Hot wires and such

Sheldon goes to North Dakota for several days every summer to visit his family and I always take advantage of that time to embark on home improvement projects that he would likely forbid. He just returned last evening after six days and since he did not travel there last year I had a two year backlog of projects. It was an ambitious list and I actually accomplished more than I expected.

The first priority was to paint his bedroom. During the bathroom remodel last year there was a serious screw-up in the shower installation adjacent to one of the bedroom walls which required cutting out a huge piece of the wall to correct the error. They did repair the drywall and sprayed matching texture but it was never repainted. 

It has been several years since I painted the room in a blue-grey and so I had to find a close match. I went with one called ‘Lighthouse Shadows’ which is quite nice and a shade lighter than what was on the walls. Of course this necessitated repainting the entire room. I had to move a couple of things out and also pull the heavy bed away from a wall.

I started around 8:00 on Saturday morning and was done by 11:10. Only a few minor touch-ups remain where I dripped or accidentally got some on the white ceiling.

With the bed away from the wall I was ready to start another project — replacing all the electric receptacles as well as the light switches. For a long time I have wanted to do this throughout the house because I am not fond of the standard beige that is used in most homes, and with my Nordic design fetish, I insist on white.

I had doubt whether I would ever actually do this myself rather than have an electrician called in to tackle the project which would no doubt be costly as there are 35 receptacles and 17 light switches that I counted. The biggest priority was to replace the switches for the ceiling light and closet light and then the five receptacles in that bedroom. If I could do that successfully then I would have confidence in doing the remainder of the house at my leisure.

After watching a number of instructional videos online I was ready to begin. I shut off the power to that room and got my tools ready which included a flathead screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, needle nose pliers, and most importantly, a tool to check for voltage present in the wires which has proven to be an essential necessity for any project involving electricity.

In shutting off the power to the room I assumed that would cover the entire room. But I went round with my tester checking each wall outlet. When I got to the last one which was behind the bed I got a beep and a red light indicating voltage present. Wow! I didn’t expect that!

There is another room on the other side of that wall and apparently the circuit for that room includes that one outlet on the shared wall. Lesson learned: never assume anything. This was, however, not the biggest surprise I would experience.

I started with the light switch that controls the overhead light. I knew my first attempt was likely to take significantly longer and then I hoped once I got into a rhythm I could get these done in about 5-7 minutes which would make it theoretically possible to complete all 17 in the house over the weekend.

That first light switch was certainly a challenge. The incoming wires were secured with a clamp inside a small hole on the back of the receptacle and were impossible to pull out. I learned that you can release the clamp using a small screwdriver to press into an opening that would release the clamp and the wires could be pulled out. After struggling with that for several minutes I was finally successful.

I also noticed the old receptacle did not have a grounding screw like the new one. Two of the wires were attached using the push-in clamps and a 3rd one was attached to a screw so I assumed that must be the ground wire.

After wiring everything up and getting the receptacle secured to the wall I went out to turn on the power so I could test it.  There was light and I was proud of myself.

I shut off the power again and did the second light switch for the closet, and then decided to try one of the electric outlets on the wall.  That was was a bit more difficult as there were 4 wires plus a ground wire but I got it all done.

After switching the power back on I went to test everything. The overhead light still worked. Hitting the switch on the closet light did nothing. I tested with my voltage meter and got no reading. Then I tested the electric outlet that I had just replaced. Nothing. No power. I then removed the receptacles leaving only exposed bare wire and got no reading whatsoever with my voltage tester. Not only that, but every other outlet in the room was now dead except for the one that was on the adjacent room’s circuit.

I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and now there was no light in the bathroom either! Now I was completely frustrated and baffled and my progress came to an abrupt halt as did my self-esteem. The remainder of my day was spent troubleshooting this and double checking my wiring.

Sunday I had a friend come over to take a look. She is considerably more experienced with this kind of thing than I am, but she was also perplexed.

The master bath already had a pre-existing problem with a GFCI switch located in the garage that periodically shuts off power to the two bathroom outlets and most often happens during a storm. Restoring power is as simple as pressing a reset button on the GFCI but that wasn’t working for several months now. The electric razor and toothbrush have had to be charged in another room.

Knowing that I was already going to need an electrician to determine the cause of my existing problem I decided to go ahead and make an effort to replace the GFCI receptacle. I got that wired up and still no success with hitting the reset button. My friend checked that, tightened my ground screw, and suddenly the thing worked! Any bit of good news and success was welcome.

