November 3, 2011

• Allen Wrench

  I am remodeling the bathroom (painted, scraped caulk, hung new mirror and cabinet, etc.) and I am at that stage where I need to have a plumber come put in the new faucet that I bought for the tub.  The cold water faucet leaks when you turn it on, so I have perfected the art of running a hot bath (entirely hot water) and then let it cool as I walk the dog and make coffee and clean the litter box, etc.  If you have ever had a shitty old house you know what I mean when I say that you get used to shit being broken and don't realize how oddly you are living until you have to explain to someone that the gas burner knob fell off so you use a wrench to turn on the stove or whatever.  I bought a new toilet paper roll dispenser and a hand towel ring for the bathroom and I have not been able to figure out how to hang them up.  I literally spent an hour trying to get the goddamn allen wrench to tighten the little bitty screw at the bottom of the dispenser and it would. not. stay. in.  (Incidentally, remember the periods after every word?  I think of that as a Xanga thing.)

  Bill is even less of a handy man than me and he was skeptical when I asked for his help.  He gamely tried to hang the damn things and suggested pounding them into the wall, which I agreed to.  Anything.  I just want toilet paper hanging from the wall again.

  But this morning he stumbled out of the bathroom with a smile on his face.  "Look!" he said with a flourish.

  The toilet paper roll was hanging from the wall.

  "We were putting the bracket on backwards," he explained.  "I needed to be half conscious apparently to figure out what we were doing wrong."

  It's been a rough couple of years with Bill.  Several of you noted that you haven't blogged because you're happy and don't need to.  I haven't blogged for a lot of reasons, but when I think of my personal life I am unhappy and sad.  The last two years that Bill's oldest lived with us were really rough and harmful.  My teenagers are great, but also hurtful.  And my marriage has been battered around through a lot over the last few years.  We seem to continue to find ways to hurt each other and yet cling to each other.  I stopped running and drank much, much more.  We are doing very concrete things to fix things - counseling and exercise and cutting back on drinking / cutting drinking out completely, etc.  I recognize that it is hard to respond to blogs when people are in crisis.  Particularly when it is long term.  You offer advice or are irritated that the person can't see what needs to change or you just tire of hearing the same things over and over.  It's also just hard to not feel like you're being breezy.  Someone pours their hurt feelings out and what do you say without sounding flippant?  It's already happened to me as I have been reading blogs again.  I like the "like" button.  And the eprops, actually.  Read you, love you, don't know what to say, right?

  Bill and I recently moved our room to the attic to give ourselves a bigger and more equitable space.  It prompted the other remodeling projects and right now the house is in not only disrepair, but disarray.  I could not find a comb or brush this morning when I was doing my hair, but there on the ledge in the bathroom was that goddamn allen wrench for the toilet paper roll.  I used it to part my hair, and then I got dressed and came into work.  Which is how I do things these days.  I just do what needs to get done and hope that I get some help along the way.  Like Bill hanging the toilet paper roll dispenser for me.

   

  • 8:41 am
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