D.I.Y. Is D.O.A. or the Not So Handy Man


I had holes in the kitchen ceiling.

We had just spent a fairly large chunk of change to hire a electrician to get up on a ladder, pull out the existing light fixtures, then climb into the attic (where it was over 110 degrees F.) and run new wire to light cans that he installed in lieu of the harsh, ugly fluorescents that came with our house.

Those old fixtures had looked better suited to illuminating somebody's garage or shop. They sometimes flickered like a pawn shop window display.

They made everything in the kitchen, including the food we prepared, feel as if it were dipped in ghostly, nausesating vanilla frosting.

The new can lights, on the other hand, gave off a natural, warm glow that didn't leave any shadowy spots in the kitchen. And Troy the electrician had installed two inset metal boxes. From these would eventually hang trendy pendant lights we had ordered on-line.

Now seemed like a good time for me  to take care of the holes left behind where those old fluorescents had been attached to the ceiling. I even thought of an inspirational song from 1967:

Back Story
"After we get done you might need to get yourself a good mud man," Troy the man from Surge Electric said.

"Mud man?" I was amused by the slang term for a man who works with drywall. Troy went on to speculate about what might happen after the holes were filled.

"If you paint over the repair, the paint might not match the rest of the ceiling. You could hire a painter to paint the whole ceiling all the way to the living room."

I had twin reactions to the thought of employing a mud man and a painter: Ugh and ugh. This is a normal biological response for many of us when we hear a little "ka-ching!" sound in our heads.

And thus is born the impulse for a man to become a D.I.Y.er who is not normally a D.I.Y.er.

I'm going to save money by Doing It Myself! Isn't that why they invented Lowe's and Home Depot in my lifetime?

Putting on My Construction Genes
I spent several days sitting at the kitchen counter and staring up at the ceiling. Rhetorical questions floated through my mind: "How diffiicult can it be?" "How long might it take?"

The answer that came back to me was always seductive, as if it had been whispered into my ear by Botoxed lips at 1 a.m. in a smoky bar:  "It will be easy,"  and "We'll only need a couple of hours."

I think part of what drove my male hubris wasn't the actual annoying residual holes in the ceiling, but a feeling that as a 21st Century male I'm too far removed from my father and all the stream of double X ancestral chromosomes before him.

You know guys who were real men. Men who took advantage of having opposable thumbs to do more than peck at keyboards and remotes and grasp steering wheels.

My father grew up on a farm. He had to do manual stuff as part of his daily chores. He went away to the war and acquired further expertise, this time in how to stay alive when people were trying to kill him. He returned to his parents' farmhouse and decided that it had been long enough. He was going to gift his folks with an indoor bathroom.

The war was over, but they still needed an indoor bathrooom on the farm.

Had he ever done any plumbing? No way! Could he watch how-to videos on the Internet? Are you kidding? This was 1946. Instead, he asked around, got a book from the library, bought his materials and set to work.

He enclosed a porch and turned it into a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. The day they turned the faucet handle and water came out and flushed the toilet my father presumably got on the tractor, chained it to the outhouse and hauled it down to the river bottom.

Why can't I be like that? It's not about being born an Einstein, it's about accessing the natural "handy" in us all.

Like a twenty-something colleague who told me that in his spare time he's a "lutier." I looked this up. It means he builds guitars from scratch. He buys the wood, cuts it, shapes it, glues it, adds a varnish, strings the strings, and there's an instrument you can use to make beautiful music.

And I bet he can patch holes in a ceiling too so that you'd never know they were there. So why not me? Then I could move on and strum my own happy song of self sufficient, hammer-clutching masculine success, and have some extra bucks in the bank to pimp my lawnmower or something...

Another D.I.Y. benefit--it's an excuse to buy new tools.

This is the finest putty knife I've ever owned. Hold it in your hand

 and you can feel the quality. It's the Rolls Royce of putty knifes...

Joint Compound, Spackle, Mud, Whatever...
In my personal and limited experience of D.I.Y. when things head south, they go all the way to Antarctica. I end up at the South Pole of Incompetence. There's not even a penguin hanging around to laugh at me. Just 80 below zero, the wind is howling, and I'm frozen with frustration...



Patch like a pro
with this stuff!

Patching the holes wasn't such a big problem. Except I had to keep patching because the repair would shrink upon drying. Never mind. Eventually I sanded them down and they were... Well, they weren't perfect but this wasn't the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, was it? No, the real trouble began when I decided to try to move to Phase 2 and cover over the mismatched paint and uneven texture where the fluorescents had hung.