Meanwhile I was getting into a panic mode because the last thing I wanted was for Sheldon to return home on Tuesday and find a bunch of live wires hanging out of the wall in this bedroom, and especially after I had been instructed NOT to do ANY electrical work since I am not an electrician. That humiliation would be too much.

On Monday morning I was able to get in touch with an electrician who had availability at 11:30 for about an hour. I was apprehensive because I had no idea what the extent of the problem might be, or if it was something he could resolve in an hour.  

He arrived on time and I explained my problem. He took one look at the first light switch I wired up and said, “Well, there is a problem here.”

The only wire that had been connected to a screw terminal on the old switch that I assumed was a ground wire was actually a live wire meant to relay power down the line to other switches and outlets on the circuit, which included the bathroom light next door!

The electrician rewired that one, did the same with my closet light, and then checked the duplex receptacle I had wired up. Actually, that was the only one I had wired correctly!

He finished all of this in about 30 minutes, I turned the power back on and everything worked again! The ceiling light, closet light, and the receptacles all had power again. He was nice enough to explain my error and gave me some tips for continuing this project so that I don’t make these mistakes again.

While I understand the most basic things about electricity I never had a clue that one entry point into a room was the relay for everything else in the room.

Now it was Monday afternoon and I knew I had to finish the other our duplex receptacles within the next 24 hours. I got right on it. I did the second, third and fourth receptacles on this circuit. Sure enough, when I took out the fourth one which was the end of the run, there were only two wires plus a ground wire rather than four because that one had nowhere to relay to. It all made perfect sense now.

Then I shut off the power in the adjacent room for that one outlet behind the bed and rewired that one with a new receptacle, tested for voltage and it was all good. Just to be sure, before I moved the bed back against the wall I plugged in the Alexa assistant and nothing happened.  Fuck! At this point I was about ready to have a screaming fit.

I walked away from this for awhile to really ponder things and then wondered if perhaps Alexa had an ‘on’ button. She did! So everything was fine. I was never so happy to get that bed back into place and start making the room look normal again. 

Sometimes I can be so outrageously stupid and I will admit that I am completely incompetent when it comes to anything mechanical, although generally I do not struggle with off/on buttons on gadgets!  I am pathetic with assembly instructions, I can do next to nothing in terms of engine work or anything of that nature. Basically I can use a hammer, a screwdriver, and a drill. I can hang pictures. I can paint. And being queer I can have design ideas to die for. Anything else gets dicey. For example, I also wired up a new switch for the closet light in the master bedroom. I was a bit stunned when I finished and pressing the top of the paddle switch (normally the ‘on’ position) would actually turn the light off instead of on, and vice versa. Clearly I had mounted the damned thing upside down! So I had to fix that.

Last year when I was replacing all the door hardware with new knobs and hinges there were several instances where I mounted the hinges upside down and had to redo them. It’s embarrassing. 

Although I really wanted to have more light switches in the rest of the house completed before Sheldon’s return, I was thankful that at least his room was done before his return, and I am armed with the knowledge required to continue with the other rooms whenever I am ready.

It was an outrageously busy six days. Aside from painting the room and rewiring the electrics, I stained a wood shelf in the master closet and sprayed two coats of polyurethane finish. I’m not sure the difference was worth the effort. Originally my intent was to paint it white so it would match all the other shelves in the closet. But it was an interesting piece of wood and I wanted to try staining first. Now I am thinking I will paint the underside white and make it into a reversible shelf and then I can decide which looks nicer.

Another project was one that wasn’t on my original project list. It just popped into my head while I was painting the bedroom. I wanted to take down all the air vents from the ceiling, clean them, and repaint them white. I managed to get that done as well in between other projects. It was quite easy and quick to remove them, give them a wipe down or a scrub if needed (one of them in the kitchen was hideously filthy) and then quickly spray them white and let them dry. The drying phase took about 3 hours so I was free to resume work elsewhere while they dried.

What is interesting after all this is that I actually enjoy electrical work more so than most other projects. Plumbing comes to mind. I despise plumbing and have absolutely no desire to attempt it. If Sheldon ever goes away for a few days and returns to find new faucets in the kitchen and baths there will be no doubt whatsoever that I hired a professional.

Meanwhile, during this project, nine more door handles arrived so I can resume that project of replacing the door knobs that I only installed late last summer.

Someday this will all be just the way I want it.

