Saturday, August 31, 2019

How to Paint a Room in Ten Easy Steps

1. Prep-work prep-work prep-work! It's been said that 90 percent of painting is prep-work. Okay, I don't know if that's actually been said except for me saying it, but the percentage feels right. There's so much to do before you even start painting-- decluttering the area, dusting, vacuuming... Because the last thing you want is to find a cat hair painted forever against your baseboard.

2, This week is Paint the Kitchen Week and I am ready. Painting clothes on. Hair tied back.

3. Shoot. I forgot to take all of the light plates off the walls. Side note: PLEASE DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Case in point: at the our last house, when I was removing the light plates, I realized that the previous owners had left the plates on and painted right over them. Total amateurs.

4. Primer everything. Wait. First, you've got to wash the surfaces you'll be primering. I got this tip from the guy who was standing behind me in line at the paint counter at Lowes. I was asking about primer, explaining to the Paint Clerk that the people who lived in the house before us smoked and now everything smelled smoky and what kind of primer was best for this problem, and the guy behind me piped up that he knew all about that, being a contractor and just having painted an entire house where six people had smoked up the place for twenty years.

The secret: a solution of water mixed with bleach and Dawn Dishwashing Liquid.

For the record: this is a messy yucky job and it takes a good part of a day.

5. Primer everything. Two coats. (This takes two days.)

6. Paint the ceiling. I have never painted a ceiling before but how hard can it be? I watch a bunch of Youtube videos. And I'm ready. Side note: It's not hard, exactly, but I do get a nice crick in my neck that reminds me of that summer I painted all of the McDonalds in Central Connecticut. 

7. Paint the walls! No, wait. First, you've got to tape everything off. I used to do this step religiously, but after painting what feels like a thousand rooms, I am more confident in my ability to paint a straight line. Still, it's a good idea to tape what you absolutely do not want to ruin. The kitchen cabinets, for example. This step takes a good two hours.

8. Paint the walls!! The color we've chosen is called Familiar Beige and I think it's lovely. Warm and brown. A few weeks ago I painted swatches of it on every wall to make sure we all really like it. We all really do.

But now that I've painted a wall,

I'm not so sure. Maybe it's clashing a little with the cabinets? No. It's fine. I keep going. I paint the entire kitchen and the back entryway. When my husband gets home from work, I ask him what he thinks and he hesitates. It looks a little red? he says. I argue with him that it does not look a little red. And anyway, what's wrong with a little red.

Nothing, he says. Forget I said anything.

I send him off to buy another gallon of Familiar Beige so I can paint the second coat, but as he's walking out the door, I say, Maybe we can change the cabinets?

He hesitates again.

Whatever. I AM NOT PAINTING THIS KITCHEN A DIFFERENT COLOR!!

We have a nice long bickery argument with our daughter looking on and shaking her head.

My husband flips through our collection of approximately 200 thousand Lowes paint samples and picks out another color, something called Salt Crystal that looks a lot like the color of the cabinets. He is so wrong about this color selection and I tell him 50 times and then I send him out to buy it.

8. I paint the entire kitchen again in Salt Crystal. Twice. It's creamy and delicious and makes me think of buttercream frosting and damn it all to hell, my husband is right. I do something I rarely do. I tell him he is right.

9. Paint the trim. Twice. (Two days)

10. Peel off the painter's tape. (Two hours)

Wah lah!

Now it is time to paint the dining room.





Saturday, August 24, 2019

Please let me pay my fine

The library where I work has gone fine-free.

This is a not-new idea (but new to our little community) that libraries should be about making patrons feel welcome and wanting to check out materials without worrying about being penalized for returning items a few days late. There's been research that shows that some people stop going to the library when they owe a fine, and of course, this hits poorer patrons hardest.

Also, our library didn't really make that much money on fines anyway, and it took a lot of employee time to keep up with them, time that could be better spent on programming and community outreach.

We've been explaining the new policy for the past few weeks, and some people are having a more difficult time with it than others.

Example:

Man (eyeing the new DVD display): So, am I really not going to get fined if I don't return a movie on time?

Me: That's right. We're fine free.

Man (smirking): I used to bring these back on time because there was a fine. Now, why should I?

Me: Well, if you don't return the item at all, you'll get charged for it.

Man: Ha! I knew it! You're going to fine me!

Me: No. As soon as you bring the item back, we'll remove the charge from your account.

Man (shaking his head): And you think this is going to work?

Me: Most patrons bring items back regardless of the fine. They get it that if they want to see a movie or check out a book, they have to return it so other people can have a chance too.

Man (taking a movie and still smirking at me): Ooookay.

Example Two:

Woman: I have a fine on my account. I know you're fine free now, but this is an old fine and I want to pay it.

Me (looking up her account and assuming there's some massive fine): Hmm. It looks like you owe 20 cents.

Woman (fumbling around in her purse): That's right. Here's my money.

Me: You don't really have to pay that. It'll just sit on your account and won't keep you from checking materials out.

Woman (looking distressed and thrusting two dimes at me): I don't like owing money. Please let me pay what I owe.

Me: Ooookay.

So this is how it's been going for the last few weeks with people seeming to fall into two camps. The ones who are immediately thinking about how they can game the system and the ones who are freaked out about owing ten cents from ten years ago.

Maybe the smirky guy's right and the whole library system will collapse if we don't punish people.

