The Writing Shed, Part Two

I’ve had a lull in my brainiac works, so I’ve been able to get some work done on the writing shed.

I started off by disrobing part of my yard with a sod cutter. Once it was nude, I had to level the site, which I accomplished with a shovel and rake. I then located the first foundation stone. I used some cinder blocks I’ve had sitting around for a few years; they’re good enough for what I’m doing. I dug ‘em down a few inches and made sure they were tamped in well, and level.

Since I didn’t have a transit handy, I used the straightest reclaimed piece of 2x8 I had on hand to telegraph the elevation from the cornerstone to all the remaining foundation stones. I placed my four foot level on top of the 2x8 and voila: it’s a 12 foot level. Mind you, I wasn’t aiming to get each stone perfectly in position—just close enough to be able to shim the floor after it was built. The goal was to get all six stones roughly at the same elevation, within less than a quarter of an inch of each other relative to the cornerstone. The Egyptians would probably ridicule such lax tolerances, but this is good enough for who it’s for.

The next step involved the Pythagorean Theorem. In framing, we call it the 3-4-5 rule. Basically, in order to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle, pull measurements on each 90 degree leg that fulfill the 3-4-5 rule, like so: if one leg is 3 feet, and the leg 90 degrees from that is 4 feet, the hypotenuse (the side of the triangle that connects the two right angle legs) has to be 5 feet. If it’s not, you don’t have a right triangle, and your framing isn’t square. In my case, I pulled 6 feet on one side and 8 feet on the other, and moved those two legs until the diagonal (the hypotenuse) yielded 10 feet (notice that these are multiples of 3-4-5). I had to do this several times, confirming the placement of my foundation stones.

Once all the stones were reasonably situated (of course, one of them refused to cooperate, but that’s par for the course), I could begin building the frame. The reclaimed materials bundle that I have managed to procure came ready-made with a doubled-up 2x8 joist; perfect for the backbone of my floorplan. I cut it to length and began laying out the framing, nailing it together as I went. Now, lots of guys would probably tell you to use hangers, but I elected to save some scratch and toenail (drive nails in on an angle, one from each side) the floor joists together, gluing them after they’d been nailed. Cheaper and faster, and arguably just as strong. You’ll notice from the photos that using reclaimed lumber means putting up with random holes (drilled for electrical in the previous installation), but they don’t affect the strength.

My next step was insulating the floor, which was interesting. I used 24” wide batts and installed them upside down, so that the kraft paper faces the ground. Hopefully that will increase durability. I had to buy insulation supports, which are just lengths of steel stock that you wedge into the joist spaces that act as a spring and support the weight of the insulation. It’s lame and I hate it, but it’ll do.

After all that was done, I busted out the 3-4-5 rule again and made sure my framing was reasonably square. Sure enough, it had gone slightly trapezoidal, but I could easily rack the thing into shape using a length of 2x4 as a lever, prying against the ground and moving the corners back into square. Further fine tuning was accomplished by using the factory edges of my sheathing (the OSB floorboards) as a guide. It went pretty quickly once I got the first sheet lined up with the framing and nailed down. I used construction adhesive, gluing as I went along, lining up the sheathing and then nailing it down.

Now that the deck is done, I should be able to run electrical pretty soon. Since this big 12x12 deck is nice and level and flat, I’ll be building my trusses before I build the walls, and then setting them aside until I’m ready to build the roof. I need something like a huge workbench in order to fabricate those, and the shed floor fits the bill perfectly. The next installment in this series will chronicle that. 

Hot Wing Beans

“Wake up,” my wife said to me. It was just past 1 AM.

“Wha?” I asked. It was a legitimate question.

“You were laughing maniacally,” she said. I was glad that she didn’t add the word “again” to that sentence.

“Oh,” I said. “I had a bad dream.” It was true. I had been having a bad dream; one in which there is at least one unexplainable thing and at least one impossible goal. You know how those are. That’s what makes a dream go from vivid or just plain crazy to bad. In my case, I remember that it was crucial I get to the curtains and close them. But I just couldn’t do it, no matter how I tried. And then I began laughing maniacally, ostensibly to scare off the baddies. Or maybe I was the baddie.

It turns out I scared my wife awake. I felt a little bad, mind you. What spouse wants to be awakened by the love of their life in bed next to them, laughing like a super villain? It’s no bueno.

I don’t know if there is cause and effect in dreamland. There are the usual suspects when it comes to bad dreams, i.e. what- did- I- eat- last- night and all that. In my case that would have been the hot wing beans (2 cans of pinto beans, ½ cup of brown sugar, ½ cup of Frank’s Red Hot, and some bacon grease; simmer on low for an hour). But it just as easily could have been the Sleep Notes. The latest entry in that file reads, Someone fell thru the F, which means God knows what. Honestly, why do I bother? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m sure there’s potential there.

