I’ve been up since 4 a.m. — want to be productive? Try menopause! — so I’ll keep this to one heartfelt recommendation: Garrison Keillor’s short essay, “Bridges aren’t supposed to fall down.” (Though if you’re up for a second recommendation — same broad topic, in a way, but much subtler — read “Exit Wounds,” Pankaj Mishra’s review of Alex von Tunzelmann’s “Indian Summer,” as good an introduction to the partition of India as you can read.)
Today I was feeling grumbly because my clever plan to celebrate my 50th birthday by installing a writing shack in our backyard is running into obstacles — not the least of which is that I can’t fit a eight-foot-wide prefab shed through a six-and-a-half-foot-wide gate (and despite taking woodshop in the 8th grade, I do not see myself building a shed back there). The other obstacle is supposedly a variance we need, but that’s due more to the guy at City Hall who doesn’t return calls. Why do they give them phones if they won’t use them?
Anyway, after church I pulled on my shorts, Crocs, and favorite library teeshirt and went to First Pres to help serve lunch to the homeless, and at that point I was reminded that pouting about a shed is pretty silly when there are people in Tallahassee who sleep on a cot every night and are grateful for meals that are basically packaged hospital food served with leftover bread and iffy fruit. I saw some of them after lunch, slouching around the deserted downtown plaza in the 98-degree heat as I got into my air-conditioned car and drove to the nicely-cooled cafe where I could sit with my cute little iPod and sweet little laptop and drink fancy beverages until my bladder burst or I finished revising my work. (It’s pretty quiet in Panera’s, so I finally folded my tent and got up, and had an even better table when I sat down again.)
Is it 2008 yet? Please can haz election?
Posted on this day, other years:
- Lessons learned - 2021
- The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Clean, Well-lighted Book - 2006
- U.S. Copyright Office and the LGTM Standard - 2005
Thanks for the link to Kiellor’s article. I would vote for him any day, even if it would be illegal for me to do so.
When my ex and I got a shed (although nothing as fancy as the mini-houses you’ve posted links to, he dangled), it arrived semi-prefab: walls and a floor to be assembled by the crew on site. Was that ever mentioned as an option?
Having it arrive as a “kit” was an option, but she warned me that it was a lot of work. I’m not ruling it out but it’s more than lifting four walls and tacking on a roof. I do want windows and so forth, and since it’s wood, not metal, it’s more complex. I wanted it to be a garden/writing shed. I haven’t given up hope… but I did want “fancy.”
Remove part of the fence and then reinstall it?
[…] the cat-door isn’t quite as good as the shed (which I have not given up on; I have simply dropped back to think before my next punt), but […]