As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m combining the Friday Mood Boost and Sunday Digest into a single end-of-week recap. This is that recap. But you probably figured that out already.
Man v. Shed
I propose a new addition to the 3 archetypes of story (Man v. Self, Man v. Man, Man v. Nature): Man v. Shed. I have been waging a losing campaign all week against the shed Mrs. Reads asked me to assemble in our garage.
It started with piece #01 not being included in the package despite being literally the first piece in the instructions diagram. According to the parts list there is no piece #1. The Shed is already fucking with me on a psychological level. After scanning through the parts list, I’ve come to the reasonable — and in hindsight, totally obvious! — conclusion that piece #94 is actually piece #1. How could I have missed that…
Anyway, because piece #1 was AWOL, I decided to start by building the back wall instead of the front wall despite having collected all the other pieces for the front wall already. Fine. Whatever. I attached the base to the two corner columns, slightly stripping the screws but not too bad.
Until I realize the base was upside-down. What followed was the first of several injuries as I struggled to back out the stripped screws, reversed the base and started again. You may be reading this thinking, “that doesn’t sound too bad, like what maybe 15 minutes?” Reader, it took me 2 hours just to undo Step 1 of this damn process.
I went to the hardware store and bought an impact drill and a stripped screw extractor kit. This would normally make me feel very manly, but I am just frustrated. So, I reversed the base and, using my new drill, reattached the corner columns. Now we’re cooking; steps 1-3 are done. Next: attach the two support beams. Done. Firing on all cylinders. Insert the wall slats. Boom, boom. Drill them into base. Easy-peasy. Insert the wall slat for the vent. Okay, and hmm…
Why doesn’t this look right?
Rewind, if you will, to the previous day where I said, “I decided to start by building the back wall instead of the front wall despite having collected all the other pieces for the front wall already.” You may not know this about architecture, but a primary difference between a front wall and a back wall is that a front wall usually has a door.
And because a door is different dimensions from a vent, your support columns are going to be different widths. I had grabbed the front wall supports and installed them in the back wall. Okay, fine. Another mistake we’ll just take some screws back out…
Stripped. Stripped. Stripped. Stripped.
Reader, this saga began on Sunday. It is (as of this writing) Friday1. I have still not successfully extracted all 4 of those screws. My palms and fingers look like I tried to give a handjob to a spool of razor wire. I am a full-grown, partially-educated adult and I am at my wits’ end.
Book Bits
Substack Summer Reading List - All the cool kids are talking about it. In my infinite
masochismwisdom, I am assigning myself 10 novels/stories by Substack authors. These stretch across a bunch of different genres and I’m excited to get started.It's a Substack Summer (Reading List)!
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June approaches, the days stretch on, and things are about to get hot and swampy. I’m excited for summer this year. Not as excited as I was back when school took a 3-month hiatus, but still pretty excited.
Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou - moody and dreamlike and haunting, like an old school fairytale. It’s a retelling (or reimagining?) of the story of Bluebeard with which I am only loosely familiar. It’s also about generational trauma and domestic violence. The symbolism is overt, but that’s the point with fairytales. The writing is wonderful and gothic. There is horror and beauty and dread. Sour Cherry doesn’t answer questions or moralize but retells a familiar story through the distance of fairytale that ultimately adds a powerful communion to this collection of abused women.
It did drag on a touch too long and doesn’t wrap itself up into a neat package. But I was enthralled by the writing in this book and some of the clever details and tricks Theodoridou used to weave this story. Stylistically different from a lot of what I’ve read recently. Highly recommend.Looking for Alaska by John Green - I think I’m going to try to squeeze this one in before Substack Summer. I didn’t know this was the same guy that wrote The Fault in Our Stars because I had only heard the hype around LfA. Going in relatively blind.
Writing
Tallboys #2 is partially drafted. This installment will expand my cast of lovable(?) ne’er-do-wells at the Little Red Bar and build out a bit more of the connective tissue between these vignettes. At least I hope it will. I’m new to this shit. It’s probably gauche to be talking about process like this, but I’m an amateur who doesn’t know better so you’re getting some Inside Baseball.
My hope is to drop an installment of Tallboys each month through the Summer. My “real job” gets busy Fall through January, so they might become less frequent then2. It’s not exactly a breakneck pace, but I’m also committing to read and write about 10+ books over the Summer so lay off me.
Miscellany
I occasionally do some unsolicited recommendations, so here are two things I’ve been into recently:
Del’s Shandy by Narragansett - perfect Summer beer. Mixes that sweet/sour lemonade flavor with a nice lager. I could drink about a million of these.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - Netflix Anime from a couple years ago. I’ve never been a big Anime guy, but I think it lends itself well to the Cyberpunk genre. It’s been a wild, violent and engaging ride so far.
That’ll do ya for this week. If you don’t hear from me soon, it’s because I turned the car on in the garage to take the shed out with me.
— V
Saturday evening update: 3 stripped screws have been removed. I was able to remove the screwhead from the fourth but still need to remove the screw shaft from the wood. Tomorrow.
The sheets aren’t gonna spread themselves.
I read Looking for Alaska for the first time last year! I really liked it. It also felt like a book that I will definitely recommend to my kid when he (eventually...) turns 15 or 16.