4/29/2009

I went to the doctor

I've asked a friend to sing back-up for me, possibly while swinging a tambourine. He agreed to this proposal so I printed out all the lyrics that I have written down. A lot of these lyrics also had the chords written on there. I believe I did that for the synaesthetic guy who didn't make it to one practice (What color are my songs? I'm dying to know!) but in this case, it worked out. I even put page numbers on it and gave it a table of contents. The table of contents was actually printed on the other side of a page from a sperm donor contract (it's a long story).

My friend came over for practice and I gave him the lyrics booklet. He emailed me the next day to say that the booklet had fallen out of his pocket on the way home. Now I'm picturing the person who finds this booklet, filled with my dramatic lyrics with guitar chords provided, a table of contents printed on a sperm donor contract and what their thoughts must be. Those thoughts might be along the lines of, "damn. Whoever made this is possibly the biggest lesbian ever."
They might have a point.

4/22/2009

Pine

This coffee table was re-finished by yours truly. You too could have such a table by following the instructions below.
  1. Buy your wife a coffee table from Pottery Barn (this was before my "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" resolution to stop buying crap I know is evil) but realize when it arrives that the finish and quality sucks. Vow to never buy anything from Pottery Barn again. Succeed.
  2. Only halfheartedly complain when your wife leaves tissue soaked in nail polish remover sitting on the coffee table, further ruining the cheap finish. Only halfheartedly attempt to fix it with some weird stain-crayon thing. Ignore the blemish for years.
  3. Finally come up with a plan for the coffee table. Using your new sander, remove all of the finish from the top of the table.
  4. Draw an outline of a tree on the table in pencil after much online research on what the tree should look like. It's a redwood, by the by.
  5. Ignore the unfinished wood with a tree drawn on it for another few months. Remember to constantly harass your wife about using a coaster because if anything should stain the wood in its unfinished state, it will wreck it. Give her looks when your father-in-law does not use a coaster with his red wine. This look should say "I don't care how you do it, but get a goddamn coaster under that red wine before the small vein in my forehead explodes, which would suck because then blood would never wash off the table."
  6. Get your teeny-tiny paint brush out and fill in the outline of the tree using flat black paint. Finish with coat upon coat of polyurethane in a satin finish.
  7. Enjoy!




4/20/2009

I read about music.

I don't listen to as much music as I should. I've been hearing about The Mountain Goats for a while now. Based on the song below, I'll be buying an album once I get paid again.


4/16/2009

Tough

I injured myself in my furniture making class last night. There were these steel rods that I need to smash the ends of in order to create brackets for my ironing board. I'd done it before with two other rods and now needed to work on the rear legs. Well, the damn things weren't smashing. I gave it my all with that sledgehammer but the steel was actually denting the vise. That's how damn strong it was.

Occasionally, Teacher John would walk by and ask how it was going. It was not going well but I didn't want to act like a puss, even though I had to pause to renew my energy approximately every ten seconds. So I took a longer break and came back hammering with renewed vigor. Nothing. The steel wouldn't budge. But the skin on my first finger sure did. A blister had formed then ripped itself open within a span of three minutes. It didn't hurt but that's when it struck me that this was all wrong. The steel I'd hammered before wasn't nearly so difficult. I compared the rods and realized they were different steel. Different, impossibly tough steel. It was a total waste of my time, money and pride. I seriously have about seven incorrect rods now due to not knowing what the hell I'm doing. Learning sucks. You can tell your children I said that, too.

4/12/2009

I make things

This is what I spent some time making this week. It's a screen-printing press. Up until now I've had to ask wifey to hold down the screen every time I want to print, making what is clearly a one person project take up two people's time. But now, with my handy press, I'm flying solo. Fly, little bird. Fly away.

4/08/2009

Zip

The hunt for used drum parts has so far taken me from the ocean to the bay. Tonight I went to pick up a hi-hat stand from a part of the city I don't spend much time in. I had to back my car down a tiny, steep one-way street to let a cable car back up into a tunnel. I saw the Bay Bridge. It's strange how the city is so tiny but so densely packed that neighborhoods can change in less than a blink of an eye. Of course, I couldn't find parking and pulled into a driveway to call and ask my craigslist connection to bring the stand down to me. Plus, I don't go into strangers apartments, no matter how curious I am about what kind of view they have from their windows.

4/07/2009

No kitty, no.

Last night I had a dream that these cats asked me to adopt their kitten because they couldn't feed it anymore. They had told me the kitten was five weeks old but when I went to the vet, they said it was only a week old, at best. Liar cats. Then I was in a room overlooking an angry ocean. I dream about angry oceans on a fairly regular basis. All it takes is that one big wave...

4/05/2009

What?

When you're included in a shopping guide for an organization that bills itself as "a hand-picked selection of the best", it makes you feel good... and a little sexy. I'm not gonna lie. Check it.