Deliverable

Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or a greater Benefit. –Napoleon Hil.

I’d planned a whole post on how this past week has been really crappy. I was going to then lay out all of the seeds that might have been planted because of it. Instead I’m just going to grit my teeth and tell myself I’ll get through this stretch and believe there has to be some reason for it. I just don’t feel like looking for those reasons at the moment.

I decided against doing any painting today. I originally was going to put a coat on the burgundy wall and finish touching up the white, but getting the paint at Home Depot took longer than I’d anticipated. Then I had to wait for the mattress to be delivered. I’m pretty beat, so the plan is to watch a little tv and then head to my new bed. With any luck the super will be able to install the closet doors tomorrow afternoon, and I can get a coat on after that.

Ok, technically I’ve been sleeping on a new bed since January 8th, but this is my “for real” new bed. I didn’t like the pillow top that I originally purchaed at all, and did the whole Dial-a-Mattress comfort exchange thing. (They just delivered it about an hour ago.) The Simmons extra firm that I now have already feels alot better. We’ll see how I sleep tonight but I feel pretty comfortable that this is a keeper. (The sheets also fit alot better and it’s not so darn big in the room.)

I’ll give an update tomorrow morning before I head out.

(Also, for those of you keeping score, the $140 or so dollars in change that I saved up is going to be rolled over for another home purchase… probably a bookshelf. I’m “just saying no” to NYC street find furniture!)

—Update: 1/27/06 – 6:12 a.m.—
I think I slept pretty well last night. I was definitely tired and went to bed right around 11. Fell asleep soon after going to bed. I feel pretty refreshed this morning. One thing that I guess is helping is that I have more confidence in this mattress. I know now that any aches or creakiness I might have when I wake up is not because of lack of support. I will pick up one of those mattress toppers to take a little of the edge off the firmness, but I’d planned on that. Better to have a firm foundation that you can make softer than a soupy foundation that puts your body into an awkward position. I think I’ll experiment with different pillows and vary the way I sleep (on my side versus on my back) as well.

I’ve also been very aware of late of my dreams. Once the place is put back together and the space is more zen I’m going to begin writing morning pages again. I think that’ll be helpful.

I’m taking a break here from painting and wanted to gather a few thoughts about the experience.

• Painting is thirsty work. Drink lots of water.
• The extendable painting stick thingy is your friend. Shell out the extra four bucks cause it’s definitely worth it.
• Paint the your corners first using your cut-in brush (ok, that’s what my mom calls it… it’s this brush with angled bristles). Once you’ve done your corners it’s easier to go back using the roller and get complete coverage. This way the roller is going over any brush strokes you might have made painting the corners.
• Ceilings can be tricky. I started out using my extendable painting stick thingy (wow, that sounds abit obscene the more I look at it…) but it’s difficult to do the ceiling that way. I had better luck when I used just the roller, stood on my folding chair and did small areas. That’ll probably be how I do the rest of the ceilings unless I can find a better way.
• Don’t skimp on your paint supplies. I spent a bit more for a really nice cut in brush and it’s been slamming. It has a really short rubber handle that fits nicely in your hand and gives when you paint. Really easy to maneuver. Likewise with paint. The Behr is doing pretty well and it doesn’t splatter all over the place.
• Always look down before stepping off of chairs/ladders/etc. You never know what you might have put on the floor or where you might have put it. (I lost about a half a quart of paint this way… Oi!)
• Drop cloths are a good thing, and luckily disposable. Purchase a couple. (See above). Never think to yourself “I’ve not dripped any paint so far, I think I’ll just paint this section without moving the drop cloth. Bad idea.

That’s all for now I think. I’ll come back with an update before I quit for the evening and give the final stats and such for this session.

—Update: 12:46 a.m.—
I’ve finished my painting for the evening. The official tally:

• Time spent painting: 3 hours 42 minutes.
• Paint used: Almost 2 gallons. You might be able to call it one and a half gallons because I knocked the can over and spilled about a quart onto the drop cloth.
• I finished 3 of the walls in the back living room and the ceiling. I will go back and touch up tomorrow afternoon when I have better light (around the light fixture and the baseboards especially…). I left unpainted the wall that I plan to paint burgundy. No sense in making more work for myself.
• I sanded and added more spackle to the places that needed it (especially the corners in the hallway and the hallway arch). One more round of sanding should put this stuff where I want it to be.

The plan tomorrow is to go to Home Depot in the afternoon and pick up the burgundy paint and another gallon of white. I’ll finish the touching up in the back living room and put at least one coat of burgundy on the remaining wall. It’s going to take several coats. (I’ll “rinse and repeat” the process until I’m finished with the apartment, but I don’t want to get too ahead of myself because it becomes pretty daunting if I think too much about what’s left…).

Woohoo! And there was much rejoicing! I was initially pretty dark about having to go through all of this trouble to sell the bike (and losing a bunch of my profit), but as I’ve struggled with the “Why is this happening to me?” thing, I’ve realized that some things would not have happened had this not played out exactly as it did.

• I wouldn’t have spoken to my dad this afternoon. Which resulted in me suggesting a piece of software that will allow him to create labels for his new CD’s that he’s been recording from LP’s. He can now import the track information for his CD’s right from I-Tunes into the label software. He seemed pretty psyched about that.
• I wouldn’t have had the experience of riding to and from the bike shop. This led to the realization that I really MUST find some way to do regular cardio. It also made me remember that I do like riding a bike and would enjoy having one again in the future at some point when it is more convenient or when I also had a car and could go trail riding out of the city. It also helped me remember that my (former) bike is like a tank, hard as hell on the ass and has no shock absorption whatsoever. Ouch!
• I might not have realized as I was painting my apartment that there’s no sense in painting the wall white that I intend to paint dark burgundy. The linen white will provide a better base coat, and less work for me. I think on some level I thought I’d wait and deal with the burgundy wall later down the road. The more I think of it better to just paint it the way I want it this weekend and be done with it.
• The new shifters that I put on the bike may help out the guy who bought it down the road in some unforseen way. Even if the shifters hadn’t broken before I sold it, they might have broken on him. This might have led to him falling and breaking his neck or missing some important meeting or something. Who knows?

I’m sure there were other things, but I’ve got painting to finish and I need to wrap this up. The point is that sometimes those little roadblocks have nothing to do about you at all. Or maybe they have to do with you in some small way that will lead to bigger things down the road. Getting pissy won’t change the fact of the matter. Easier said than done, of course, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Well… the bike is going too cost $66 to fix. The guy from last night has agreed to purchase it for $100 and is going to stop by between 7 and 8 p.m. (This is the “fingers crossed part…). I’m picking the bike up from the shop after 4 p.m. My 100 dollar profit is now down to 34 dollars. Oh well. I’ve protected my karma as much as I can by being completely up front with the guy about the repairs… even having them tighten the front axel for another 8 bucks. This is definitely going to be “all sales are final” deal.

Of course the ride to the bike shop this morning really drove home the fact that I currently have the cardio system of a 60 year old man and should probably be keeping and riding the darn bike. I have to remind myself that it’s just too much of an eyesore in the apartment, and that I never rode it because it was too much a pain in the ass to move in and out of the apartment. I have to find another low impact cardio solution.

I just got back from the bike shop. It could cost 8 bucks to fix the shifter or it could cost 58 bucks. $8 to reattach the cable if that’s all it is, or $58 bucks to replace it if it can’t be reattached. I just spoke to the guy who stopped by last night. I asked him if he’d take it off my hands for 100 if I fixed the cable and he said yes. I was straight up with him about the fact that it would either cost me 8 bucks to fix or 58 to replace it. I guess I could be in a bit of a pickle if it ends up costing me 8 bucks to fix, he buys it, and it breaks again in 2 weeks or something. What’s the standard return policy for used bikes that you sell on Craigslist? Would I do the whole “all sales are final” thing?

We’ll see how it shakes out.

One of my January 2006 goals is too sell my mountain bike. I put an ad up on Craigslist and have gotten alot of good responses. The first prospective buyer came out this evening to look at the bike and damn it all the right shifter no longer works. (The thing is that it worked fine the other day when I first took it out to prep it to sell. It fell over in the apartment when I was moving all this junk for the painting and I think that’s when it must have gotten messed up.) After the day I’ve had with this painting I want to freakin’ scream. Now I have to find time tomorrow to stop by a bike shop to see if it can be fixed. If it needs replacing that’s going to seriously cut into whatever profit I might have had for the bike in the first place and if it’s too expensive I might as well just drop the price 50 bucks and sell it “as is”.

And of course they’re doing emergency work on the street outside my building so they’re jack-hammering. Did I mention that I really want to freakin’ scream?

Well, painting day is about 7 hours away. A few observations before the super and his language challenged assistant arrive:

• My carpet is absolutely filthy. This becomes glaringly obvious after moving all of the furniture from the back living room to the front living room.
• Moving all of the stuff from the back living room to the front living room really sucks.
• Moving all of the stuff from the front living room to the back living room is going to suck even more.
• Just say no to tchotchke’s, or at least confine them to one small shelf/cabinet area. As much stuff as I thought I’d gotten rid of, it seems I still had alot of things living on one bookshelf. From now on there will be one tchotchke shelf/corner cabinet in the studio. Bookshelves will be for books alone.
• I really need a new bookshelf. I’m hoping that the Expedit unit (from Ikea) that I like will work out so that I can eliminate the two street finds I’ve been using up until now. The trick is how the heck do you get a 58″ by 31″ bookcase home from Jersey?
• Lightweight spackling paste is crap. It’s lousy to work with and you end up with more on the floor than you do on the wall. Should have gone with the heavy weight vinyl stuff.

I’ll update this as the project progresses.

—Update: 8:57 a.m.—
Well, I’m probably definitely proving the axiom “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” The super and two of his language challenged assistants (though specifically I guess I should say “English language challenged” assistants because they both do speak Spanish) showed up at 8:30 a.m. this morning to paint. They start spackling away and throwing down drop cloths. They start painting the hallway. The problem is that they’re painting it some egg shell color. (I want a simple white.) I call this to their attention. They call in the super. The super says that the landlord he paint all the apartments this color. Of course it’s 8:30 a.m. so the apartment manager isn’t in yet. I leave messages for the apartment manager to please call. The super gets pissed and pulls both of his English language challenged assistants away and says he’s not going to paint today. (Oh, and of course in the now half painted hallway they put the egg shell paint over the wet spackling which they’d just applied. You can imagine that this looks just lovely.) So I’m left with a half painted hallway, one empty half an apartment and another trashed half an apartment. I’m ready to tell the apartment manager to just give me a credit for the paint and I’ll go all Martha Stewart on the place. Fuck this.

—Update: 10:32 a.m.—
I reached the apartment manager. My options are to get a credit to have someone else paint the place, have them paint it using paint that I pay for myself (but don’t get reimbursed for) or have them paint it using the white that they have (apparently it’s linen white). I also spoke to him about the whole “you have to let compound dry before you paint over it” thing. He agreed with me. The way we left it was that he’d speak to the super and they’d come back tomorrow and make sure they do the spackling and such first, let it dry and then sand then paint. That was my understanding. Apparently I understood wrong. My two English challenged friends just showed up again to finish painting the hallway. The super tells me that if I want a professional painter then hire one (or something like that… his English is also a bit shaky at times…) and that if I don’t like the job he’s done when he’s finished then I should tell his boss (the apartment manager) and his boss would tell him.

—Update: 10:42 a.m.—
Just got off the phone with the apartment manager. He’s now concerned because the super isn’t doing what he told him to do. He’s going to be coming into Manhattan and will stop by to check things out. Oi, what a royal pain in the ass. And of course my two friends are still painting the hallway.

—Update: 11:15 a.m.—
They’ve moved into the back living now. I’m trying to just ignore the process and look at it when it’s completed.

—Update: 1:56 p.m—
Well, the super and his two compatriots left about 45 minutes ago, having supposedly finished painting the kitchen, hallway and back living room. I stayed out of their way while they were painting the kitchen… upon inspection it looks like total shit. Barely looks like it’s been primed… roller marks everywhere with the old paint showing through… They didn’t even paint next to the refridgerator. The hallway isn’t that bad, but still needs a second coat to my eye. Ditto with the back living room. (Stain spots on the ceiling and on the walls showing through..). The apartment manager is supposed to visit the building this afternoon. At this point I think I’m just going to ask him to give me a credit and I’ll paint the damn place myself. (The super informed me that he wouldn’t be able to come back tomorrow to finish up and I work Thursday & Friday, so the place would be torn up until Tuesday next week anyway.) I guess I’ll take the hit if he says “well, we’ve already painted the hallway and the back living room”, but I’m going to get pissy if he even thinks about calling that kitchen “finished”. (He’s been very reasonable throughout this…I’m hoping it doesn’t get up into a pissy space…). Even if I take a hit on the hallway and back living room, he should at least be able to give me some type of credit for painting the living room, kitchen and my bedroom… which would cover the paint supplies at least. It’ll take longer but I’ll have it done the way I want it done.

—Update: 4:58 p.m.—
This isn’t really an update as much as it is me clearing my head and my thinking about this whole mess. I want to think through my reasoning and make sure that my next actions are going to make me happy.

Observations & Thoughts

• The more the linen white sits in the back living room, then more I don’t like it. I absolutely want to paint the main living space of the apartment a pure white color.
• As they’ve already put one coat of the linen white in the back hallway, it means I’m going to have to repaint the back living room the color I want it. (Either by painting it myself or having the super come back and give it a second coat.

Here’s where the indecision is: The super can’t be back to do more painting until next Tuesday. That means a whole week of not being able to use my front living room, which totally sucks and basically puts any plans to get anything else done in the apartment on hold, cause I know I’m not going too be able to get anything done when it looks like a bomb hit the place. It’s 5 p.m. and the apartment manager hasn’t shown up yet. He may or may not show up to look at the place. Even if he showed up now I don’t know what I’d have him do. The thought of painting this entire place on my own quite daunting. However, the super and his crew haven’t done a stellar job painting things up until now. The fact that he would be willing to leave the place as it is now makes me disinclined to let him do anymore, especially if it’s going to take another week just to get him to put a second coat on the back living room & hallway. (I’m not even talking about the kitchen yet… I think that really needs a second coat as well, but the apartment manager may or may not agree with me.)

The thing that most sucks right now is having the back living room unusable. I’m thinking that even if the apartment manager doesn’t give me the ok I should go down to Home Depot tomorrow first thing and get a couple gallons of White paint, a couple rollers and a drop cloth and paint the freakin’ thing.

—Update: 5:39 p.m.—
I guess my writing must have generated some karma or something cause the super and the apartment manager just stopped by. (Clearing my head before they showed up was helpful.) He took a look at the areas that I thought needed a second coat . He said he’d have to speak to someone about what type of credit they’ll give me for painting it myself if that is what I choose to do. I told him that at the very least I’m going to paint the back living room tomorrow myself, and then let the super know if I want him to paint the rest of the place next week. (I can make a decision about whether or not to paint the other rooms myself based on my experience tomorrow.) It’s a whole lot less daunting to know that I can paint the place one room at a time over a period of days… and that I have the option of calling in the super if it proves to be too much. As my mom said, the hall and back living room would have needed two coats anyway… this way I have one out of the way and I didn’t have to work for it. I think what has me feeling better is just the fact that things are back in my control. It’ll cost me some bucks (buying the paint) but as it turns out I should have probably done that in the first place rather than trust the super to have a plain white. The only other expense will be the painting supplies, but that shouldn’t set me back too much. I’ll have to spend time doing the painting, but I’d have to be here supervising people anyway, and this way I’ll get it done the way I like. So tomorrow I paint!

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. –Antonine de Saint Exupery

Given to me by M. on or around a Thursday in August of 2005… one of those Zen Calendar things. I’m feeling better than I did last week, but still feel like I’m just trying to pull myself up and get myself moving.