CastleMania!

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Well it's been an exciting weekend and a lot has happened since my last post. It was a long one (I just looked over it, I'm sorry). Yesterday and today were mercifully dry and absolutely appreciated to the max. Brian and I moved the "deck" up on the priority list because the view from the top of the hill on our land is absolutely magnificent. Let me try to recount the weekend for you all.

Our plan was to demolish the old roof on Saturday and start building the new one. Hoping to finish by Monday at the latest we anticipated a dry room. Saturday stormed (like I said in my last post I believe.) Then it was dry on Sunday morning and we got down to work on ripping the old roof off. We sawed through most of the rafters, peeled back a few layers of corrugated metal and pretty much gutted the roof as much as we could. It still stood. We hit it in all the weak places with our sledge, sawed more timber and it still stood. We sat looking at it cursing and wishing it would just fall down. It still stood. This roof was indestructible and took all day on Sunday trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Frustrated, hungry and cold, we decided to take a break and walk down to the filling station for a Mint Magnum pick-me-up. Ranting the whole way down about how this roof won't come down, how tired we were, how much we had worked, how hard we had tried we realized we needed a serious break. A stray black lab had found it's way to the house and was now following us around. Normally this would have been easily dealt with, but neither Brian or I were in the mood to deal with a stray dog digging into our food and begging us for attention. Fuck off dog. It followed us all the way down to the filling station. When we got there we saw that it was dark and the door was locked. Are you shitting me? Brian sits down on the small ledge by the front window and I stand looking at him. The dog sits patiently to Brian's right. Then, as if on cue, it begins to POUR, I mean absolutely dumps buckets of water on us. The dog skulks behind Brian's legs and lies down. Brian and I look at each other expressionless, it's beyond not believing, it's ineffable. It was a truly, horrible day.

Brian and I give up. It's simply just more than we can handle. So we walk into town. Order a large dinner. Eat til we are full and then stop by the grocer on the way out of town back home. We pick up two four packs of the cheapest tall boys we can find. It's an imported Australian beer called Castlemaine with a 3.7% alcohol content and a euro a pop it seems to be our Godsend. We will now keep a Mint Magnum:Pints:Castlemaine tally because we think it deserves it's own category. Finally a cheap liquor here. We were remarking at dinner how ironic it was that Ireland had cured both our alcoholisms. So we get back to the house somewhere around 8:15pm and crack our Castlemaine's. It's atrocious. Worse than Icehouse. But by 10pm Brian and I have forgotten our troubles, halfway created (for the first time) a 'booty' playlist for me (Kiss the Girl from Little Mermaid is the headliner) and curled up in our sleeping bags. 10 30pm Interstella is about 3 songs in and we are both unconscious in our beds. Ireland said fuck you guys and we said fuck Ireland.

As Sunday was night, Monday was light. The forecast called for heavy rains (hence the lack of responsibility in the previous night's drinking) and we were prepared for another huge setback. The roof was still standing and after two hard days of work we had nothing to show. It was not however rainy on Monday. It was sunny and clear and wonderful. We got up, started working and by early afternoon each half of the roof was lying in the middle of the floor. Not sure how it happened. How we got it down, but we did. Slamming on the tin with sledges and hammers did not raise such a cacophony as the whoops and hollers when that roof fell. We were overjoyed. And the Sun was shining! Finally, something was going right and we were moving forward. We dropped our tools and walked straight down to the filling station and each bought TWO Mint Magnums. The Sun continued to shine and we cleaned out the roof and washed the walls and swept the floors. The room was roofless, clean and ready for our new roof. We had worked hard and felt obliged to put off building until today. Since we were quite tired and the probability of things being done sloppily or rushed was quite high. It was late afternoon anyway and a good dinner was in order. We cleaned up as best we could (which is nowhere near respectably dirty in a normal sense) and I put on my last clean pair of jeans that I had been rationing to save their cleanliness. We then headed into town.

About halfway into town a periwinkle turd car drove past at a high speed and before we saw anything an egg slammed into my right shin splattering everywhere. Apparently the day was going too well. It made but a small dent in my mood though because I just couldn't let something as infantile and stupid ruin our triumphant day. Most of my disappointment, rage, fed up-ness etc simply leaked down further and it's sad to say that it is now difficult for me to see people around here I don't know as potential friends or people whom I am eager to get to know. Instead, I now have a skeptical voice in the back of my head that asks if this new person is an adversary as opposed to a friend. Sad indeed. It's just another thing that sits atop the list of shit that makes me tired of this situation. It makes me so very grateful and appreciative of our few friends: my neighbors and Peter the Eggman. So with egg all over my jeans, Brian and I continued on into town and had a filling dinner before turning around and walking back home. It still was a good day.

There's not much to speak of as far as today goes. It took us longer to get the rafter framework up than we thought (a running theme it would seem) and then it began to rain. Duh. So we'll save the rest of the roof building for tomorrow. I've promised to buy a stove as soon as we get this roof up. We are ever so excited for it. A dry warm place would drastically improve our situation. We're still aiming for it. Otherwise, our funds are still dwindling and we really can't look further ahead than a couple days or one project. We are desparately trying to keep the whole main goal dream alive for this place but with each progressing day it seems more and more daunting and our ability to complete it satisfactorily less and less. If only we had unlimited funds, right? Seems to solve everything doesn't it? Seems, being the operative word. We'll see. Getting the old roof down was a huge step and is providing a large source of morale and mental energy. At least at this point, we are making progress (however slowly). There is nothing more frustrating than being stuck. And stuck we were but no longer. Let's just hope our building isn't crap. We need a level.

On a completely different note, it has been about a solid month now that I haven't gone running. I told myself I was going to take a year off after my marathon from running in general. Let my body have a break etc. But I am missing it terribly at the moment. But I cannot tell if it isn't simply being lumped in with the general homesickness. Which by the way, I have never ever experienced quite like this before. There are times certainly, where I have missed things, and missing my family at college was not altogether unfamiliar. But even at those times, my longing was balanced with or overridden by a sense of satisfaction in my current position. I was satisfied and happy at Pomona and so while I missed my family, or old friends, or what have you, I was still waking up to sunshine, enjoying the company of great friends and attending classes I was intrigued by. Here, I miss things such as family, sunshine, people like me and I won't deny, warm showers, clean clothes, and *gasp* I even miss a/the car a bit. The problem here is that it's not being balanced by any sort of positive satisfaction and so therefore, my homesickness or longing has become a burden. Just one of the many. Great. It's becoming increasingly difficult to even have happy daydreams. My mind just doesn't have the energy or belief to create them. And that realization is soul crushing. And while I cannot without daunting reserve see myself succeeding in this, I think there is some basic primal fundamental spoiledness in getting my way that I'm not sure my brain will allow me to seriously consider failure. I cut my hand with the saw.

What's the point in putting yourself through duress to appreciate the things you have if you miss them when you don't have them and they become mundane when you do? I was trying to remember the reasons why I came here in the first place, particularly the things I was eager to leave. Now looking back so far, there are things I certainly appreciate more and perhaps will even if I have them again. But it seems ridiculous that I should have to do this to be able to be appreciative. If I were back in the States pursuing one of the other options I had, I would be in exactly the same state of mind. How frustrating. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. And I am tired, so sorry for the confusion. Please write and let me know how you are all doing. It will provide fuel for my daydreams.