There is no place like an ever-evolving home

The year 2018 will soon be half over and what a strange one it has been. It has not been a bad year at all. Let’s just say it has not panned out they way I was expecting it to when I was looking ahead back in 2017.

For starters, this was the year that I thought it might be possible to make two trips to Iceland — once in the late spring and again at the usual time in late autumn. Strangely enough there is some uncertainty as to whether I will get there once this year.

Time seems to be racing and I honestly cannot even recall what consumed most of my time for the first three months of the year. Work is a likely culprit.

April arrived and I decided it was time to do some landscaping improvements around the kitchen patio before the onslaught of summer’s relentless heat. I thought this project might take a week and I spent the entire month working on it whenever I had spare time. But hey, four weekends equals a week, right?

May was warmer than usual and I tried to turn my focus back to interior projects (and there are many of those on the list) but my motivation would never solidify and work was again mostly to blame. So I went shopping online. I spent the month ordering clothes, trying them on, deciding what to keep, ordering more, and so on. I took care of what few returns there were at the beginning of June and here I sit looking stylish as ever and wondering what the hell comes next.

One of my obsessions is making this house feel as Nordic as possible and this has been going on now for about three years. Progress is slow. I went through a phase of colourful walls and some wild vein-cut travertine tile installation in the common areas. While it was a huge improvement over what had been there since the late 1980s, I’m starting to realise I want simplicity and more muted contrasts.

It has been perhaps three years since I repainted the den and kitchen. The former was in two shades of sage green with a high accent wall being a shade darker than the other walls. For some reason this north facing room is naturally dark and the sage green was simply too much. I opted to go with a greyish white and it was a vast improvement.  

The kitchen walls were a lemon yellow which in hindsight was absolutely atrocious with the vibrant and busy travertine flooring. So those walls got the same makeover as the den. Two years ago I continued by painting the living room and adjacent foyer in the same light grey shade. This was probably the most exciting transformation. The room is brighter and drenched in natural light in the afternoons. What a difference it makes not having a dark green on the wall to suck up all that gorgeous light. Even the art seems happier not having to fight with the wall to be seen and appreciated.

Last year marked the completion of two bathroom remodels which definitely took them in a Nordic direction, and I also changed out all the door hardware in the house, replacing traditional builder-grade bronze door knobs and hinges with polished chrome, and I also painted the doors white rather than the common yellowy off-white which is so pervasive in most homes.

May was the month I wanted to make significant progress continuing this trend elsewhere in the house, most notably in the room which was formerly my office and is now exclusively a cat den. It is a beautiful room with high ceilings and a wall of windows and is probably my favourite room in the house.  Tis a pity it isn’t being used by humans.

When the house was built that room was an artist studio with built in cabinets for canvases and a sink for rinsing brushes. With the natural light filling the room it was likely an artist’s dream studio. While I did paint the walls a decade or so ago — in a lovely margarita lime green! — it is the only room in the house that has escaped any other renovation. The ugly vinyl flooring is filthy and peeling, and in some areas pulled up by cat claws.

After considering hardwood, bamboo, and even cork, I think what is going to make the most sense is something extremely cat-friendly: ceramic tiles. They will be tiles resembling weathered wood planks but I think I want to keep the look simple by avoiding the more rustic looks which include things like cracks in the wood. Just a plain and simple wood plank look without all the extra rough features.

If it was as simple as ordering the tiles and having someone install them, this project would likely be underway by now. Unfortunately it is complicated somewhat by other factors. There is the issue of the built-in cabinets. I toyed with the idea of keeping them. However, they aren’t particularly nice, and the one at the back of the room designed for canvas storage really serves no other purpose.  It has to go. The other one at the opposite side of the room next to the entry door is more of a traditional deep bookshelf and happens to be great for vinyl record storage. I think it also has to go. I would rather replace it with floating wall shelving as the need arises.

The idea of starting with a clean and open rectangular room is exciting. The sink was removed last year during the bathroom renovations leaving behind a huge hole in the wall with exposed plumbing. No doubt the removal of the built-ins is likely to cause other minor wall damage requiring drywall repairs, and I’d rather get all of that dirty work done at the same time.

The room also functions now as a guest bedroom.  Overnight guests are a rare event here but it is nice to have a room handy for a guest and we are expecting a guest in August. While it is not essential that I have this project done by then, it would be really nice after 20 years of living here to finally have a clean and comfortable dedicated room for this purpose.

