Day
Christmas draws nigh, and our domicile is still in disarray, thanks to a home repair project I would not have selected, but have gladly accepted. I spent three hours this morning replacing a section of sub-sub-flooring at the back door. Years of weather, dating back way beyond the 20 years we have lived here, have pounded the back door, and somehow caused the sub-sub-floor to rot. I put up a long-overdue storm door last weekend, so it shouldn’t happen again. But I still had to fix it.
Of course, the first thing I did when I had removed the flooring was drop my wood chisel into the crawl space. I almost just jumped down to get it, but realized that (1) I might not be able to easily haul myself back up the way I went down, and (2) the crawl space door is locked from the outside. So I lowered a little step-stool to help me get out, which turned out to be handy when I added additional bracing.
So I got it repaired, and put down the sub-flooring, too.
At this point I took a break to mail Christmas cards. (Jayne did a great job on them, as usual. If you don’t get one, let me know and I’ll dispatch one forthwith.) The Post Office was living up to its busiest-day-of-the-year prognostication, but I enjoyed the trip, happy that I could use the Self-Serve kiosk.
I spent the rest of the afternoon pulling up sub-flooring in the hall. It was covered with linoleum firmly glued down (or possibly even joined at the molecular level), and I decided I would rather replace the sub-flooring than try to deal with the thickness differential between rooms.
Of course, I also found another rotten section by the front door. It’s not as bad as the back door, but will still need work, which I plan to tackle tomorrow.
Since the missus was returning late from a wedding planning trip, supper was leftover Thai from dinner on Saturday night, which pretty much brings me to here and now.
I can’t wait to start putting down actual flooring. All those hyphens in sub- and sub-sub-flooring are hard to type. Plus this time I’m going to use a pneumatic flooring nailer. Har har har!
Quote
For years my computer monitor has sported the following saying, source unknown: “How can I know what I think unless I read what I write?” (I didn’t know it until Google told me, but there is a similar quote attributed to E.M. Forster, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”) For me, the quote serves as a constant reminder of the benefits of writing my ideas rather than just thinking about them. In everything I do, writing, analysis, and editing always bring new insights and perspectives. The only thing that works better is discourse with others. But even that is more effective if we start off with a written thesis.
It will be no surprise, then, that I like this quote from William Safire. It not only captures the gist of my saying, but amplifies it, and offers up a tasty serving of snark en route.
“Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to ‘get in touch with your feelings,’ fine — talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.”
I’m still working on that last part.
In closing, I wish a Merry Christmas to you and to all those you love, and those you should love, too, for that matter. Tell ’em I said so.