Thunder

Aunty Em! Aunty Em!

I woke up this morning with "Rio" by Hey Marseilles in my head, so that pretty much set the tone for the day. My fabulous and talented friend Bree introduced me to this band a few years ago. I vaguely remember seeing them perform in some warehouse on the outskirts of Boston after the bars had closed and, if memory serves, it was very much like the video I linked above. My brother was there as well, so if you're reading this, Bree, Paul...a little help?

The song Rio never ceases to cheer me up, but the band as a whole has a nostalgic, melancholy sound that leaves me with a general feeling of malaise that only the genius possess. I don't mind malaise, but it made for a weird day overall.

This afternoon between thunderstorms of both the internal and external variety, I spent a little time moving some of the last of the debris from our chimney. I thought the wheelbarrow was heavy when I was moving bricks from one side of the yard to the other but, holy mother of god, pushing it up a plank and emptying it into a dumpster is torture. It's an exercise in balance, strength, and humor. There's no way to look cool while doing it and there's no way to stay cool while doing it. (Heh-heh. Catch the double entendre? Heh.)

I swear my eyelids were sweating. And I'm pretty sure I now need a Tetanus shot after rubbing up against the rusty dumpster taking up half our driveway at the moment. I'm also pretty sure, one month ago, I couldn't have done what I did today. Progress!

Hard work, the kind that gives you callouses and sore muscles, is good. I think Joel should have put in more time doing yard work, frankly, and he definitely needed to get off the babysitter.

I'm moving these bricks as personal payment for our remodeled kitchen, as personal punishment for allowing my body to get so weak, and as personal...I can't think of another "p" word, so I'm going with personal enlightenment (ugh) to remind myself people do this kind of work all the time for very little money. Things got a little zen for a while as I spent time in my brain just sort of sussing things out. It's good to spend some time in your brain contemplating things like, why are so many of my Bethel-area FB friends posting the same meme about welfare and didn't we already know Anderson Cooper is gay?

I smell like a man after a hot afternoon of labor. I'm off to crack a Coors and smoke a Winston.