The ceiling texture in a can was so fun to spray that I didn't notice that it was bursting far beyond my target area. When I was done and smiling broadly at how well the sprayed areas conformed to the rest of the ceiling texture I happened to lower my eyesight.

My nemesis...arrived in a can.

That's when I noticed. The texture had blasted across the room and onto the cabinets opposite me, as well as covering the refrigerator and my espresso maker.

An absolute mess.

I spent the next two hours removing every fleck of texture from where it had gone astray. It was like reclaiming a whole shaker full of pepperflakes from your mashed potatoes.


"Running Like a Watercolor in the Rain..."
Then it was time to open a can of paint. I painted over the areas in question at least 8 times with different variants of white. I learned something via this process.

There are many shades of white paint.

Further, none of one's whites are likely to match the white that has already been on your ceiling for three years and acquired the standard kitchen off-white patina of smoke, grease, and general household dust.

Still, stubbornness can score points where competence is lacking. Or so I told myself. Days after I first began this minuscule project I felt I had arrived close enough to an end result I could live with.

Well, it all depends what light you look at it in. At 3 p.m. with the sun shining in the window and all the can lights on and glaring in your eyes you really can't tell...

The Moral of the Mess
I like to believe that things that happen to me can teach me lessons about life. That they are actually metaphors for something of significance.

It occurred to me when I was knee deep in holes that kept coming back and had to be refilled and sanded anew, whites that didn't match, ceiling texture that exuberantly obeyed the laws of gravity et cetera et cetera that most of my life is some kind of repair job.

I'm trying to fix me.

Sometimes it's probably less a repair on behalf of a noble cause than a matter of trying to avoid the embarrassment of having people notice the Swiss cheese holes in my personality and behavior. So to the extent I'm aware of these flaws I set out to do something about them.

Like become a better listener. How hard is that to fix? Pretty hard I've found out.

Or be less opinionated. Ouch! That's me biting down sharply on that thing called my "tongue"...

Or how about being less selfish about sharing my time and income. The holes there are really deep. I can't buy enough "mud" to fill them. I need a whole new panel inserted to replace the defective one.

Then I think, "Maybe I should call a professional." What would that look like? A motivational seminar? A therapist? Join a monastery? Oh, come on. Those are no fun. I want to fix this myself.

But maybe not everything is an equally good candidate for D.I.Y. Maybe I should swallow my pride from time to time and ask for some help.

And I might need to lower my standards a bit, too. Because in my experience whenever I get done with a  personal remodel, part of the old me always seems to be showing through.

Darn sloppy D.I.Y.er! Why can't I be like those guys in the videos? A few flicks of the trigger on the power tools, some graceful hand moves, and perfection!

Instead, I am what I am, the purveyor of a sub-standard repair job, but if it doesn't leak or fall down, it is what it is and that's me walking down the street and you should have seen how bad everything was before I got started... - V.W.

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Van Winkle's Micro Graphic Novel Mash-up Thingy

The part of my being "asleep" in this experiment that is most difficult for me is avoiding all news of cultural and artistic activities. This means I don't get to hear about or see new movies or listen to new music or read novels just released.

I don't have the talent or the budget to plug the gap by making my own movie. Even with all the help a computer program might offer, I'd be hopeless at composing a song, much less accompanying it with instruments, synthetic or real. But you know what? (I say to myself), I can write.

That's how it occurred to me that if I can't read someone else's new novel headed for the bestseller list, I still can my write my own and read that. So that's what I did. Just now. I wrote a novel in 15 minutes.

That comes out to a little over a minute per chapter. Whew. I almost broke a sweat.

After that I sent the manuscript to my publisher (me) and here's what he wrote back in an email:

"You know, V.W., this is different. It's sort of a literary mash-up where your writing collides with the latest CB2 catalog and we end up with a new 'mix'. It's postmodern, satirical, and quirky. I like that. Even better it's kind of dark and the themes are decidedly mature. (It would be really marketable if it had some vampires or zombies, but I suppose one can't have everything.) So what I think we ought to do is bring it out in time for Halloween."

Thus today I present my micro-mashup graphic novel in 14 easy chapters. Just in time for trick or treating pleasure.

