Repo Week – Day 5: I Can Dream, Can’t I?

Yesterday Sweetheart’s brother Tommy came over to help him do some excavating. I’m not sure what they got done, because I was busy fighting with myself over letting go of useless things I wanted to keep. Also, realizing that I was doing my own excavating while listening to Garbage made me feel a bit more cheerful.

Cheerful, but not any more less angst-ridden about throwing things away.

I turned to Tom for rational advice, and he was perfect.

“Kill your darlings,” he said. Then he explained that when he cleaned up his family basement and had to make tough decisions, that’s what he told himself. I plan on remembering that one.

I was starting on a metaphorical infanticide festival when the phone rang.

Mom wasn’t having a good day and wanted us to have lunch together. So I brought take-out over to the nursing home. Mom ate three pieces of an oreo roll (tuna/mushroom). Debby had a tempura roll and something called a Boston roll, which had – I don’t know – baked beans? I had fresh rolls and a small helping of green curry. The portions are huge, so Sweetheart and I split the rest for dinner later.

After lunch, Debby came back for a couple of hours, theoretically to help me with the room. But she is working on a problematic book review. (The writer lives in the same city as she does, and they have friends in common.) The story is interesting and the writing sparkles in spots, but the book was poorly edited, so there are too many characters, too much going on and a sub-head device that’s the equivalent of a seventh-grade girl who insists on dotting every “i” with a little heart. At first it’s cute, but you want to break every writing implement the kid owns after the 20^th occurrence.

So her definition of help was to sit in her room writing while I occasionally showed her things. Which, while not what I was hoping for, was better than someone who’d rather be doing something else in there, tipping me ever closer to complete meltdown.

Anyway, here’s what I got done yesterday.

Today, I’m inviting Sweetheart in to help with one thing – taking apart the Halle Berry chair (once upon a time it was hers) and stowing it in the attic for my oldest offspring, who wants it – and installing a light fixture.

Then, at the end of today, I’m gonna call it quits for the time being. It’ll be functional and I can relax and work in there. I don’t know if I can ever get it and the rest of the house to where I’m fully satisfied. But I can dream, can’t I?