Additionally, it is a large enough space that I could return to using it as a second office space when I need to close a door, or a place to go sit and read a book.  My living room currently functions as all of these things: entertainment room, audio room, reading room, and my office desk tucked into a corner, and all freely accessible to a Siamese cat. Sometimes additional options are nice, like when you actually need to work without straddling an oversized cat.

Now the pressure is starting to hit me. I need to get going on this. None of it is a major renovation and it shouldn’t take more than a few days. It will probably take a day for me to move out what is in there, and the worst is an office desk which seems to weigh as much as a car and is almost as difficult to get through a doorway. If I can just get that much done by the first of July that leaves me with an entire month to complete this and move on to the other projects which are not such a high priority.

Not many people obsess about things like cream yellow electric outlets and light switches and the ugly accompanying faceplates. I am that person. And yes, that is on my list. I want every light switch converted to a paddle switch in white with matching white faceplates, and every electric outlet converted to white.  This is a big item on my agenda because when I look at an otherwise beautiful grey room the stark presence of ugliness is jolting.

Then the master bedroom work needs to commence.  It’s minor: new paint (I also went with a dark sage green in there many years ago and I hate it) and the carpet needs to be replaced. The master bedroom is also a cat apartment for my ancient, nearly deaf and senile polydactyl tortie and I’m not keen on disrupting her golden years. 

Therefore, that project will get done when it gets done. No pressure there, except for those damned light switches and electric outlets.  Those have to go and soon.

One thing I have learned from all this is that it’s good for me to take my time and thoroughly evaluate everything and not make any quick decisions. The polished chrome doorknobs are a great example. I am now wishing I had gone with a simple chrome lever instead of a knob. I’ve got one arriving tomorrow to see how it looks.

Hey, this could be a June project! I have almost 2 weeks left in the month!

Fashion confessions & self-discoveries

Am I going to seem shallow and superficial if I write about clothing and fashion? Who cares! Let me first give you a brief history of my relationship to clothing.

As a child I wore whatever my mother bought or made for me. She probably selected what I would wear each day and most likely dressed me. Up until I was probably six I was also known for taking them off. Outside. Whenever I wanted to which was whenever the weather was nice enough to be naked outside. I think the postman once asked my mother if I even had any clothes to wear.

When I was a little bit older I became more discreet about it, such as getting naked with close friends but at that point I don’t think it had much to do with an aversion to wearing clothes so perhaps that bit does not belong here.

Around the age of 7 or 8 I began to develop a preference for certain things like sleeveless shirts because for some inexplicable reason I absolutely despised t-shirts. I held onto this for several years, perhaps until I was around 11 or 12. I still remember the first t-shirt I wore and how awkward it felt at first. I believe it was a gift from an older cousin who was going to school at Vanderbilt since the name of the university was on the front of the shirt.

Related to the early t-shirt phobia is an additional fashion quirk I have which is an insistence that long sleeves be rolled up to my elbow and yet I absolutely abhor short sleeves that are long enough to reach my elbow.

My teen years were marked by a more active interest in selecting my own clothing and in choosing what I would wear to school each day. My taste was undeveloped and quite frankly horrendous. It isn’t just that the colours were mismatched; it was the pattern contrasts that were so stark. I remember one day at school we had some kind of ‘ugly dress up’ day for fun and I gave that a shot. I ended up looking odd but far less ugly than my normal attire. It was more of an Amish vibe in blacks and whites which was a huge improvement over my standard attire. In fact if I wore the same today I would probably be mistaken for a hipster sans beard, especially if I was hanging out in a trendy cafe with a breakfast special of avocado toast or a goat cheese biscuit.

I suppose hair falls into the fashion realm but I need to comment on this regardless.  I let my hair grow a bit longer in my mid to late teens but I had absolutely no concept of how to style it or condition it.  I knew how I wanted to look but my attempts to succeed were atrocious. Whatever cheap shampoo smelled like green apples was fine with me. Then I would proceed to brush my hair while blowdrying it until it was crisp. Surely some part of me knew it looked like absolute shit but I carried on. 

My late teens, around 17-18, were a huge time of change for me. Punk rock happened. I had already been something of an Anglophile for a number of years and now I had found something to excite me. Embarrassed as I am to admit the truth, I was paying more attention to the look than the message. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there were not many options for me in the rural American south. I had to travel.

