A bad week.

Last week, I went to my friend's house - we'll call this friend Eugene so that nobody knows who I'm talking about because the last thing in the world that I'd want to do is let anybody know how frustrated I am. The last.

Anyway, I was supposed to take my mentally psychotic brother and his ganja-headed friend Billy down to look at Eugene's roof.

Eugene doesn't want to pay a lot to get his roof put on, and Eugene previously told me that the roof guy who lives near him, who is incredibly cheap, is not available to put it on for him.

When I mentioned it to Bobby and Billy, they thought it would be a great idea for them to go work on the roof. Billy used to work for a roofing company, and Bobby's helped a lot of people put roofs on, and they together recently ripped our roof off and replaced it, so we're good to go. Right? No.

Billy and Bobby invite another guy to go along for the job. His name is Nick. I don't care who knows who I'm talking about when it comes to Nick, so Nick will be Nick.

I made sure I was there when they all agreed on a price for the job, because Bobby and Billy fight about money constantly, and I wanted to make sure what the deal was before I left.

So the conversation went a little like this:
Eugene: Well, I don't know what you guys want to charge.
The three of them: blah blah, don't know.
Nick: Well, I'd be happy with $200. I don't know about my coworkers, but I'd be happy with $ 200.
Eugene: Is that fair?
Bobby & Billy: Yeah, that's cool.

It was also agreed that because Billy would be driving, Billy would be paid an additional 25$ for gas. Nick also worked out a dumpster price, because Eugene really wanted a dumpster not only for the roofing waste, but also for a lot of other refuse that he had to get rid of from another project.

Fine. It's all worked out. Each guy will get 200$ for putting on the roof, the dumpster will get delivered, and Billy gets gas money.

Not fine. What happens the day they are supposed to start the job? Well, they come to our house early in the morning - Bobby wasn't ready yet - and they snuck into our garage, took the tools, loaded the truck, beeped the horn twice, and left. I heard the horn and I asked my mom if it was them, and there wasn't anyone outside. So Bobby got left behind. It was about 1pm before he figured out that the tools were gone. My mom took him down to the project around 2pm.

The rest of Day 1 was a disaster because they fought about money. Nick and Billy said Bobby doesn't deserve to be paid because he wasn't there. Which is logical, to a degree, but it's their fault he wasn't there, and the tools belong to my mother, so if Bobby wasn't there, then why were my mother's tools there?

So we've got verifiable Thieves at this point. But it gets better.

Day Two, they can't very well play the same game as Day One, so they actually do come pick up Bobby on Day Two. At 9:30 AM. So Bobby asked Billy how much pay he was going to dock himself for being late. That was all Billy needed to start up the fighting for Day Two, and Nick was obliged to start in on Bobby as well, because they planned to cheat Bobby out of his money all along. (See Day One and make your own conclusion).

Meanwhile, No Dumpster. However, Billy's older brother, Donald, keeps hanging around in his truck. Billy and Nick made a deal for Donald to get paid the dumpster money for hauling away the stuff and burning it in the woods. Eugene didn't say anything. Eventually, Eugene pays Donald $100 for hauling away shingles.

2/3rds of the day in, so much fighting starts between the three guys that Eugene has to try to play mediator because they all keep fighting about how much money they're getting paid.

I don't understand the problem. Each of them said they would do the job for $200. It is going to end up taking 4 days. So each day is worth $50. It doesn't matter who does what or doesn't come or does come, the job was contracted individually, not as a group. But Billy and Nick think that if they can convince Eugene that cutting boards and picking up nails and doing the ground work (Bobby's not allowed to shingle according to big daddy Nick) is not worth as much as taking off shingles and making the mess, or putting on the shingles, that then they can split Bobby's portion of the money.

So Eugene tells them they need to work it out.

They won't agree to give Bobby more than a pittance, so Bobby says he doesn't want any money at all. What he meant was that Eugene could just keep his portion of the money, but Eugene gives it to Billy and Nick.

Because he had been doling out the money in sections, at this point, Nick and Billy each have been paid $150.00.

The original agreement was that they would be paid $200 each when the job is done.

Well, since they can't get along, Bobby isn't going tomorrow. Bobby is finished with the job. So he worked 1.5 days out of the 4. To my calculations, that means that he should be paid $75.00. But as I said, Eugene gave $100 of the $200 he had reserved for Bobby to Billy and Nick. This infuriated Bobby because he saw that as them cheating him out of it. Which is what happened, even though Eugene's attitude is that it's one of life's lessons.

So in the end, after talking to my mom, Eugene gave Bobby $100 of the money he had left, and Bobby is done with the job. My mom is telling Bobby that Eugene is paying him the whole $200 to keep him from flying off the handle, because Bobby thinks he should be able to go finish the job, and both my mother and I think that would be even more of a disaster, so the other $100 is coming from me.

