coherent writing is for the weak

I am still not sleeping well consistently--two good nights in a row would be progress. Right now I tend to get one good night in a week, have one productive day at work, and then it declines from there. I'm also a bit frustrated with pool, since the more tired I am, the worse is my hand-eye coordination and fine motor control. I'm enjoying my membership at the pool hall, though, so at least I'm playing in a better environment and I get to watch and occasionally play against better players.

I do not enjoy staying up numerous hours past the time when I would like to go to bed.

The house is moving a little slowly now, because most of the week has been devoted to the floor guys, which means no one else can get in to do anything. The varnish isn't drying as fast as the guy thinks it should, but there's not much to do except wait for it. There's still work for the painter, too. And we're supposed to move in a week from tomorrow. I realize we have to let go of control and outcomes; we also have to get all our stuff out of the apartment. It's all very exciting. We'll be happy to be moved in.

When I peek through the windows, though, the floor is beautiful.

Anna met with some garage-door installers on Friday, and an analysis of the garage reveals that rather than put any real money or effort into it, we should tear down the entire building and put up a new one. If I remember, I will do a short photo essay illustrating the comprehensive list of problems; suffice to say that it was never terribly well sited on the lot, and then it was enlarged by about 50%, and not by professionals. They did a solid bodge of it: it's been standing for probably about 30 years, and will last another 10-15. And replacing a garage is Money[tm], even just for materials, even using beautiful salvaged materials like we were drooling on yesterday. So there's no rush, but on the other hand, we don't need to baby it, either. We get the freedom of knowing you're almost certainly not going to make things worse.

I have some vision for the front yard, which itself is striking, because I don't usually have visions for things. I'm not the Vision Guy. The vision involves tearing up the entire yard, since there's this nasty plastic sod mesh that's close to the surface in most parts, and takes out the grass when you pull it up. Once we do soil tests to see if it's safe to grow edible things, we'll make a plan, destroy the lawn, put up a fence, and plant things. It often occurs to me that there are things I can reasonably do with a house that I couldn't with a rental, like plant a grape arbor that will take 3 years till the first harvest.


Oh! And the big gnarled tree in the yard is a fig tree! With figs starting to grow on it! I like the string of surprises, whether it's the fig tree or the terrible garage. It's like the world's most expensive grab bag of random crap.