Alternative types were known for digging in thrift shops to get their look. I tried this. It did not work. What I really wanted was for it to be easy. You walk into a thrift shop and in the back corner somewhere would be a sign overhead identifying the ‘Punk Clothes’ section. I lacked the skillset apparently. I decided the thrift shops in New York and Athens, Georgia must be far superior to all others so I gave up. Besides, that hair thing. My hair was not going to be spiky and how could I ever be a punk without spiky hair? That clump of dry steel wool just looked stupid when sprayed blue. A food server at the university dining hall assumed I had been the victim of a frat house hazing. Ugh!

Somewhat abruptly I did a complete change of course and went through a phase of finer things like cashmere scarves and lovely silk neckties made in Switzerland, dressy white shirts with dark trousers and nice leather shoes. By default it was a better look for me even if completely pointless. I wanted to be seen as a debonair European but I guess I looked like a pretentious prick and/or a Republican. I think I wanted to be Bond.  James Bond. Thankfully this phase was short-lived. Besides, I still had not learned how to deal with the hair.

By this time it was the early 1980s — a decade that could best be described as weird. In the summer of 1983 I moved to London where I spent the next 14 months. There I had access to things hitherto unseen in shops and flea market stalls. Black trousers with zippers in odd places. Studded belts and bracelets. Skinny ties and combat boots. And something miraculous. There was a clear gel for hair you could get for under a quid in a shop — Boots perhaps. I know it was a large chain of pharmacies and this product was probably the store brand. (Actually, Boots still sells a styling gel for £0.99 offering ‘extra firm hold’. What the hell is in that stuff??) What wonders it did to my hair! Slick the hair back with a dollop of that stuff, let it dry and then selectively pry apart the board-stiff pieces of hair.  WOW. I think real punks used this stuff for their mohawks or something. I still could not get that level of control but it was a huge improvement. Doesn’t matter. I was a fucking poseur anyway.

With the aid of this miracle goop I was confidently allowing my hair to grow longer and experimenting with dyes and relaxers. I can say with absolute certainty that jet black was not my best look. I finally settled on blonde which I liked once I was able to overcome the mishap that resulted in metallic green hair thanks to the combo of blonde dye and a chemical relaxer. Live and learn! Being called ‘Madonna’ by a co-worker did nothing to deter me.

I was constantly drifting in new directions. The New Wave phase I went through was easier than the punk look, but it came at a price. It simply cost a lot more money if Duran Duran were your fashion role models instead of the Sex Pistols. I don’t think those pretty boys dressed cheap and nothing about them screamed thrift shop, but they were hauling in millions in contrast to my low record shop wages.

Returning to the US in the autumn of 1984 would start another fashion trajectory as I somehow got mixed up in a creative art crowd and further fashion experimentation ensued. Definitely eclectic with little thought given to strict gender adherence, it was a fun era although I would probably rather be shot dead now than be seen wearing what I wore then.

The only constant was that my fashion followed whatever musical style I was into. Punk went to New Wave and then to heavy metal and then grunge in the early 90s.

The 90s were another interesting period. Professionally I landed in my first real job of my entire life at the age of 30. And it quickly became my career and I was self-supporting financially in the City of Angels. Leather jackets and bandanas gradually gave way to khaki trousers and flashy shirts. Yes, I discovered the joys of outlet mall shopping!

My infatuation was Jhane Barnes, an American designer who used computer software to create the most fascinating designs and patterns. There was absolutely nothing subtle about the shirts I bought. Some 25 years later I am forcing myself to part with most of them and not because I dislike them. On the contrary I still find them appealing, if only they fit me appropriately.

One of my early mistakes in life was never questioning my mother when it came to a proper fit.  If we were looking at a shirt and she said I needed a large then I bought a large. Therefore, every shirt going forward had to be a large or else, in my mind, I was buying the wrong size. I had no clue that variations existed in how clothing fit even with the same size as identified on the label. I also apparently had no idea how to look at myself and determine whether something actually fit me or not. If I liked the shirt, and it had an ‘L’ on the label, I bought it. Yes, of course I would try them on first, but I had no concept whatsoever of determining whether it truly fit me.  For example, I might fail to notice there was enough space inside the shirt for two torsos because I was only paying attention to sleeve length or how the colours looked on me.

I dressed this way and wore these shirts for over two decades with absolutely no clue they were oversized.  Sheldon had come on board and bought a few for himself in his size, a medium. At some point when he quit wearing them I tried them on and was astonished that they fit. They fit better. How could that be? In fact I would argue they were still quite large because he had one or two in a small that probably look better on me than any other shirt I owned. He clearly knew more about how to size them up than I did.