After my evil episode, in that unsettled mood that always follows the rude awakening, I fell back to sleep and dreamt in vivid Technicolor. It wasn’t bad, but it was borderline bad. I don’t remember details, but I do remember it was quite a ride. I’m having friends over for a barbeque today, and I might make the hot wing beans again, just to see if they’re the culprit. Maybe tonight, around 1 AM, the beans will fuel some federal grant money for dream research.

Probably though, they’ll fuel something else.

Survival is Victory

It’s true sometimes. I’ve blogged lately about fire, how we Christians, we followers of Christ, we brave few, are called to at times to follow our Savior right through it. In the fire, ugly things get burned clean off us. The loving masculine hand of Christ guides us into these brave places where life and death walk naked and can be seen for what they are. Here, survival is victory.

The first time Jesus Christ leads a man through the furnace of His severe and fearsome love, it feels like the end of all things. The universe tilts, the earth wobbles on its axis. But like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when we’re plunged into the flames we find it a kind of sanctuary, a baptism that cleanses us from those things that overshadow us: the past and its power to condemn, addictions, habits, ruts of behavior. We find in the fire, for the first time, that there is peace. The blaze of our Savior’s gaze—His undivided attention, so unbearable for those who have not yet bent the knee—is ultimate catharsis. It is the homecoming for which we all hunger, whether we know it or not.

We soon find in the fire that there is nothing to fear there. When we emerge on the other side, burnished clean and glowing, we find ourselves stronger, lighter, bolder. Less apt to waver. Not led about by whim and fancy. We know our purpose, we know who we are, we have beheld the magnificence of the only wise God, and we are forever changed. Fear slides off us now. What once might have bowed our backs, crippled our knees, and melted our hearts is now as nothing. Our perspective has changed; we know now what matters because we have looked death in the face and seen there is nothing there to fear.

And we sing a new song. One that cannot begin to express the measure of pain we have felt. It is pain that matters a great deal, because we bear the marks of Christ on our hearts now; we are bound to Him in fellowship, in brotherhood, in understanding—because we have walked the same paths, have we not? Our new song is one of love, but even this song won’t do enough to prove our love for Him. We firewalkers will not stop short of pouring out our lives for the One we have beheld in the quiet place of the crucible. We are not the same as we were before.

We will never be the same. The embrace of God is an irrevocable thing. For those who know, for those who have heard His call, there is nothing else that will ever satisfy. Nothing. For us, when we say I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, we know it’s true because we have lived it. Not because of us. But because of the One who reveals Himself in the fire, who strips everything away but Himself, His everything-presence, the One who has overshadowed All, the One who showed us that survival is victory. What remains is pure.

The Writing Shed, Part One

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! AAGGHHH!

Ever had that feeling that life is snowplowing right over you? The old to-do list is getting pretty long. It brings to mind a British phrase I’ve come to know and love: “Ambitious, but rubbish.” If things keep up like this, that’s precisely what it’ll be.

I’ve been trying to build an outdoor fireplace now for a little while. Like, two years. It’s not only not done, but also there have been other little projects added in the meantime… you know, while I procrastinated. Like the cabinet my wife procured that needs to be sanded, painted, and installed somewhere. A big picture frame from three years ago; same story. I’ve told my boys that I’m going to build them a loft bed in their room, so they can have more room to play (truthfully, the design behind this idea is to keep them from leaving Legos out to ambush me barefooted in the living room, but I know it won’t solve anything; I understand the Law of Unintended Consequences).

And now this: A massive pile of reclaimed lumber. It’s for another project altogether, of course. See, a while back I got this crazy idea that I could build a storage shed that’s mostly not a storage shed. Mostly, it would be my home office. There would be room to store stuff on one side, sure, but there would be a double wall dividing the two spaces. My office space would be insulated and air conditioned and heated. Sure, it’s crazy, but I can do crazy in my sleep. Trust me.

Where did it all come from, you may ask. It started with a random phone call from my brother, who started the conversation by asking me what I was doing. I told him, “Writing. At the coffee shop (which is where I normally work because I don’t have a writing shed yet).” He replied with, “You dog,” whereupon I gave as good as I got. But it turned out he needed some help with demolition at one of his jobs. There was a small forest of 2x4s, 2x8s, and headers, oh, my. The stuff was just going to go into a dumpster anyway, so I quickly volunteered to help him take it down, thinking to myself, self, this is probably going to cost you a bottle of Laphroaig’s finest. Happily.

The problem is, reclaimed lumber is a little like fresh produce. It won’t keep forever, especially out in the weather. Further, my projects tend lately to outlast reality itself. I have really got to get cracking on this shed, then. Have you ever considered the irony of a man who needs somewhere to keep the materials for the shed he wants to build, and how a shed would be the perfect place to keep all that stuff but how there is no shed yet because it hasn't been built? Chicken or egg. A Frenchman would shrug, turn away, and light a cigarette, saying C'est la vie, and it would fit well.