This is so that I can have some peace and some sleep. Everybody knows that Bobby's crazy. Everybody knows that I'm stuck living with him until I can get out of graduate school, and into a job that's going to allow me an income and a benefits package that I can live with after getting out of the medicare/medicaid situation I'm in now. Everybody knows when you fuck over Bobby, my mom and I go through the 7th circle of hell before we get any sleep, and we just hope we can get through it without a bunch of bruises or more broken windows (6 of our windows are still broken from the last time he broke them out because we haven't had the money to fix them). And Eugene knows this especially because he's known us for years. So I have no idea why he thought this was a good way to handle Bobby, but he made the really pissy comment to my mother that "Nick said" - and you all know how much I love somebody that likes to believe everything somebody they just met half a fuck ago says - especially a shitbag like Nick Briganti - "Nick said you like to intervene on Bobby's business..."

Yes. Nick would say that, Eugene, because Nick is trying to fuck over Bobby, and he knows that my mom isn't going to stand around and watch. But that's OK.

That's OK because they stapled up your drip edge instead of nailing it, and they aren't giving a shit about making things square, and they're going to slap your roof together if it gets finished at all, and when it starts leaking, that's going to be one of those life lessons you're so fond of.

I personally spend at least 6 hours per week - sometimes up to 10 hours per week - for the last two years - working on a personal project for Eugene, for FREE, and previous to that I'd given up sometimes more than 20 hours per week - for free - working with him in some other capacity.

I am not the kind of girl who throws things like this in the faces of friends because if I didn't want to help my friends I simply would not do it. However, sometimes the helping of certain friends comes at very inconvenient times, and always working around the friend's schedule instead of working around mine. But I love my friends, and inconveniencing myself, and pushing things to the back burner to give one of them a hand doesn't bother me. Usually. When I feel like I'm being shit on, however - like the time Eugene gave me a lecture series because he caught me doing my college homework on his work computer for 10 minutes instead of cleaning up his [insert place of work here] and told me that he might have to rethink my [remember this is volunteer] role in his organization, because he was the man, and he was the one that got to get pissed off, and maybe I should go sit in the other part of [insert work organization's facility] and think about what I did.

He never apologized for that. He just made the excuse, "I didn't know that that's what you were doing."

Times like that - that's when it sometimes bothers me that for every hour or two somebody spends helping me I have to put in 10 helping them.

And then this. No, it doesn't involve me directly, but I have to live with Bobby. And Eugene has had a career in which he's dealt directly with people like Bobby for over 30 years, and also had a connection with Psychology and Economics, and he can't figure out how to say, "Nick, Billy, you'll get your $200 fucking dollars when the job's done, and if I dock Bobby's pay, I keep what's left over, and where the fucking hell is my god damned dumpster?"

I have no idea how to handle this situation without it affecting my friendship with Eugene, but if there's actually one of those life lessons he's so fond of involved here, it's got to be the one suggested by another friend after hearing about the episode.

Eugene is coming over later this evening because he needs me to help him with the writing of two documents.

Eugene, don't shit where you eat.

9:35 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Bitchy Power

So my nephew, who is three, comes up to me and says, "Ninny? Ninny Bitchy Power, Bitchy Power. It's in his whisper-whine voice, and I have no idea, obviously, what Bitchy Power is.

Lots of things cross my mind, but none of them make sense. Is it some kind of new cartoon? Some kind of weird superhero power? Austin Powers' niece? I have no idea.

At times it sounds as if he's saying powDer, but no, that's not right. I ask him to repeat it.

Me: What did you say?
Drake: you say
Me: No, what did you ask me?
Drake: Ninny.
Me: Yes?
Drake: Bitchy Power. Peeeeeeeez? (This one I know. It's supposed to be "Please."
Me: What is Bitchy Power?
Drake: Ninny shing ut?

OK Now I know it's supposed to be a song. However, I'm still laughing about his rendition of Lip Gloss from a couple weeks ago, and I have no idea what Bitchy Power could be.

Me: No, you sing it.
Drake: Bitchy bitchy Powder up waa-erpot.....

Itsy Bitsy Spider. I had no idea. I guess I'd better start keeping a list of songs kids sing and when I can't figure out what he's talking about, I could try to match it up or something.

Otherwise, I'm wondering why my nephew's all running around like "Power to the Bitches!" or something.

Not good.

8:51 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Thrive

I just joined Thrive (justthrive.com) because they promised me they would help me watch my money grow.

After adding my bank account and other info, this is what they told me:

1. I can afford a home worth 72,280.

2. I can retire with $0/year.

3. I can survive without an income for 0 days.

My financial health is 2.8 out of 10.

Which of those three things does not make sense? I have no idea how I could afford a house payment right now, even on a 70-thousand-dollar house. Argh.

