Arg: I need a stiff drink: The Hell Project Part 1
It’s 10 am on a Sunday, and what the hell am I doing up? I went to bed at 3 am which is extremely early for me. I usually go to bed about 5-6 and wake up 12-2. Many people would say that most of my day is shot, but I do most of my work at night. . . my writing comes to me upon the dark moon-lit sky and the dancing stars.
Last night it rained, and after the rain the parking lot was wet with a bunch of puddles that I would just have loved to dance barefoot in. I have no idea why a wet black-top is so inviting. I think it has to do something with my childhood and playing in puddles on a rainy summer’s day.
So now I sit here half-wake, half-asleep, ironically feeling the best I have all week, as I looking at my to-do list realizing I need to
- write a few blogs
- help out playing games to get points on neopets.com
- clear out a few myspace accounts (I am getting rid of them as I just do not get on myspace anymore.)
- work on my novels,
- do the dishes
- make myself some lunch
I am also realizing my computer is not working well. It keeps freezing on certain web pages, and pogo.com will not let me use java . . . maybe it was because I check my myspace account. (I have learned that on my computer myspace and pogo just do not mix.)
I have so much to talk about over this past week. Well, I think I mentioned in a previous blog that Tom and I were going to paint the dinning room and the main hallways for my father. What a disaster: the worst part of everything is that we are not finished yet. I just want to take the money and run . . . let me explain. Tom and I visited my youngest brother at the end of June and my father offered Tom and I to paint the dinning room and hallways for 100 bucks, (which is not enough money now that I think of it.)
Anyway, Tuesday my step-mother picked us at noon for us to paint: now first of all we agreed on painting the room, not moving everything around or fixing book shelves or cleaning out basement sinks or reorganizing china cabinets. The more my father was home, the more he gave us extra jobs to do. First of all, if he hired professional painters they would have no done all of that. There were several times I asked for plastic coverings to protect the floor, so my father gave us cardboard: grrrrr! I also ask for tape to protect the wood molding, but no they were out of tape. My father told me that he was going to supply us with everything. However he didn’t supply us with tape and had a fit when we got drips of paint on his wood molding: AHHHHH! The second day he gave us edgers to protect the molding, but these plastic pieces of shit did not protect the molding at all. (The thing about the edgers is that he told my brother to find them and that they were red. My youngest brother looked in the garage, basement, and attic and couldn’t find them, because they were white, not red.)
(Oh yeah and on the first day, we realized that having three corgis (really short, medium-plump dogs with no tails) roaming the house with paint on the floor, not a good thing: two of the dogs trail paw prints throughout the dinning room and living room, but which had wooden floors.)
Tuesday were painted two corners and three walls, and we were going to end about 7-8 as we had been painting and moving things since about one that day, and once my father got home, he gave us four other jobs and three of them had nothing to do with painting. Tom and I didn’t get to shower and bed until almost 1. I was hot and exhausted when I hit the pillow, but I woke up the next morning by 7:45, because my father’s work called. (I keep my ringer off the phone, because phones going off when I am sleep make me jump. It’s just really weird, I know.)
Anyway, we started at 10 am the second day and had everything moved around. We wanted to paint the wall with the china cabinet, but it wouldn’t move correctly with everything in it, so I had to fix the book shelf, clear off the table, clean the table and move two generations of china onto the table. However the second day we got gone before my father got home. The weird thing is I think I got sun burn on my forehead and I was inside all day.
(The thing that got to me was my step-mother and my father are telling my youngest brother D. to do a million jobs, because my brother M. is doing summer school, because the home-schooling company they are using highly suggested it, it keeps my brother M. out of helping us too much. So my brother D. and I were venting: mostly about how picky and demanding my father is and if he had to stay at work longer than expected it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. The thing that stood out to me is that my brother M usually joins in, but this time he was defending my father . . . just a day after he threw the damn 60 dollar game controller and broke it.<--My father’s tempter in my brother M. The thing is that I have the hot temper as well, but I try my hardest to control it. Usually want I throw is pillows or something that doesn’t break and that isn’t worth 60 bucks.)
Anyway, Friday we get up late, I also forget to changed over the laundry so we don’t get started until after lunch. . . then we also lost help as my youngest brother D had a friend over from their church so we even had to watch our language. I had to fix a few touch ups, move some furniture and I am not supposed to lift anything more than 20 lbs as I have spleen problems that start with mono a few years ago. So here I am just getting over being sick, and having a contusion in my left ankle last weekend, and I am standing on my feet for hours, using ladders, and moving pieces of furniture that weights at least 50 lbs or more.
Here’s the thing I had to hang out with my father more this year, and this has probably been the most time I have seen him since I moved out in 2004. I thought he was actually changing into a good guy, but I realize now he was just in emergency mode, because of my brother. I thought maybe he would be busy enough that Tom and I could slip in paint and slip out, but why didn’t I let myself realize that nothing is ever simple with my father. (Tom loves complicated and complex, and I enjoy a good challenge, but I am beginning to think my father is way too complex for anyone.)
We have to put a second coat on a few pieces of the walls and finish the ceiling on Tuesday and then we have to paint the main hallway, upstairs and the upstairs hallway. However the upstairs hallway is covered with wallpaper and it’s going to look like crap. I asked my father and he said to cover it anyway, so this is what we are going to do next week. (What the hell did I get us into?)
Then last night I was talking to my brother TJ, my brother told that my father only had us painting, because he was trying to help us financially, first of all we do just fine each month . . . we have to get creative with the budget at the end of the month, but with this economy who doesn’t? Then my father told my brother that basically our paint job was mediocre and that could do better . . . it was 90 degrees almost everyday and my father does have air-conditioning, we had some problems with the paint being too thin and then too thick and we had stirred it several times with a power drill. Then we had bubbles on the wall, because of the damn Ohio humidity which kept some on the walls moist on the inside. No to mention we had to wash all of the walls, between grease and cobwebs. Actually cleaning his dinning room made me feel better about Tom’s apartment.
The thing was I could easily have gotten everything I needed this month and still save money for Tom’s birthday present, but I wouldn’t have been able to help out my mom. I took the painting opportunity to hang out with my brothers, get a bit more money so I could get Tom’s b-day present, and still help my mom out. I was trying to help others. However I just feel the more I help out others, the more I keep getting burned. I could understand that if I was doing for something in return, then I could see getting burned, but I helped my mom, because I knew she needed my help. I helped my father, because he loves spreading himself too thin and I thought maybe doing a job for him would spread himself a little less thin (take away from stress) and he was paying me. However I felt all we have done is get ridiculed for this job, and for the circumstances we were doing our best.
I want extra money for Tom’s present (I’m making him a cloak), so I am going to do more work this week, but if my father gets on my case for anything . . . I am going to tell him how it is.
Tom missed his wrestling and I put my writing on a pause to do this project all we got was my father complaining about us behind our back.
(Again, what did I get us into?)