mr. McBain. He's been killed because he owns the land needed by the railroad. But because he's married, Jill now owns the land...and suddenly is the obstacle that Frank needs to remove. And Jill had no idea that McBain was planning a town around a water source for the steam engine so she is clueless about what these toy houses are in her house and why a huge amount of building material shows up on her property. The Station sign is the clue to the whole operation and she realizes that her dead husband planned to build a town around a train station. But there is more to it. Yes, there is much more. The idea of a station, a respite, a way-station, a travel intersection is pivotal to all Leone's films and, if you think about it, pivotal to human society. The station, ironically, is exactly what the railroad owner, Mr. Morton, wants too. So, McBain and Morton want the exact same thing, but each wants to own it. Morton simply tries to kill and buy his way into the station, but McBain waited for the train to come to him. In the entire movie there is no one who is opposed to the station. They ALL want the station. The Station is the ultimate goal of the entire western expansion of humanity. Sure, the native Americans were not thrilled, but they aren't included in this narrative. So, Jill adopts her husband's dream and chooses the Station too. She almost abandons it, understandably, but then decides her fate now belongs with the Station. In the climax, after Harmonica kills Frank, the new Station sign is seen as the railroad chugs inexorably toward the Pacific Ocean. Jill takes Cheyenne's advice and goes outside, cleavage swaying in the scorching western sunshine, and gives the working men water. None of them even flirt with her, let alone pat her bottom, so she proceeds to tell them, sotto voce, that the well is around the corner. She's making a gesture of community. No, she's not going to wait on them all the time, they can help themselves to the water. Go and get it. "Help yourself!" This invitation, as slight as it may seem, brings tears to this working man's eyes every time I see it because it's absolutely the gesture of community I've seen countless times to now believe it's a timeless gesture played out through the ages. But there's more! The Station is, in this case, synonymous with Home. Sweetwater is Jill's new HOME. It's the chapter in her life where she is the owner of a growing town that serves a railroad station. Saloons, assayers, undertakers, mechanics for the train, Jails, sheriffs, iron smiths, brothels, etc. all will be built. The Station is synonymous with peace and prosperity and humanity at its best. See? A place of static improvement in a ceaselessly violent wilderness. That's the theme of all Westerns even though the east coast was no picnic to settle.

So, Oggy carved the Station sign from an old board that he tore out of the wall of his house when he found some rot under the windows. The sign represents his deliverance from the road, from wandering, from the homeless meandering beneath the unrelenting sun and wind. And the sign is a tribute to the movie that captures best this theme of human longing and reprieve and community with all its faulted justifications and rationalizations. The Station.

My ticket office is taking shape. I just need a conductor hat. And a Butterfield Stage Coach. And a cool schdule with departures daily at 2PM to Coyote Crossing and Cactus Junction.

The bathroom finally reached some kind of resolution. At least the ceiling is no longer exposed.

The shower walls have a real waterproof stall and even though I didn't move the tub to repair the plaster that is decaying behind the tub I did notice someone had already replaced the sheetrock so it was covering the plaster and flush with the tub so the wall that I glued on would overlap the tub lip. It's not my dream bathroom, which would be a Moroccan Tadelakt style walk-in shower, 

Tadelakt style is harder than it looks.

but I have to be realistic about these current projects. One day it's possible I will replace the whole bathroom arrangement with a walk in shower made from waterproof plaster with a shower pan and everything, but for now this is good enough. Nothing leaks, nothing is decaying. It's all just adequate.