That pile looks big, doesn’t it?

Yes, yes it does.

But I’ve counted up the studs and the joists—there’s not enough there to complete the shed I’ve designed. It’s not a complaint; just an observation. What it means is that I’ll have to go out and buy more materials. More studs. More sheathing, for sure. Shingles, paint, caulk, nails, hardware for the doors, and so on. I’ve got to go get a second-hand sliding glass door, too. And a heater. And an air conditioner. You see where this is going, right? I’ll need conduit, wiring, j-boxes, some railroad ties, and probably more than a few sixers of cold beer.

It’s dangerous, that’s what it is. Dangerous. Because I have more excuses than ever now. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s procrastinate this lumber pack into an unusable pile. Though life threatens to plow me under, I shall stand atop victorious, hammer in one hand and empty beer in the other, roundly belching my defiance into the face of circumstance. I will shout from the gambrel roof of my writing shed that I Have Overcome. Soon. Ish. Like, maybe, I dunno, late August-early September. Meh, October…possibly.

When Life Gives You Poo…

Duress reveals the innermost workings of a man. Lately, I’ve been waking up to a fresh pile of canine manure in a random spot of my yard. Everyday. Such an inherently hateful thing will set a thinking man’s wheels to grinding. I’ve thought things like, if I catch that crap factory traipsing over my lawn in the wee hours of the morning, why, I’m going to—! This is what Patrick F. McManus dubbed the “aborted curse,” or a variant thereof. I’ve also thought things like, maybe it’s time to pull the old paintball gun out of mothballs. But that would be cruel. Just, but cruel, and especially in this eggshell of a woman’s world we have inherited from the hippies.

No, I’m going to find the strongest mongrel repellant in the world and deploy it liberally around my property. What is it dogs hate most? I can think easily of what they love: trash, feces, rancid meat, grass (I have a lot of that), small children, bicycle tires, bits of rope… But what do they hate? And how can I rid myself of this fecal scourge?

It is an irritation. I’ve thought about whether or not the nightly deposit is being left by a stray or a legitimate dog. If it’s a legitimate dog, that means it has an owner. If there is an owner involved, one of two things is happening repeatedly:

1. The legitimate dog escapes confinement every morning to drop poo bombs on my yard.
2. The legitimate dog is out every morning with its owner, who allows it to drop poo bombs on my yard, thus providing his or her express endorsement of said canine mischief.

If case #2 is valid, I have options. I could stake out my own yard. When I catch the culprit and its scumbag master I then have even more options, two of which spring readily to mind. The first is that I could (I would already be wearing three pairs of rubber gloves, of course) sprint out to the steaming pile, pick it up, and chase the bastard down my street. But this would require me to outrun him or her, and even with the advantage of piss, vinegar, and adrenaline on my side, I’m still not that fast. The second option would be to stealthily follow the offender to his or her own domicile, whereupon I could volley poo after retributional poo upon his grass. But the human kind of poo is far more gross. Ten to one, really. If I think this through, it’s not a realistic option, but it’s fun to consider nevertheless. Awkward headlines notwithstanding (In other news, a Meridian man was arrested early this morning for taking a dump in someone’s yard…)

In the end though, I’ll probably just spend an outrageous amount of money buying dog repellent that doesn’t work in an effort to expunge someone else’s dog crap from my little corner of paradise. What was that about an ounce of prevention? Oh, well… I forget. Something about being worth it or something. I’m still angry about it, as I should be. I don’t own animals because I don’t enjoy picking up feces out of my yard. It’s pretty simple. And that some jackass is out there yucking it up thinking he has the best of both worlds—canine love and a clean yard—payback is going to be a bitch. A cast iron, Mongolian cluster of a BEE-OTCH. Because next time that walking crap factory sets foot in my yard, I’ll be there.

Yes sir. I’m going to set out a huge bowl of doggie snacks as bait, and then camp out next to it. Right on top of Rover’s preferred latrine area IN MY YARD. And when I hear little munchies going on at about two AM, I’m going trigger my industrial strength aerosol air horn right in Rover’s face. Granted, I may have quite a lot of cleanup to do immediately after that, but it will be worth it. Because that will be the last time for a long time, let me tell you.

Dogs who poo in my yard need to BEWARE OF OWNER, let me tell you. And it’s a life lesson: When life gives you poo, camp out and grab your air horn. Like duh.

Firestarter

From what I can ascertain from the merry cobble of information out there in Webland, Stephen King never wrote a sequel to Firestarter. And right from the get-go, I have to say that’s “a bummer, man,” as Jeffrey Lebowski might say. While this book had its moments, it never really got going. It dragged along and teased me, and I realized about two-thirds of the way through it that it wasn’t going to deliver the knockout blow I was hoping for.

