Sunday, February 18, 2007

The Dripping Faucet

It has been over a month since I last posted here. Not being one to multi-task in a big way, I allowed another activity to steal my blog time. Considering that this theft of blog time was looked upon kindly by my wife of 26 plus years, I should feel okay about it. But I don't. I am guilt ridden and ashamed of my lack of participation in the blogging culture. At least while I am explaining myself here I am going to be full of regret. When confronted by my darling signifigant other, that regret will melt away as if it never even crossed the barren landscape of my mind.

Coming back here after such a long absence is tough. Those re-directed creative juices must now switch from construction of physical things to construction of subjective things. With a healthy dose of self doubt, I often feel my efforts in either direction might be better spent buying finished products than attempting to create them. But self doubt always loses to ego in my case. Misplaced confidence maybe. But there it is.

For 3 weeks of the last 4, I have holed up in my basement toiling away at renovations and reconstructions that have been successfully neglected and ignored for 20 years. A load bearing wall down there had lost it's plate to years of Spring run off that insists on passing through my basement on it's way to the ocean. The floor above dropped an inch or so. Walls began to crack and doors started acting funny.

This did not happen over night. And while I would like to say it sneaked up on me, I cannot. I watched it unfold and did nothing. Not sure why. I have the carpentry experience and tools to handle the fix. Laziness? Um maybe. But it was more than that. A perfect vehicle by which I exposed one of my more irritating character flaws. I have always had a high tolerance to problems. I always make them hit a critical point before I do anything about them. In inter-personal relationships and when dealing with the physical world. I can listen to a faucet drip forever without wishing to fix it. It nearly broke up my marriage in the early years until she got over it.

Unlike many of the emotional and personal glitches of my life, when I decide to fix something I really fix it. No half ass solutions. Over kill all the way. The new wall I built was no exception. It is stronger, better looking, and water proof. It will definitely outlast my time left on this planet.

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