safekeeping my sanctuary

I used to play capoeira with a gentle giant who embodied a quiet ferocity and I was fortunate enough to reunite with him on a mission to protect the body of this house. We spent the better part of Sunday designing and installing the fundamental wiring of a security system for the house.

He has tactile knowledge of the digital security ins and outs/ do's and don'ts in the 21st century. It was an important move for me, One, because I needed the help, and Two, because I had to really start to question how I was going to implant myself and this house in this community in a secure way that acknowledges the dingbats down the road that tried to break into my car a few months back, BUT does not set out to be a self-segregated fortress that visibly pushes away the same community that it is growing to love.

Meanwhile, across town in a brick and stone hamlet adorned by a black wrought iron fence with white spear tips facing towards the morning sky... a gentle, but not so giant man, slips out of his back door, past one then two silver dishes filled with water... water that would soon be laid to waste by two bushy brown overly eager and feverishly excitable dogs... into a makeshift, yet impenetrable, steel laden workshop. In this workshop... this place where man and steel melt and spark with the heat of industry and intent... Mr. Brown, an older Jamaican man with a plaid shirt and gloves I imagine to be similar those a hawk trainer would wear... starts to guild the serpentine pieces of metal that will soon become my courtyard gates and first floor window grills.

two systems of safety... two reassurances for peace... two methods of protection... two eras of securing that which I value.

...two friends taking their Sunday afternoons to help me grow.

wearing thin...

had a dream last night that the house was finished. It was simultaneously comforting and alarming. It wasn't the actual house in my dream... more like "A House" that happened to be mine and happened to be finished. It felt good. I felt somehow... more of a whole. Does that mean that I am currently operating at less than whole?

Am I maintaining a 4/5 existence?

So today will be about reclaiming my missing fifth. I have two people that I need to do work for me and I am going to make a special effort to demand my 20% back. It’s mine. Not yours. I'm not sure if I gave it to you or if I just dropped it and you picked it up. Nevertheless, that time is over. No more foot draggin, no more side talkin, no more misunderstanding.

I cannot continue to be less than whole, cus if I do...

somebody might have to catch a knuckle sandwich.

wires, wires, wires

This weekend was all about staying connected.

It started off Friday night with a fond and well-deserved farewell to a good friend.

You had an impact on my life as well, bredren, walk easy.

Saturday was spent running cable and Cat6 wire throughout the house. I bought a 1000-foot spool of each and enlisted the help of an industry veteran/colleague of mine to fire up the house with full multi-media access. I definitely appreciated the help and learned a whole new skill set of building systems. The idea is that since the walls are still wide open, we could run all the necessary cable to accommodate a more connected media environment that would be less expensive and result in a higher potential for higher quality data/video... etc.

Keep in mind... I can talk all day about the negative impact of globalization and the dumbing-down effects of the information super highway... BUT if a brotha is trying to watch that Roll Bounce DVD whilst simultaneously downloading an impromptu Vietnamese Spring Roll Recipe with my glass noodles boiling in a pot on the stove... well... I'm all about googling that bad boy off a laser light speed bandwidth connection. You know what I'm saying?

10 down...

I spent the better part of the evening tired, hungry, a bit sore, and ankle deep in mud steering a shockingly heavy and even more surprisingly disobedient 30 foot ladder towards its necessary home alongside the west wall of the house. Perhaps I was emboldened by my out of town help... not sure... perhaps it was the realization that we were not going to be joined by any "professional" help for the duration of the day and would have to make things happen on our own (still a bit irritated about that by the way... I will have to have a few words with some folks tomorrow )... who knows... What I do know... is that there is one more window in the house tonight than than there was last night... so holla at your boy.

the cavalry arrives

Friendships, not unlike a backyard vegetable garden, can occasionally yield a crop that is unexpectedly bountiful. Yesterday, an old roommate of mine came into town to help with the house for the rest of the week. We put hammer to nail with ferocious intensity and started to make headway with preparing the openings for the windows. (The windows arrived last week Friday and we have gotten five of seventeen in so far)

All in all...yesterday was a good day.

It wasn't really about the progress we made. Nor was it merely a self-gratifying feeling to physically participate in the guts of the house construction. It was one person helping another. It was the shared conversations of two people amidst a task that one could not achieve individually. It was, at its essence, simply a reflection of what this project hopes to symbolize... the growth of a place, a person, a people, a planet.

It was a tentative baby step closer to defining or grasping on to the leap between growing a house and growing a village. When we nurture, feed, water, and provide sunshine for our friendships, we photosynthesize those people the do the same for others.

break of dawn[6:33am]

If all goes according to the new and improved/revised/last chance/armegeddon avoidance/no alternatives left... plan, then roughly 27 minutes from now, a strange man(or woman) with coffee on their breath and the faint smell of cigarettes lingering on to their puffy, salmon colored, winter vest... will, with sense of purpose, dignity, and fulfillment... strike down on their turn signal and pull out of a dimly lit parking lot in northern virginia with my windows on a flatbed truck. I can see it so clearly.