Mehh…

And it’s weird. It sure seems like a great setup for a great story. There are so many ways to move the plot forward, it’s surprising King doesn’t ever really give it full throttle.

I read it with a plan, though. I purposed to read something from King’s early days, because I wanted to see if he’s always been amazing or if he developed along the way. The answer was mostly that he developed along the way. Firestarter was a decent story, sure. But it’s no Duma Key; it’s not King’s best. I’ve read somewhere that he isn’t particularly proud of his early stuff anyway, and that’s why I sought it out. I wanted to see what kind of writer he used to be.

Firestarter was like the patient whose wife waits in the hospital lobby, the doctor walking gravely in with the ma’am-I’m-afraid-I-have-bad-news line. The bane of all rookie authors—passive voice—isn’t just a rash in this book. It’s not just an outbreak. It’s riddled with it. Sure, it’s fixable, but only by re-making the patient. And maybe I got an early edition; it’s copyrighted 1980 and there are no edition numbers on the copyright page. Perhaps some of that stuff got fixed later on. I don’t know. It’s stunning, though, that it went to press in such bad form. These are the professionals, or so we’ve been told.

What I do know is that I was encouraged by this book. One of my literary heroes, King had teething problems too, just like me. He turned out a halfway decent book that got made into a movie. And he launched into a career as an author that was very rewarding. Sure, the world’s a different place now. But it’s good to know that one of the master storytellers of our time had his own early issues.

Now…I’ve got things to write.

The Age of the Average

The other day I watched a video, or part of it anyway, about a young couple who cycled about 4500 miles from one end of the country to the other. It got me to thinking.

Riding a bike across Oregon would be an enormous feat. Across the country? Huge. With your wife? Move over, Captain Peary. This is a big deal to me. But to our contemporary society, it’s nothing more than a footnote on the local news wires, if that. The video had about 120 views on You Tube. I wondered why.

Is it that we can no longer do great things as a society, as a civilization? Have we run out of Pearys to discover the North Pole? Magellans and Vespuccis and Armstrongs and Yeagers and Wrights? Admittedly, from a certain perspective it sure seems like we’ve mostly accomplished what God told Noah: fill the earth and subdue it, teem on it. But if we’ve run out of spectacular things to do, does it follow logically that real wholesome spectacle itself is dead too?

If greatness has indeed died, for what then shall we live? All of us aspire for some kind of notoriety, at least I think so, on some level, because part of human nature includes that “hey, look at me” gene. And while riding with no hands for mom is great when you’re seven or eight, it’s not very satisfying for grown men and women. So…there’s nothing great left for these generations to do…and therefore we shall sink into ignominy and become average…right?

No, I don’t think that’s quite true. I think we have become benumbed to greatness. We’re so paradoxically isolated in our urbane anonymity, faces glued to our electronica, that we wouldn’t know a great man if he walked up and slapped us in the face. The paradox extends, too, to the increasingly violent and extreme turn current events have taken since I was a kid. We didn’t have news stories about cannibalism in the streets, terrorist threats in skyscrapers, unexplainably out of control natural phenomena, and so on. That mild heart attack you should feel when you see crazy headlines begins to fade the more you read them. And that means it takes more sensationalism for you to sit up and notice extraordinary things.

I’m not saying we should dumb down what defines greatness. Quite the contrary. I’m saying we’re chasing the wrong kinds of things, and it’s slowly killing us from the inside. We’re deadened. I think it’s mostly because we connote our vicarious experiences with reality: we watch an HD documentary on the Amazon rain forest and we then assume we’ve basically been there. But such an outlook is patently untrue.

The main problem is that we so seldom rub elbows in the flesh with true honor, courage, daring—real greatness—that we’ve lost the intensity of what that word means. We have very little appreciation for feats of daring because we so rarely have to dare to do anything anymore. Now, just cooking dinner for the family is awe-inspiring. And then we sit down in front of the flat screen and become blobified, dissolving into subhumanity. Average. Dead and boring. And dead bored. I only mention it because I have struggled with it.

But not so much anymore. Nope. I decided to wake up and engage a little while back. I’ve turned a corner in my life, and I know it. I’m waking up a little more each day. I’m in the ring again, contending. I hope to see you there too, in fact.

Don’t listen to what the dirty great river of pop culture tells you about greatness—it’s not to be found on Jersey Shore, or whatever that horrid TV show is. We can stop incentivizing blobified humdrum sameness by taking hold of real values in our own lives first. The individual, the hero, is just waiting for you to let him out of the cage. There are things to fight for, there are still feats of greatness waiting to be done. There is still an unknown to fear. It might be harder to find, sure—but scarcity drives up value. I’m more and more out there, where the heroes are—where honor, courage, and commitment still mean something.