Furthermore, I had such a flagrant disregard for proper sizing that I would sometimes buy an XL if I liked the shirt and a large was not available.  Hey, it was a beautiful shirt, I wanted it, the price was irresistibly discounted and by God I would own it! I would make it fit! 

This rigid adherence to what I thought was my size also applied to shoes and it’s a funny story so I’ll tell it.  I’m quite sure I always wore a size 12 since I was a teenager.  My feet are big! In the UK that size is an 11 or 11 1/2 and I was probably informed by the sales clerk at Selfridges of this when I was buying the leather Duran Duran-ish boots to match my leather Duran Duran-ish jacket. Sometimes the choices are only in whole sizes so I have always gone with size 11.

Upon returning to the States I continued buying 11s. You would think I would pay attention to comfort, right? Wrong. I was a size 11 because someone on the other side of the world told me I was a size 11 which was true there, just not here. I continued buying shoes too small for the next 30 years. It was only when I started walking a lot for exercise that it became a problem. I fucked my feet up. Bone spurs developed on the little toe of each foot, but worse on my right foot which is probably a hair longer than my left foot.

Sometimes the pain was barely noticeable but it was often excruciating! I finally went to a doctor who immediately knew the problem was a bad shoe fit.  He sent me to a specialty shop for high quality shoes where I was measured. I am indeed a size 12. In the US.

Surgical correction was something I was definitely considering although the idea of a grotesquely swollen toe for four months kept holding me back. Miraculously, after 3 years of wearing correctly sized shoes, the pain stopped while I was in Iceland last November and it has not returned.

So, here I am in my late 50s and finally learning how to buy clothes in my proper size.  Even though I have long had a European proclivity where clothing is concerned, it has only been during the more recent time spent in Iceland that I began to feel pulled into that design direction which seems to be slimmer and more form-fitting rather than long, loose, and bulky. I have recently felt compelled to correct decades of wrong choices.

Twenty years of living in Austin has seen me gravitating more to the thrill of finding cheap things I like. I have bought shirts I like at Goodwill for $7. I went through a prolonged phase with a cargo shorts fetish phase and patted myself on the back for each pair I bought that were marked down from $40 to $20, with another 50% off for clearance pricing, and with 20% off coupon in hand, I would score them for $8! What a deal, except they often didn’t fit correctly, sometimes were not particularly comfortable, and were simply ordinary and occasionally inferior quality.

The month of May was marked by a decision to try a new approach: to buy things that look nice, are made well, and fit well. I focused my attention on the high end shops with their websites loaded with clearance price clothing. After all, the thrill of finding a bargain cannot be dismissed.

I discovered reasonably priced long sleeve designer shirts with interesting detailing and patterns that feel amazing when wearing them. Much to my surprise, my proper size is a medium and often tailored as a slim fit. No more bulky oversized shirts that drape off my shoulders like some hand-me-down from somebody devouring a plate of BBQ, drinking a 12-pack of Bud Light, and screaming at football on the telly.

For the warmest months (and we’re there now) I have acquired a variety of short sleeve button-up shirts and t-shirts with an ideal fit. There are designers I have never heard of and I am thrilled to discover them.  

Gone are the days of loose fit jeans with sagging crotches and cavernous cargo shorts. One of my most adventurous purchases is a white pair of chinos with super skinny legs. I deliberated for days whether to keep them. But they fit. I like them. I’m keeping them and I’m wearing them. 

If any of you happen to have a copy of The Official Rule Book which declares super skinny jeans to be the domain of the Under 20 crowd you may let me know.  I will send you away with derision but don’t let that stop you from trying.

I discovered some Danish designed socks that are among the most exciting purchases I’ve ever made, particularly where socks are concerned. I have stopped at nothing in this quest for a fashion revamp. My new Spanish-made underwear are a testament to that fact.

And for the first time since my early 20s I bought a belt. Leather. Braided. Made in Italy and it smells like the inside of a new Ferrari. It is made by Frye, another company I’d never heard of. But they have been making belts since the 1860s so I’m guessing they know something about their craft. 

Jesus, I should stop now because I am beginning to sound like my grandmother obsessing about her Salvatore Ferragamo shoe fetish!

What a joy it is to admire the attention to detail and revel in the luxuriousness of fine cottons and linens while not having any ostentatious outward display of costly snobbery. No Gucci logos, no Dolce & Gabbana garishness.  Just basic down-to-earth comfort and superior quality with a huge price reduction off retail.

I may have finally found myself. Sure was a long journey.

Summer Death Reflections and general mental unraveling

June has arrived bringing with it the unmistakable lethargy caused by relentless heat.  It is safe to say summer is here in Texas. This summer also drags along with it a lot of one-year anniversaries involving death and decay.  

Last year was somewhat numbing, starting with the loss of a friend before the first week of the year had come to a close.  That loss was hard but not totally unexpected.  Late July brought the biggest shock with the sudden death of my best friend for the past 40+ years. We communicated constantly via email and rarely would a day pass without some exchange of information and most days they were lengthy.  We had been emailing that Saturday morning and into the early afternoon.  The last email I received that day would be the last I would ever receive.  She collapsed and died at some point in the late afternoon or early evening and her body was not found until the following Monday when she failed to show up for work.

I thought it strange that we had no communication on Sunday but she often had busy weekends with errands.  But when Monday morning arrived with no email I began to wonder if she was OK.  She would go to work early and almost always emailed me upon her arrival to announce that she was at her desk and the countdown to Friday would commence.

Sometime just before noon my cell phone rang and her name was displayed on the caller ID.  That was the point where I knew something was seriously wrong.  While we were extremely close we never communicated by phone during business hours.  The person who rang me was one of her friends who met some co-workers at her house when they had to force open the door and found her body.  There is something particularly unnerving about hearing the words “Elizabeth is dead” when answering a call with her name on the caller ID. It is as if you are hearing another language and the words just don’t make sense, or they do not belong together in a sentence. Yet, the words were clearly understood. For several months I could scarcely believe it and even now I am sometimes dumbstruck that it happened. The expectation of early morning emails that abruptly ceased appearing in my inbox was one of the difficult adjustments.

Even more bizarre was the trip in August to visit my mother.  For decades I have always stayed at Elizabeth’s house in Little Rock and would make the 2-hour drive to see my mother, and then return to the city in the evening more often than not.  The trip late last summer deviated significantly from that routine. I stayed in a hotel. I went to restaurants alone where we would normally eat together. I drove out to her house once just to seek out some closure to this. I parked my car on the road in front of her closed gate and stared at her empty house with her red truck still parked out front as if nothing unusual had happened.  

About two weeks after her death I lost my last surviving uncle, a man I admired and respected my entire life for his intellect, his exquisite taste in food and wine, and his grand accomplishments, not the least of which was getting out into the world and making a life for himself and his family.

A month prior to Elizabeth’s death my mother fell (again!) at home and spent the next month in hospital.  While there were no broken bones that I recall it marked a major turning point in her health which has dramatically altered how we communicate. 

My mother has always been an avid letter writer.  Even though we would speak on the phone at least once a week she would constantly write letters as well.  Often we would speak on the phone before I had time to receive the letter and she would have already told me virtually every bit of news that was in the letter, and then she would start another one. June 2017 was the last time I got a letter from her and I doubt whether she will ever write another one.  Her deteriorating condition first became apparent several years ago when I visited her.  I always looked forward to her home-cooked meals, classic southern cooking with vegetables, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread. I knew on that particular trip that I was unlikely to experience this delicious preparation again.  She made it known that she simply did not have the energy to do it.

During the visit last August I tried to prepare something for her for a change - a pan of collard greens and a skillet of cornbread.  Her days of cooking were long gone and replaced with whatever food friends might bring over, or whatever could be microwaved. Although she was largely confined to a chair she did manage to make her way to the kitchen to stick a fork in the collard greens for a taste. Then she turned up the heat a bit and left them to cook for considerably longer.  She returned to test them again and again until finally they met her strict requirements.  The cornbread was also good but I had neglected to sprinkle cornmeal in the skillet to keep it from sticking.  And yes, she pointed that out to me.  She knows her techniques well since she has probably been making skillet cornbread for eight decades.

A short time later that same afternoon I had to leave to return to my home.  The goodbye was gut-wrenching as my mother’s eyes filled with tears and it was obvious she knew there was a strong possibility we might not see each other again. 

She remained at home until she fell yet again on New Year’s Day of this year and suffered a shoulder injury, and a fracture if I recall.  Another month in hospital and then she was transferred to a care facility where she can be monitored day and night. Since that time her communication skills have worsened.  She already had stopped writing letters but this incident affected her speech.  Phone conversations that would have normally lasted 20 minutes were reduced to 2-3 minutes, and usually with difficult periods of silence, a struggle to get each word out.  Sometimes the conversations were incoherent as she would say things that didn’t make much sense, and sometimes no sense at all. She also was not calling me at all except for the occasional accident while she was likely fidgeting with her phone. Those were somewhat unnerving as I would answer and she would have no idea she had called me, and had no idea I was even on the line.  I would only hear silence or occasionally some background noise. Ironically the intentional calls and conversations were not much of an improvement.

