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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1768
They're in to do the bathroom, at the behest of the landlord.
It's a small bathroom, easily improved with some cupboards and designer fixtures and maybe some tile, not a big job, 2 or three days at most I think.
Ha.
24 square feet, and they've now been in 4 days. Days off I leave the house to give them access, those rarest days off and I'm not home, an orphan on the street in the hopes they'll hurry up and finish and I can begin the long cleanup that will accompany their departure.
Friday they were in the entire day - I worked 11:00 - to 11:00, changed the faucets on the shower.
Saturday they cut a 36"X18" hole in the drywall.
Today they installed a 2X4 in the former cupboard behind the bathtub.
There is no measurable progress, and I need to compare the state of the bathroom each day to the photos I took the day before to see just what got done. This is fast becoming the job from hell.
I survey the work, I have no sink, have to shave, brush teeth downstairs in the kitchen, there's no electricity in the bathroom, just a spot lamp connected to the towel rack, and everywhere there's an increasingly thick film of dust, a few hours laundry, swiffer, dusting will be needed to make the house livable again. I'd shut the doors, but the cats would be creating their own mess. Another day off gone to rot.
Still they're working, when not here they're calling to see when they can next have access, I've given them my schedule, they wrote it on a pack of cigarettes and threw it away, they need to know it again. They have an unerring knack for knowing when I'm napping.
I've heard the stories, contractors from hell, thought they were making them up, they can't all be that bad, but I'm now living the dream and can say without qualification that if you can turn on a drill or saw you're now worth $45 or $50 an hour in the trades and can officially call yourself a contractor.
Ultracuts
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2106
Wednesday, my day off of sorts, a hundred different errands...
...a Haircut first amongst them.
And when I begin, the initial primer of thrift shops having failed and faced with the expenditure of hardware stores and a thousand other errands that once begun have no hope of completion until spring, I end up at the Barbers.
Nicks, but he's full up, with a line up in the chairs.
I knew I should have left earlier.
It's a day off, and while I have some sort of hairdresser loyalty it doesn't extend so far as waiting an hour or more in line for a haircut.
More thrift shops, and I end up finally in a strip-mall hair cut salon - "Ultracuts", or some-such.
They take me in right away.
This is one of the suburban hair salons, popular amongst those who've given up on any sense of youth, fashion or style. Not that I got any of this from Nicks, but at least he was a classic barber.
I'm led to my chair by a plump, no, fat, 50 something female barber.
This is where hairdresser's end up who didn't open their own salons.
And she cuts my hair, not just competently but well, cheap, 20 minutes all told for $20.00. $30.00 with tip.
She does well, finds and follows the original line of the haircut, it's been 4 months but she knows what she's doing, doesn't waste my time in idle patter. I study the decor, it's bleak, antiseptic, suburban. I feel for her, for the gay hairdresser across from her, how did they end up here? The most modest of ambitions, to own your own chair, have your own clientele, somehow thwarted, there are so many good hair salon ideas that need exploring.....
She trims my ears with a special clipper she has, the inside of my ears, the outside, and for a moment I'm seized with the impulse to tell her that I'm growing those out, to leave them alone.....
She wouldn't get it.....
20 minutes, I'm in and out, the haircut, it's good, passable, no one at work notices, I do, an inch and a half off, it's been 4 months.
150+ Pages
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2004
Of notes, transcribed, some, most written, rewritten, again and again. 8X11 sheets of paper, 9 pt MS Sans serif font, paragraph between ideas.
It's formidable.
Edit it down and there's perhaps only 100 pages, still....
pages need to be snipped, taped, rearranged, there are chapters, verses, innumerable edits, revisions, rewrites....
How do people ever finish?
And yet, read what's out there, every Moron has written the history of their life as a bestseller....
It's daunting, this, and I forever procrastinate. This, the distillation of ideas too good, too rare for the blog, better things are planned for this, and I weigh them in my hands....
But I'm terrified of editing, revising, rewriting them. It's a lot of work. A huge amount of work. A necessary, huge and terrifying amount of work.
There are the pages of chapters, of notes to myself, of notes to myself on notes that I should write to myself, there are the pages that express and re-express the same sentiments over and over again, a hundred ways to phrase, which is the best? there are the notes on theme, style, structure, pages of questions, research, answers, more research, and I haven't even begun...
Thomas Pynchon did this all, and without a computer.
150+ pages, and I'd be closer if I started from scratch...
Christmas Madness
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2146
And it's begun, already, the abundant parties that will keep us busy all the way to Christmas. Lawyers, Oil companies, the occasional family will try to sneak in (we screen them, in if we know them, otherwise no), the calls - separate cheques (nope, early warning sign of a bad table), children (not on weekends, too busy, children don't drink or consume), people who want to make a reservation at a dozen restaurants and then check with their friends which one they want to attend - they even tell you this on the phone - no, call us when you want to come to our restaurant, otherwise we'll be turning people away on the slight possibility you'll choose us...
It's a circus.
And, ironically, for all the extra hours and work, there's very little extra money. None, in fact, merely an abundance of useless extra staff hiding wherever they're sure not to be needed. And so it goes.
Days off, only Sunday, otherwise 5 long 12 hour days a week, and a mere 9 hour shift on Saturdays (the short day). It's just hold your breath until it's over....
Christmas in the restaurant industry.
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