  * * *  * * * * ** * * * * *

                                          

      The Marriage Goths     

                          or                            

   A Series of Unfortunate  

              Decor Decisions      

                                    

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

Chapter One

The trouble began in the fall as the days grew shorter. Frankly, Penelope suspected Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Her husband of ten years, Amadeus, was behaving oddly, starting with how he’d graffitied the patriotic image of the Father of Our Country so it resembled Cyndi Lauper circa 1985 before anyone thought Cyndi was gay, then they did think Cydni was gay, but really Cyndi wasn't, she just supports LGBT rights (it was all so confusing!).

But to return to President Can Not Tell a Lie...

Was Amadeus trying to send a message? It seemed unthinkable, but Penelope had to consider the possibility. Amadeus might somehow (gasp) be unhappy with their life, their lovely home. Could that be what this art gone errant was all about?

Chapter 2



“You think I’m self-medicating?” Amadeus laughed, his voice strained and cruel like a hyena’s. Or a meerkat's. They were having Helga and Augustus and a few friends over in early October to celebrate Anne Rice’s birthday and everyone noticed. Amadeus didn’t touch the microbrew and imbibed only the straight grain alcohol filtered through a flask.

"Like drinking premium siphoned from the tank of an Aston Martin," Amadeus grinned.

Chapter 3



Penelope thought, as always, that revamping the home environment was the key to improving one’s life. She spent an entire Friday morning and half her Visa line of credit brightening the living room as well as planting a subtle visual hint about the mood she hoped Amadeus would soon start to cultivate.

But she wasn’t joking.

If things didn’t change soon, this marriage was going to end up in the worst place of all— a lawyer’s office with (shudder) wood paneling on the walls.

Chapter 4

As a shadow fell over their life together, one as dark as a poorly illuminated entryway or walk-in closet, Penelope sat rigid like a gardenia about to wilt, listening to Amadeus speak incessantly about a Black Bird. He was tormented by this idea of the Black Bird, whatever that was.

One evening, before Penelope could stop him, Amadeus found her parents' old vinyl copy of The White Album stored out in the garage. He smashed it with a ball peen hammer. He wouldn't settle down until Penelope removed the awful Sarah McLachlan cover version download on her Zune, which she did post-haste weeping in the dead of night as she did so.

Chapter 5



"I swear it’s following me everywhere," Amadeus  told Penelope as they sat in the study, arguing about whose turn it was to tilt the books the other way on the shelves. "Well, all I know," Penelope said, "is I can't see a thing. This Black Bird of yours sounds like a psychotic projection, plain and and simple."

Amadeus grunted in reply, tossed some more sunflower seeds onto the carpet as Penelope helplessly looked on and realized she would have to schedule the Molly Maids to come in before Tuesday.



Chapter 6

Nothing changed. Only Amadeus could see Black Bird. That was the problem. It even infiltrated his most private arena, his desk where he wrote notes of condolence to relatives of strangers whose names he obtained from the newspaper obituary column. He used pinpoint sharp pencils and crafted his thoughts in a combination of Latin and pidgin English (i dai pinis Deus vobiscum), interrupting himself repeatedly to play with his replica medieval thumb screw torture device.

He was starting to suspect the worst. Black Bird wanted to peck out and devour his liver as if it were nothing more than a morsel of Genoa salami or a bit of (perish the thought) Kraft lo-fat string cheese.

Chapter 7

One day Penelope came home from shopping downtown and there they were. Little people's children’s coffins.

“Amadeus!” she barked, dropping her parcels right there in the floor, the glass balls shattering about her in a colorful shining spray of turquoise and lavender shards. “What does this mean? When will this curtain of gloom that has come over you go away?”

Amadeus yawned and asked Penelope if she’d seen his keepsake Samurai sword they had obtained on holiday last year in Saporo. He was sure he had had it not that long ago. It was when Helga and Augustus Hampton dropped by for a spot of sushi and Amadeus had personally sliced the 200 lb. ahi for everyone.

“What do you want it for?” Penelope asked.

“Oh, never mind,” Amadeus said cryptically. “There’s more than one way to skin a black cat. Or bird.”

Chapter 8

 

When Amadeus insisted on occupying the black chair at all meals, Penelope shrewdly observed, “I think this could be another one of your cries for help.” He responded by asking her to pass the bok choy and digging his toes deeper into the carpet and singing off-key his own version of "The Monster Mash."