10:16 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

My Favorite Junk House

My friend George is opening a business. It's going to be called the Salt Kettle Gallery. He's going to have a florist/gift shop/art gallery. We've been planning for months how we're going to make this paper mache kettle because nobody actually has a kettle anymore. This becomes more important later in the story.

There used to be these people who lived in this ancient old red house on a really curvy turn on the way to Carrollton.

Once, I saw an old steamer trunk sitting out by their garbage, and I stopped and asked the woman who lived there if I could buy it from her. She gave it to me for free. My friend Shaun fixed it up a little, and then I used it for a display at my shows. Eventually, I sold it to my cousin for $40, who thought that was a steal, and she got it refurbished. It's probably worth several hundred at this point.

Another time I stopped there, I got a pile of old dishes. I found my favorite spoon there (some old silver thing with a star on the handle) and I've picked up odds and ends now and again that have proved useful, valuable, or just plain odd and interesting.

A few months ago, they moved. They had a sale, and my mom went to it and got an antique metal bed and some old, old lighting fixtures and crates.

I was sad, because My Favorite Junk House wasn't going to be a Junk House anymore.

However. Some new people moved in the house.

I stopped in Bonnie's, the antique store in town that's only open from Easter to Halloween, and I asked her to look for old jars for me so I can make lights from them. She said she would.

She also said that she knew some people who were trying to sell her some jars like the ones that I wanted. I told her to send them on up to the shop.

So I was sitting here the other day, and these people pulled in the parking lot in a mini-van stuffed full of stuff. The woman came in and she said she was looking for Cindy. She said that Bonnie had sent her up here, and that she'd talked to my mom the day before, and they were here to pick up the carpet. (There was this big roll of carpeting on our porch that we were going to use in the candle room at one time and then decided against it, so it was waiting on someone with a truck to take it to the dump). I was all for someone taking the carpet, so I walked outside to where her daughter was waiting. The girl was around eleven years old and she asked me if I was in the band. I said, "what band?"

She said, "The band. I play the clarinet."

I said, "I can play the clarinet, but no, I'm not in the band."

She looked at me funny, like she was disappointed, and started picking her cold sore.

Her mother was still talking about the carpet. Then she said she had glass jars for me to look at. They were in boxes in the mini-van. I chose some, and she said she had to take them home and clean them before I could have them, and also decide on a price.

At this point her boyfriend/husband (he looks much younger than she does, and at first I wasn't certain that he wasn't her son) is finished packing the huge roll of carpet into the back of the van. He had a big rigmarole getting it in there, and I was surprised the hatch closed. But it did. Small miracles.

Then he says to me, "Do you think you might be interested in a big black pot like you stir a witch's brew in?"

I said, "a what?"

And he said, "A pot, like yea high, with three legs, about three inches long apiece on the bottom. Like a witch would have. Like a cauldron."

I tried to swallow my excitement at the thought of not having to paper mache one. I didn't say, "Oh my gosh a kettle blah blah blah."

I did say, "Maybe. I have a friend who might be interested in it. I'll have to get back with you."

They just stopped again today, about 15 minutes ago, and we settled on $1 each for the small jars and $2 to $3 for the large ones.

Then he started with the cauldron. I think he thinks that it's high-dollar cauldron time because it's Halloween. I've talked to George about it since the first mention of it, and he said he wanted it definitely. So when Jessy (that's the guy's name with the "Cauldron") said, "Do you think it's worth $30? It's really nice and all" I just about jumped out of my shoes with joy.

They were talking about "thanks for the carpet" and "we really needed it for our new house" so I asked the question.

"Where is your new house?"

And they said, "It's a big old red house up halfway to Harlem Springs on the way to Carrollton. It's on the left. You can't miss it."

My Favorite Junk House is now doing DELIVERIES!

5:00 PM - 2 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

My Great Big To-Do List

1. I've been elected president of a booster organization that supports my alma mater's drama club. To get the year started off in a positive way, I've got a few things to do. First, I've taken on the responsibility of taking care of some customer service issues with Samuel French. Then I've got to make an appointment to go in to the school and meet with the principal about a fundraiser we are planning so that I can ask permission to use the school.

2. Gob Pile Chapbook Series. The guts are almost edited and ready to print. I've got to send proof copies out to the poets, collect stuff from my two editors, get the artwork finalized, get rights to use an image of a Penobscot indian man, and plan the Chapbook release soiree in November. Which happens to be on my birthday. Whee.

3. Plain Spoke. Volume 2 Issue 3 is due out within the next two weeks. Gotta get moving on that. It's ready to print, but I've got paperwork to do and the actual production to get done.

4. Home work. I adore my phonics class. If all the grad classes were this fascinating, grad school would be Great Fun. However, most of it is really dull, and confirms my suspicions that public education is a joke. I don't know how I ever survived it.