But then, this happened:

A woman came in to use a computer. For the record, anyone can walk into a public library and use the computers, print something, copy or fax something. There's a small charge for copies but otherwise computer use is free. It's one of the most-used services at the library.

I asked the woman if she had a library card and she hesitated and then said no. I gave her a guest pass and off she went, but later, she came back to the desk.

Not quite looking at me, she whispered, I think I do have a library card, but I owe some fines and I haven't used my card in a while.

Well, let's look, I said. I entered her information into the computer and nothing came up. Nope, I told her. You're not in our system anymore. Sometimes the library will purge accounts that aren't used for a while. So you're good. No fines.

She didn't say anything. She still wasn't looking at me.

Do you want to get a new library card today?  I asked.

I can get a card today? she said.

Sure!

I walked her through the application and in three minutes I handed her a card. I did my spiel about how many items she could borrow and all of the programs we offered and gave her our little brochure, which still shows the list of fines.

Ignore all that, I said. We're printing up a new brochure soon. We're fine free now.

She looked at me and I realized she was crying. I pretended I didn't notice.

Welcome to the library, I said.




Monday, August 12, 2019

The other day I scraped the backside of my car against a concrete post


I was backing out of my spot in a parking garage. A friend and I had driven to Dayton to give talk to our writers' group there. It had all gone well and I was telling my friend I thought it had gone well. The talk was about motivation and how it is important to have writing goals.

I had a cold all last week and I was kind of out of it, so I'd been worried about the talk. Add to that, we were in Dayton, two days after a mass shooting. I said to the writers in the group, We need to write now, more than ever!

Police and security guards were on every floor of the library. The place closed promptly at 8:30 and a security guard escorted us to the parking garage. Another stood behind my car, watching us as we got in. At the end of the writing talk I had told the group to write down their goals for the rest of the year.

Don't set a goal that's not in your control, I told them. Don't say, Be published by the end of the year. Say: Write a first draft. I did the exercise too and immediately ignored my own advice: Finish my revision and go on submission in the fall. 

I went through a bag of cough drops during the talk and had to keep stopping to blow my nose, but everyone acted like I was doing a good job. I hadn't given a talk like this one in a while. To be honest, I felt like a fraud. I haven't been writing since we moved. But even before that I was struggling.

I say we need to write now more than ever, but how do we do that exactly, when the world is falling apart around us? I wrote three books since my last book was published. Each one came close but ultimately did not break through.

Follow your dream, I told my writing group. Be persistent. Roll with the rejections. Keep writing. 

In May I finished a draft of a fourth book. I'd overhauled it completely and reworked it over a two year period. Why wouldn't an editor snap it up in the fall? 

Somehow I forgot there was a concrete post next to my car. I was looking at the security guard when I was backing out of the parking space. Drive slow, was what I was thinking. Be careful. The fourth book is not ready to go on submission in the fall. When I heard the deep grinding scrape noise, I was stunned. The concrete post was so big, and so suddenly and glaringly obvious.

The damage was bad, but luckily, only cosmetic. I tried to laugh it off with my friend, explained that I was usually a responsible driver. I'd had this car for over ten years and had never even gotten a scratch on it. But how did I overlook the concrete post? Was I distracted by the security guard? Had I eaten too many cough drops? 

Why do I keep writing books that come close but don't break through? 

Maybe it's time to try writing something different, my friend told me. The answer is so suddenly and glaringly obvious.

I will. 



Tuesday, August 6, 2019

One of my friends taught the young woman who died in the mass shooting in Dayton

She wrote a tribute on Facebook. The young woman was in her class at the Antioch Writers' Workshop. Her name was Megan Betts. She was twenty two years old, the same age as my daughter. Last week my son texted something about driving through Gilroy every time he visits Yosemite. I said, What's in Gilroy? I had already forgotten that there was a shooting there, the one at the garlic festival. A week ago.

I had to look it up. Three people shot and killed. Fifteen injured.

Maybe this will be the tipping point, I told my husband.
I don't think so, he whispered back. Newtown should have been the tipping point. We were holding candles on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse Sunday night. A candlelight vigil organized by Moms Demand Action. Three hundred people gathering just as it began to rain. We huddled together under the statehouse eaves. One of the speakers said:

It's hypocritical to pray for a problem you are unwilling to fix.

In Dayton there was a candlelight vigil too. The governor spoke about coming together. The crowd yelled back at him DO SOMETHING!

The governor seemed flustered. Maybe he forgot that before the shooting happened, he was eager to sign a new law in Ohio to allow Conceal Carry with no permit or training.

In El Paso a mom, on her way to pick up her daughter from the airport, stopped at Walmart to run a quick errand. A woman buying school supplies for her five year old was shot holding her infant child. Her husband died too, trying to shield both of them. The six year old boy who was shot in the back at the garlic festival loved Legoes and Batman.

The young woman who died in Dayton was a good writer. My friend kept one of the pieces she wrote and shared a fragment of it on Facebook:

She was a creature of space. Created in the heart of a supernova, her soul had formed from the dust of celestial bodies and the light of the stars that threw life to the edges of the galaxies. Her eyes had seen the eclipses of worlds, watched the formation of the solar systems and the placement of the planets . . . she painted supernovas across the event horizons . . . she knew the maps of the stars . . .

At the vigil one of the organizers asked us to please return the candles before we left. Sadly, she said, we will most likely need to use them again.