Chapter 9

For the first time Penelope became afraid. It was the fuse attached to Amadeus’s bedside lamp that did it. At midnight a call was made to the Bomb Squad. "This is absurd," Amadeus shouted. "It isn't even set to go off until next month," and he stormed out of the house.

Before the men put on their Kevlar body armor suits, Penelope served them a not too serious Malbec and vegan goldfish crackers after which they settled down to do their thing. Watching across the room, she found the tall one all cool and suave, like one of the soldiers in The Hurt Locker. Was this what it had come to? Fantasizing about the quadriceps of a City Employee? Did this mean the Dark Mood and the Black Bird and "The Monster Mash" had won, that her marriage was finally over? Replaced by a man who was massively adept with wire cutters?

Chapter 10

"It’s not what it looks like," was all Amadeus would say of the new floor lamp he brought home. As for the coil of rope in the Lowe’s bag in the trunk of the car he said he was thinking of taking up sailing, although Penelope knew that he didn't have a nautical or salty dog bone in his body. In fact, back in the days  they were dating he had taken her to Hyannis Port and shown quite a contempt for the ocean, staying off the beach and confessing to her in a coffee shop far from the shore that he'd never read Moby Dick and had no plans to ever eat oysters unless it was an emergency.

Amadeus had always been so determined in his likes and dislikes, how could she not fall in love with him right then and there? He reminded her of a Kennedy. Or was it Ronald Reagan? Yes, Reagan. The Gipper was the one who had liked horses, not sailboats. And those jelly beans! A splash of irreverent color, they had looked great in a glass jar in the middle of the presidential conference table. And all the Soviets had to counter it were those silly wooden nesting dolls. Little wonder they lost the Cold War or whatever it was.

Chapter 11

Just before Halloween there was a bit of hope for a clearing of the air when Amadeus, somewhat bizarrely, suggested they hang Christmas lights early. He invited over Helga and Augustus who had proven with the sushi debacle that they were always up for anything. Amadeus stood close by, a bottle of Sparkling Schnapps in hand, and supervised the decoration of the holiday step ladder.

Penelope sighed. She was happy for Amadeus’ sudden cheeriness but deeply disturbed by this sudden turn for the worse in the décor. She had had other plans for that step ladder, the only thing she'd ever purchased from Restoration Hardware that, well, actually was hardware. She had envisioned a festive pre-May Pole that would simultaneously celebrate the birthday of novelist Philip Roth and the arrival of the Vernal Equinox. She hoped her former friends didn't damage the rungs and that those weren't (ugh!)giant non-Fair Trade peppermints they were hanging alongside the lights and ornaments.

Chapter 12

Desperate to try something, anything to lift Amadeus’s spirits, Penelope violated the Immigration Law and the IRS code by hiring for $1/hour the Little Red Elf Men (illegals all)  to create a festive, uplifting atmosphere at the anniversary party she threw for herself and Amadeus on October 31.

Amadeus remained silent, however, sucking on the lemons in the water pitcher and refusing to join Penelope in cheerful palaver about the good old days when they had gone shopping for their first piece of furniture made from reclaimed wood, argued over the merits of a chandelier made of polymer antlers, or even that time they stayed in the suite in Barcelona and Amadeus was so fascinated by the chrome and Lucite hair dryer that hung on the wall in the bathroom.

"You kept saying that if a person used it they might get electrocuted. Do you remember?" Penelope pressed. Amadeus just kept picking silently at his vegan slider accented with hearts of dandelion.

She could not tell if these memories warmed his cold soul or not. The Little Red Elf Men likewise kept their counsel and never budged, but of course, they couldn't even speak English except for a bit of pidgin.


Chapter 13

As the party ended, Amadeus unveiled his surprise for Penelope—fifteen miniature sarcophagi of deceased family members and high school classmates killed in car wrecks, fetchingly displayed on the wall with memorial flowers.

Penelope exploded, but not literally (she had called the Bomb Squad again the day previous).

"I can’t live anymore with this constant morbidness. Did I get married in a black wedding dress? Do I listen to Metallica? Do I even like Anne Rice or Interview With a Vampire or was it just Tom Cruise without his shirt on that did it for me? (I'm talking about the movie, of course.) I mean, seriously, Amadeus, do you even know who I am anymore? Or is it just about you? Just tell me, has every day become like Halloween for you!"

There was a long silence... Somewhere in the distance a bird shrieked, sounding just like a wilted dandelion.

Chapter 14

"As a mater of fact, yes," Amadeus replied to Penelope. "For me every day is Halloween."