5. Art. I still have to get ready for my three big shows this fall. I have very very little finished.
6. Hope that I get some me-time during xmas break.

2:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Every Once in a While, Somebody or Something refreshes my faith in Humanity.

Today is not one of those times, nor is Anthony Pallilo and his new book one of those things. I don't even know how this spam finds its way to me. Jeez.

If anyone can explain why this guy thought I might want to read his book (or why anyone would want to read his book), please do share.

Back to work now.

2:42 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Mean Reds

I haven't written anything of any substance in months. A few nights ago, I wrote a poem about belonging that described my Great Aunt Mary and my grandmother's ritual of playing solitaire while drying their pin-curls with setting solution under those whole-head hot-as-hell hair dryers, but it didn't do what I wanted it to do, and so it went in the pile of things I need to edit.

I wrote something recently about coal-miners and faith, but it fell short of amazing, and when I write things that have Big Ideas, they have to be amazing or else they just don't have that sparkle. So that went in the pile of things that have good elements that just don't seem to work together. Those things become 2 or more poems eventually, or they just gather intellectual dust.

I need to paint again. Everything is just so big a mess, and I need to get all my stuff de-cluttered so I can have the chapbook release party in the classroom in November. I know it's like "That's not until November," but I kind of see it as "Oh my goodness I only have 54 days!"

I think I've got those Golightly Mean Reds.

Worse than the Blues, If I had her money I'd be richer than she is, $5 for the powder room Mean ole Reds.

Plus, I'm thirsty right now, and that doesn't help my mood.

Now I'm going to get back to working on the chapbooks. And on Plain Spoke. They're all melting into one big pile of publishing at the moment, but I'll sort it out.

2:13 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

EDU 539: Grad School for Dummies.

I have my computer class this evening. Last week, we did hokey worksheets in which we labeled the monitor, keyboard, and other input and output devices and computer components. We had all week to finish these things. I feel a little bit dumb after having done them, as if there's a trick somewhere that I'm missing, or some obvious "haha - gotya" april fool's day early thing.

But there isn't. It's just that ridiculous. I should scan them in and make fun of them, but that would mean wasting even more time on it.

Today, for homework, I'm supposed to go online and find my dream computer and print out its specifications.

I can't wait to see what the midterm looks like.

10:55 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I just got done opening the mail.

As of late, I have been literally swamped by mail. Not the email kind, but the real, made-of-paper, in different handwritings and stylings, and in different folds and various sized envelopes.

The kind that comes with stamps.

It's been damp outside recently, and some of the paper has that little bit of roughness, that curl-up and dried feel to it. Like the fake money you bought at the 8th grade field trip to Gettysburg.

It's that kind of thing, and it makes me happy.

12:38 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

All kinds of stuff.
Current mood: animated
Category: Blogging

First, I want to tell everyone that I won an award I didn't even know about! The English Dept. at Kent selects two students each year who have high grades and fit other criteria mostly about involvement, and I was selected as one of them. Apparently, there is some money involved, so that's super! And I never win anything, so I'm so excited I could just burst. What a great pick-me-up after battling bronchitis for a week and three days (I still have it, sort of). But there's only three weeks of school left, and I'm struggling to catch up completely. My plan is to work on school stuff all day tomorrow, and then get Plain Spoke to print as soon as I can after that. So Plain Spoke Vol. 2. No. 1. is going to be out very shortly, and it's the longest issue yet, full of the fabulous, charming, and lovely works of an eclectic group of writers, featuring the poet Deborah Bogen (www.deborahbogen.net), who resides in Pittsburgh. In my own personal quest for publication, I received some good news recently: Forthcoming in their "oldest profession" issue, my creative nonfiction piece, "The Brief Existence of Lainey O'Galeigh," will be published in MiPOesias . Also, forthcoming in the Spring 2008 issue of Kaleidowhirl is one of my favorite pieces, "Homesick Sestina." My poem, "I Dreamed of Drowning" is forthcoming at Bakers Dozen. And "A Record of Things" is forthcoming at The Hiss Quarterly. (This poem is one of my new favorites, and chronicles a piece of my mother's childhood, creatively, with wallpaper. It should be up on or around May 1.) And now a little minor disappointment: I was hoping to be among the winners of the Akron Art Museum's New Words poetry contest, but I wasn't. They don't send you any kind of loser notification, so I just kept checking the site occasionally. Oh well. I just thought it would have been cool to have won that one. Today I went to the first annual Lady of Mercy Handmade Craft Show in Carrollton, Ohio. I didn't sell a ton of stuff, but I passed out lots of flyers about our grand-reopening in May (12th-18th, if you're in the area - check www.oldegarage.com for details and schedule of events). So we made back the table money, sold a few things, and got some (basically) free advertising. The weird thing was people were buying lots of fall-flavored (read: orange and brown and fall colors) things. I thought it was Spring, people! :)

2:32 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment