Finally

The living room floor is finished. The only thing left to do is nail the quarter rounds to the baseboards and paint them. It feels pretty good to look at it.




I saw the rug at Costco and thought it was interesting.


I remember the first evening I began laying the hardwood planks down. I hit my finger with the mallet and dripped blood on the concrete subfloor. Expletives rolled off my tongue as I nervously wiggled my hand in the air. I was afraid to look at it. I sat on the dusty old concrete for the rest of the night, wondering how I was ever going to finish. I cried my eyes out wondering how I could ever finish anything. Sometimes I use a physical injury as an excuse to release the frustrations associated with mental...things. My finger was in a strange condition for many weeks after that incident. Indeed, it took blood, sweat, and tears (I did have a cry or two out of frustration).


When I walk on the floor now, I feel every inconsistency, every flaw, bump, and gap. I know where each imperfection is because I put it there. That's a common problem I experience, having to live with my creations. I know every single little thing that's wrong with them, and that's all I'll focus on.


The total re-flooring project has taken longer than I expected, mostly because of a band and somewhat because of school. I can remember the timeline perfectly because it corresponded with the summer of Sleater-Kinney. A summer trip was looming, and the destination was still undecided. I wanted to cast my vote for a city (and corresponding date) that S-K would be stopping at on their east coast tour. All of my suggestions were vetoed, so I went on slowly with my flooring work, figuring I would wait until winter break to try see the ladies in action. How silly of me.


I woke up on June 27, the morning I was to begin installing baseboards upstairs in my parents' room, and read the e-mail from Andy. It was short, maybe two or three sentences. He said they've announced that they're done. He didn't know what to say and I didn't know what to think. I installed baseboards that day while blasting every single S-K song known to man through my crappy computer speakers. I was ripping the carpet off of the living room floor while listening to NPR's live stream of their (2nd attempt) performance at the 9:30 club in D.C. I was painting the living room walls while watching the (slightly delayed) stream of their performance at Lollapalooza. I was sweeping up the final bits of broken concrete from the living room floor just moments before packing for the Portland experience.


Everything comes back to them, no matter what I'm doing. When people talk, I hear lyrics, then I hear Corin's voice. When I hear or see the name "Carrie," I think "Brownstein." When I see someone setting up a drum set at Campus Center, I think of Janet. Corrienet is everywhere.

Random memories

Reading Tim's blog today, I realized that I walked a ridiculous amount while in Portland. Yes, it's true, I did get lost every day. Luckily, the river always showed itself, and if I followed it long enough, I would come to a place I had already seen.

As soon as we stepped off the Light Rail MAX, tugging on our luggage leashes, we were already lost. I had been studying Google Maps to avoid this situation, but a city view from above is nothing like the view of the city from the street. I was a hopeless navigator. I guided my family down SW Broadway, but in the wrong direction. I finally realized it and turned everyone around. Luckily, the weather was wonderfully cool and dry, so none of us were sweating. I had never before been so excited to be lost.

The fountains, the river, the bookstore, Jackpot Records, the Light Rail, I miss them all.

I remember one night we started walking at the edge of town where the nice park/walkway along the Willamette River began. It was getting dark as we were walking. I took some pictures of each bridge as we walked past, but none of the photos came out well enough to tell exactly what they were supposed to be. As it got darker, the homeless people began to gather under the bridges so that when we walked beneath the overpasses, we did so without speaking and while staring at our feet. There really were a large number of homeless people. I could picture Carrie volunteering her time to feed them at the shelters.

I remember listening to Maraca while riding the Light Rail and realizing for the first time that this was where they wrote the song. The evergreen trees in the distance were so fitting. I used to find some of the transitions in S-K songs to be a little bit strange (actually, they're simply genius), but after riding the Light Rail to the Oregon Zoo and finding myself suddenly surrounded by wilderness so close to the busy city, it all made sense.



Okay. I might be a little crazy. I can't help it. Portland is exciting.

Eyes are hurtin'

I've decided that reading the relative roughness value off of Moody's Diagram hurts my eyes even more than counting fecal coliform bacteria colonies on a 2-inch diameter plate. I counted up to 840 once. My eyes were nearly bleeding.



Engineering is fun sometimes, really.