And then he sat down at his black place setting and bid Penelope do the same and there was that fierce look in his eye she had not seen in such a very long time. It was at that moment she realized. Her love lived to die and by dying  he lived. But the key here was he would continue to live! So maybe if they got a brighter couch or something to balance the color palette this relationship might still work out.

It was then she raised her glass of Petite Syrah and said, "Well, then Happy Halloween, dear!"

And Amadeus said, "I have one more little surprise for you, but please promise me."

"Yes?"

"You won't call the Bomb Squad this time."

She promised and she never thought about The Hurt Locker again, except to remain very happy for Kathryn Bigelow because it was about time a woman came out on top at the Academy Awards and she had so admired that pearl gray Yves Saint Laurent gown with lace bodice she wore and it would be very surprising if Ms. Bigelow didn't also have excellent taste in interior design, like the lovely objects Amadeus was handing her. So odd, so unique. Astro-balls from CB2. So both of us.

END

- V.W.

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Tribute to Catalog Living - Part 2 of 2

Inspired by the web site Catalog Living, I have continued to leaf through my old, pre-Van Winkle catalogs with new eyes.

The peculiar and gifted insight of Molly Erdman, an actor, writer and comedienne in L.A and the genius behind Catalog Living, has led me to discover a truth.

If one begins to imagine actual people living in some of these rooms so carefully curated by designers (here available to us from CB2 and, final two visions, Pottery Barn), it seems inevitable that bizarre back stories and episodes are going to emerge...

Reflecting upon these colorful images becomes a way of creating my own news in the absence of the real thing.

Here is my final tribute - V.W.

Cecil, the pug-huahua, was known for crashing the weekly meeting of Penelope's Round Posterior Support Group.

Amadeus has promised Penelope that once he completes his original screenplay about the life of Tony Robbins and sells it to Dreamworks Studio he will change out the artwork over the sectional. A Monet? A Matisse perhaps?

When Helga and Augustus shop for furniture, they're well aware that all dimensions have helpfully been increased by manufacturers in order to satisfy the needs of Americans who are larger than ever before in history...

After Augustus and Helga married, her grandmother's giant spoons, once used for ladling lard back in the old country, came with her as well as her grandfather's hippo basting brush. It was a sentimental nod, she told Augustus, to a simpler life, a simpler time, and hearty feasts under the harvest moon.

Amadeus totaled the motorbike in the spring when he went for baguettes and thought the Panera had a drive-through (but it was a brick wall). Penelope, pretending no ire, nursed his injuries and suggested he come up with alternative wheeled transport they could enjoy together--vicariously and safely.








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Tribute to Catalog Living - Part 1

Since in my Van Winkled state I'm not supposed to take in information about new products, our mail box, which is stuffed Monday through Saturday with staple bound, pre-Christmas enticements, presents a special problem.

I miss those catalogues even as I trek out to the garage and dump them, unread, into the recyling bin. They say to me in deep inks and bright images, Let's imagine...

A Discovery on the Web
I was intrigued when a friend wrote on her blog about a website she'd discovered that uses home decor-slash-lifestyle catalogs as a point of departure for some skewed re-envisionings.

The author creates in caption form the life of an invisible couple named Gary and Elaine. The couple lives in a house that is furnished by the sometimes eccentric designers at Pottery Barn, Wisteria, West Elm, Restoration Hardware, Plow and Hearth and so on.

I enjoy this website. It's funny. To me anyway. Others' experience may vary. However, those who wish to see for themselves can go to Catalog Living.

My One-Off Tribute

Imitation, as the world knows, is the sincerest form of flattery. As long as I'm not allowed to read catalogues, I thought I'd have fun with an old one I have lying around and pay homage to Catalog Living. All images in this first of a two-part series are taken from the August CB2 (Crate and Barrel 2) catalogue. - V.W.

Augustus wanted to believe it was just Helga's peripatetic taste in decor when the suitcases appeared at the foot of the bed, but he couldn't help thinking of her long-lasting struggle with commitment which had first begun to manifest itself when she leaped from the window of the honeymoon suite in Cozumel.

After a couple of carafes of Chablis followed by shots of single malt Scotch whiskey, Penelope and Amadeus liked to enjoy a robust game of Wine Bottle Darts in the living room.

The wallboard was wet. The mold appeared. One makes lemonade out of lemons. Helga and August color coordinated appropriately. Sweet dreams!




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