In short, I am living my life with a very clear understanding of what it will be like when she’s gone. No home-cooked meals, no weekly letters, and no phone communication. I have nothing but a lifetime of great memories with a wonderful mother who happens to still be alive for however long it lasts.  I am at least six months overdue for another visit and it will be another strange twist as I will be staying in her house alone for the first time.  She will never be able to return home to stay and I cannot even imagine she will have the energy to be taken there for even part of a day.  I often think about all this and weigh the pros and cons of sudden death as opposed to a slow decline into death.  None of it is easy but I guess I prefer the latter.  At least you have time to prepare for it. Even so, when it finally does happen I have no doubt it will be another layer of shock and coming to terms with a new reality as opposed to having a taste of “what it’s like.” There will be a finality that is difficult to imagine.

The big question for me is whether or not I will get there to see her at least once more. And it is a difficult question to answer.  I should have gone in January.  It is now June.  One of my co-workers recently asked me if I was making excuses not to go and it got me thinking. It certainly could seem that way to an outsider. Among my excuses has been treatment by my eye doctor for a dry eye condition with follow-up visits to the doctor every couple of weeks. However, I’ve been on a relatively stable course now for over a month. I am not certain I am up to the challenge of a 9 1/2 hour road trip. Flying would solve most that problem but I do want to drive up and collect a number of household items from the house. That could be done anytime and doesn’t need to be a priority. I have also used work as an excuse. That is absurd because I could easily take time off work for this. I also got started on a landscaping project in April and early May which was important to me but I have to wonder if it also wasn’t a convenient excuse not to take this trip.

If I were to be brutally honest with myself I would have to admit I do not look forward to the trip. I never have liked it.  The drive is long and intense. When you do finally arrive you find yourself in a depressing and impoverished area of the Delta in a town that has been slowly dying since the 1970s. (An apt metaphor indeed.)  Its primary claim to fame of late is the Japanese American Internment Museum - a memorial to those subjected to racism during WWII after being torn from their own homes and communities in the name of national security. On a side note, George Takei was one of the 'residents' as a child with his family and was one of the guest speakers at the opening of the museum a few years ago.  He has described the experience as being ripped from his home and taken on 'vacation' to the swamps of east Arkansas. And when I find myself having to travel there my enthusiasm could best be described as similar.

My youth and early adult life was spent dreaming of the day I could escape the place and I often had resentment that my parents and grandparents had settled in the area. It was a feeling that Elizabeth and I both shared.  We both grew up in the area in towns about ten minutes apart, separated by vast stretches of sprawling flat farmland amidst the heavy air of the Delta which at certain times of the year is infused with the stench of pesticides. As much as I disliked my town, hers was far worse and even poorer.  We both abhorred the area and always had to force ourselves to visit. At least she lived closer and could do her visit during part of a day and return to her own home in the afternoon. 

Now that my mother is living in a care facility, has difficulty hearing, and struggles at times to speak, and often sleeps, the bang for the buck so to speak has diminished in terms of quality time together. I could spend 19 hours in a car getting there and back only to have maybe two conscious hours with her and God only knows what in terms of actual conversation. I know the point is to spend that time together, whether it’s 2 hours or 15 minutes, but obviously I’m struggling with the entire situation. 

Sometimes I wonder if she’s fine with the idea of not seeing me again. Maybe she would prefer to remember our times together when she had better health and mobility just as I prefer those times.  I spoke to her last year about 20 minutes away from her house to let her know I was almost there.  She knew how much she had deteriorated since the year before and said to me, 'well, prepare yourself to see a tired old woman'. 

The tired old woman who used to sit on her porch and watch the birds was then living her life in a room with a reclining chair for a bed. The wood shutters closed tightly on the windows were a fortress against all outside beauty whether gorgeous sunshine or dreary rains. Day and night were indistinguishable in her room.  Her kitchen sink which had always been open to a laundry room with a window and door to the outside now had a thick dark tapestry strung across the opening. Her retreat from the world was clearly intentional. The sensory deprivation was suffocating to me. And now the next visit will be worse because the house will not have her in it.

Yes, perhaps I am making excuses, just as I have done for the past four decades.