I can almost taste it.

let there be...

To my delight, the panel box is hot and we have working lights througout the house. I spent about 45 minutes last night running around up and down the stairs... flicking switches at my leisure. And the cherry on top... they hung the sasquatch-sized front doors.

I have been talking about them so much that I think it only fair to post a snapshot of them from the courtyard. They will still require a bit of TLC and elbow grease to sand, repair, and scrape off the paint on the inside, as well as, to repaint the exterior and figure out the locking mechanism... but that is a small price to pay for these bad boys.

They might be a bit medieval... but they will sing a song of familiarity and home to me hence forward.

one year, one day

Yesterday marked the 365th day after I closed on the property. I was poised to write a brief, but reflective overview on a year full of lessons learned and relationships built... BUT, I just finished watching Sixty Minutes and they did an expose' on Morgan Freeman. I am not living life to the fullest.

A quick snapshot of Morgan's 68th year of living brought a refreshing influx of emotions to my doorstep. Morgan is living it up. Not in the sense of lavish living, but in the sense of

c h o o s i n g l i f e.

I find myself consumed by the mundane melodrama of mechanical mayhem, mitigating monsoons, managing men, moving metal mountians, marking mistakes, and misunderstanding motivations. Looking at the screen, I saw my reflection and had a flashback to a few months ago seeing the image and haunting words of New Orleans own, Mayor Ray Nagin:

"YOU'RE THINKING TOO SMALL!!!"

I feel like I need to be careful not to be overly consumed by some things less I run the risk of neglecting other things that are truly worthwhile. Where is my 68+ year plan that has me sailing in the Caribbean not because I am rich... but because I thought learning to sail would enrich my life?

I gotta figure some things out.

Thanks Morgan.

locking up

As the saga with the windows (supposed to come on Wednesday)... battling frigid weather... convincing people to show up and work... and hanging freekishly large front doors continues, I find myself taking pleasures in the simple things.Yesterday, I had a conversation in which I was asked the obvious... After you get the hinges... how will you lock those turn-of-the-century doors? cus I didn't see a lock or a key hole or anything.

Hmmm.

well... um... good point. There is this dungeon slide lock on the inside of the doors, but that is about it. That only works if you are opening the door up from the inside. Now, I had thought about it before, but figured I would think of something later.

Later is now, by the way.

So yesterday, I lean one of the doors up against a wall and take a long hard look at it hoping to be inspired as to how I'm going to make this a reality. As I'm looking at the door, I notice that there is a subtle circular indentation on the door in the area where a lock would have been. So I grab a hammer and start banging on that area and blow by blow, year by year of paint (probably chalk full of lead) starts chipping off... slowly telling a story of time passing by while these doors remained motionless... stoic and secure. Each mild swing of the hammer revealed seasonal paintings that undoubtedly represented different eras or even different groundskeepers tending to them. As I reached the bottom layer, I saw that there was this hole that was plugged up with some foreign unnatural substance that resembled white plaster. So naturally, I bust out my drill and hundreds of attachments and go-to-town on this hole, cleaning it out and all the while boiling with excitement as to what I was uncovering. SO flash forward 40 minutes and I am slowly inching out a lock that I am confident will carbon date to the late crustaceous period.

a question inspired an investigation, which revealed a deeper understanding and appreciation.

So I am one step closer to getting these doors up.

la ventana diablo

I would think myself selfish were I not to share the bitter news of my windows with whomever wants to share in my pain. They weren't ordered.

I don't think I have anything else to say about it.

silly me

Of course my unnaturally heavy, gigantanormous, high school basement flashback, eclectic, turn of the century, seemingly one-of-a-kind, forged in the fires of Mordor... front doors ... would need hinges that were seemingly impossible to find. Silly me. Why would they be held up with commonly found "earthly" metals? Why would they measure in sizes that do not require a slide rule and/or an abacus to determine? Silly me.

I needed 6 hinges and I thought the hinges were about 5" inches tall and so I spent my lunch break in the dungeon of a local hardware store laboring through a tumultuous experience that could only be described as... the search for the holy grail of hinges. And then, as if by Divine Intervention, we happened upon a few dusty boxes of these blessed connectors and just as I was about to be emotionally overjoyed at a job well done... I noticed the finely printed pencil-etched price for the box of three hinges... it said in a quiet and unassumingly devilish voice... $60.00

What? How do you get that to make sense?... Sixty? Come on... honestly.... Sixty?[Two boxes: $120.00 plus tax]

So regardless of the fact that I got them to cut the price in half and regardless of the fact that the hinges I needed would turn out to be in the neighborhood of a half an inch larger... lets just pause for a minute and question this whole process.

Why is everything so freekin expensive and WHY do I feel like this house is becoming a giant sieve that shakes me daily for loose coins, bills, pay checks, and pocket change?