I was avoiding this kitchen counter project since I knew the wood would be rotten and it was going to be a headache, but I didn't have to replace anything too major. Just the counter and some wood that was a kind of furring strip behind the counter. And I lengthened it into the side wall because the 4 inches I had previously was barely enough for a glass to be staged prior to my weekly dishwashing marathon. Now I can fit a whole plate.

before the demo. it had been painted and repainted and then caulked with silicone and covered with polyurethane.

tore out the old counter and took the sink out. actually it's a style of sink that is installed from below so I built a shelf for it to fall on Then I took the counter off and then I took the sink out and installed it on the new counter with about 20 different ring clips that secure it to the Hudee ring. The previous method had used caulking that hardened into stone and didn't stop any leak. The proper material is plumber's putty liberally stuffed between the counter and the ring and the sink and the ring, then squeezed down with the clips.

the real magic is hidden under the stainless ring that I had to scrape and then use a grinder to get clean. I didn't get any photos of that process in the yard with the sink upside down and going around and around to tighten the clips. real fancy stuff.

this was a side project in which I replaced both tires on the suzuki because I thought I might use it this summer and the other tires were no less than 11 years old and cracking like a sober fisherman's willpower.
Getting a motorcycle tire's bead to seat is not easy. I managed to get the front tire to seat, but the rear tire involved 3 days of wrestling and it failed. I gave up and brought it to a shop, which I should've done ten minutes after I couldn't get the bead to seat. Their machine grips 4 corners of the tire and pulls it in while the compressor has more volume than my little 1/4'' hose you see in the photo. Volume and grip are key. It can be done with a strap to push the bead into the tire and lots of soapy water or tire lube to allow the bead to slip on the metal. It was a painful thing.

So, that gets this up to date. I have a few windows to replace, some exterior lime washing to do. I am moving with a lighter grey slate color.

The last item is the floor, which is awful paper covered with polyurethane. I want saltillo tile and will probably do one room at a time. I'm putting it right over the paper with some adhesive thinset mortar. I'm not tearing up this gross asbestos tile. bury it and no one will know it's there. There is no plumbing to fix under the tile so why mess with it? I don't know when I will get to the floor because the other items on the list are a full season of work and the tile is expensive.

That's all for now. I'm going back to work after more than a year of living on the dole. I'm nervous that I've lost a sense of how to behave around other people, which wasn't super conventional to begin with. I feel I lived in a weird time vacuum for 10 years in the van. I felt time was suspended because I was forced to be so focused on survival and the travel logistics. But now that I was brutally reminded of how quickly life can change and I had months to reflect on life and watch the years roll by and suddenly I'm hyperaware of how old I am and how the joints don't work like they use to and the fingers misspell words that came easy to me and I forget things and even if my brain is not scrambled, I sense that it is scrambled , and that's almost the same thing. I'm a little timid when driving which is something I've never experienced. I was never an aggressive driver, but I was an extremely good driver, even when I lost the brakes on the van and sped between two oil trucks out of control. I was still pretty good. Now I wonder if my reaction time has slipped a little in the wrong direction.

I see now how blissfully ignorant I was of aging. It's better not to think about the passage of time. Let death's wings come for me unaware. It's like having hernia surgery, the dread is worse than the event. I'm developing some outrageous plans that should get my mind off getting older. Maybe my intention with the van travel was to fixate on living and it worked. It did work. I was fixated on the present moment so much that I didn't notice the passage of time. Now I'm a little too fixated on the time that has passed, maybe bitter that it passed too fast, in denial, shocked, depressed. I wonder if the house is wise when it's really a place to die comfortably. Does it really matter if I'm comfortable when I die? hmmm? That's morbid. Like I said, this aging has me a little fixated on mortality, which is a topic I didn't ever allow into my realm. Now it's taking up too much room and I'm trying to navigate around it. It's a mental battle, but if my wits are not as sharp then how will I win? I don't think I care about staying young, as if that were possible, but I am concerned with living presently and not dwelling on the morbid thoughts of mortality, which doesn't help anything. It's ok to ponder it occasionally, like when you wonder who should inherit your 52 year old Van, but to dwell on it and obsess and fixate is not healthy. I could fixate on the past, humanity, ethics, morality. But mortality is not a good topic to fixate on. It's distracting and disabling.

So, the summer of 2021 will be when I reclaim my grip on life, write the crazy tale of despair and social parody that I've been pondering for 25 years. I think I've got the ideas and theme and general mood of the book sorted out. But when I start in on it I am not happy with the specific voice or music that I'm hearing in the words. The music is not flowing. This year I would like to finish that song and move on to something else.