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There are many reasons why I’ve temporarily withdrawn into quiet, largely offline pursuits recently. Besides the toll of sleep deprivation and daily uncertainty about how useful my arm will be, I often find myself unhappy with the general state of the world and the Internet’s contributions to it. Getting away from that and immersing myself […]

It’s tougher to angle baseboards and crown moulding properly than it looks, as I learned by watching my father nearly suffer a nervous breakdown during one memorable weekend project in the early ’90s. One of the things he told me then, and reiterated decades later when he helped replace the baseboards in my first house,

Today’s been a blur and there was no time to work on the cottage. Instead I was on a strange mission that Muriel watched with interest and mild concern: in almost six years of being joined at the hip, she’d never before seen me tape trash bags to the bathroom ceiling at the behest of

Today I learned the hard way not to blindly trust instruction manuals. The cottage’s said to fit doors and windows near the end of construction, making minor adjustments as necessary. It took around 90 minutes to install two windows and one door, and as Crankenstein sat on the ottoman in my office and watched me

I can’t sing or dance and I’m nothing much to look at, but damned if I’m not great at submitting myself to endless torture trying to fix something that isn’t working. It’s a skill, or maybe a value, that I picked up from my parents. My dad will make 12 profanity-laced trips to Lowe’s in

My home office was out of commission today while the electric company replaced a transformer, so I did what anyone else would do in that situation and watched a Judith Light movie.* The review is already half-written but a slightly less successful endeavor was undertaken beforehand, one that taught me a valuable lesson: don’t paint

Within the next week or so I should have a hobby-specific website up and running, news I expect some of you will greet like audience members during Oprah’s ‘favorite things’ episodes. Except your outpouring of emotion — the screaming and shaking and hysterical crying reminiscent of Muriel’s pre-breakfast rituals — won’t be because everyone’s getting

Here’s what it means in practice when I grouse about little things taking longer than before. This afternoon I went up and down the stairs several times in quick succession — sometimes one flight, sometimes two — while carrying laundry and other things. Then I moved an empty metal five-shelf cabinet a few feet from

Though I regularly speak with my family, there are certain subjects we avoid. My parents know about the ‘Niles’ situation and the stress it has caused in my marriage, and they’re aware of long-simmering tensions over Crankenstein’s stinginess with her free time and her general aversion to helping around the house. They know I’ve not

Now that the Firefighter monkey is off my back — I opted against having Crankenstein contribute doodles after learning she’s unfamiliar with The Facts of Life — maybe I’ll experience a new emotional freedom and strut down the street tomorrow a rejuvenated woman, like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. If you’re wondering why that