In fact, the only thing it doesn't shake loose, are my creative ideas and longings for a thoughtful existence... both of which coincidently secure my return to the sieve tomorrow.

hmmmm...

lost in aisle 13

I spent what could only be described as an eternity in home depot today. I have no idea why. It just happened... and not in the "Wow! Time is Flying By" kinda way. I was just standing around like I was waiting for something to happen... perhaps I was waiting for the manager to come around and tell me that everything in my cart was on the house... maybe I was waiting for something interesting to happen with the guy who started acting noticably nervous when the Home Depot people asked him to move out of the aisle so they could use the forklift to get my Contractor Speacial Value Pack of Recessed Lighting. He was like... Me? Why? umm What's going on? What do you need me for? I was just ...um.. We need you to come out of the aisle for your safety. Oh...um.. Okay. Anyway, one of the chief reasons I was there was to pick up the hinges for the gargantuan front doors that I have for the house. SO ... when I don't find a big enough hinge, I ask this guy about it... and he says "You need to go to a hardware store for a hinge like that."

Huh?

Am I not in a "Hardware" store right now?

measure for measure

I painstakingly added a visitor hit counter to the site (menu: bottom right) so that I can make myself feel like I am truly a distributor of the word on the streets. I sloshed around the courtyard amidst snowy remnants of a bevy of soft wet white giants that shuffled silently past the city while we slept. Leaving nothing but a fierce gripping chill in their wake, I felt the winter wind wisp its serpentine tail along the all too lonely unfinished wood. Not a house, not a home... just a dream, unvanquished still.

jack frost

It is apparent that despite my frequent requests for climate clemency, the first "official" snowfall of the season is expected for the Washington metropolitan region today and tonight. Windows are still a few days out, Stucco comes after the windows are in... HOWEVER, as I have said on a freekin blow horn for the past four weeks, Stucco needs a minimum of 40 degrees to be applied. So I'm about to be out of luck for a minute. The hope is that there will be a few days of mild dry temperature in the next few weeks and we can jump on it. SO now I have the weather channel GPS matrix hard wired in my dome, trying to predict the ideal time to schedule the stucco folks.

The crew that I have lined up to do the exterior stucco work on the house are the same guys that did this house:

The work that they are going to do will be in the same color family, minus the darker quoins along the edge.

One of the reasons, I selected brown toned stucco is because it has a clean almost "earthen" look. It just seems more natural (despite the none-too-natural insulation board that it adheres to). It will be unique in the neighborhood, but not overly audacious. Plus... the brick exterior of the courtyard will tie the house back down to the predominantly brick streetscape and thus avoid any not-so-neighborly beef.

Speaking of avoiding neighborly beef, I think I should send out holiday cards or something. Kind of a "Hey, howyadoin? Remember me? I'm the overly energetic stranger that waves and smiles when you drive by. You know? Yeah!! Thats me... the guy who checks his makeshift mailbox twice daily, because he thinks its cool that mail actually comes to the house... the guy whose house will hopefully increase your property value, but not your property taxes ... well... umm... Happily Holidays!!... "

when trenchtown man stop laugh an block off traffic...

Late night last night, I stopped in at the 9:30 Club to see my man, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley perform on the Welcome to JamROCK tour.

It was a jumpin.

I mean, I haven't had a wealth of live experiences in my day, but this one, in particular, struck a fire chord in my transplanted soul. It was a musical explosion tantamount to being on a base pounding bridge between my quazi-native soil and my gritty urban environment (a.k.a...down the street from Howard University)

It was live.

So... in the spirit of growing, I had a conversation with a guy, who could relate to the feelings of being born of multiple worlds... existing tangibly in one, but having your heart beat the drum of another. We started talking about the merits of Jerk Seasoning, both process and product.

Long story short... it is going to be necessary to build a respectably sized jerk pit at the site.

The spiritual, savory, and substantive merits of cooking within the earth are so inspiring, that I believe they are right up the alley of growahouse. Now mind you, I have little idea what it would take to build a decent jerk pit. Nor do I know where I will get a readily available supply of pimento branches, banana leaves, and of course, a few sheets of corrugated tin.

But I'm willing to learn.

stressful humpday

So early Early EARLY this morning, I began a process that would have me documenting the sacraficing of kitchen space for more living space over coffee, in a rental truck before work, talking to the oddly tall window rep mid morning, redesigning the first floor staircase over top of a vegetarian sushi combo around noon thirty, taking a parking ticket off my windshield early afternoon, realizing that my staircase solution partially blocked a hallway and was basically useless around... um... lets see... 6-ish, and then a mad dash of stair calculations and ad-hoc structural ideas that all led to me coming up with a solution that, while steeper than I would like, will have me able to get upstairs without climbing a ladder. That’s all I got. Today was long and draining, but tomorrow is a new day. peace out.

humble pie

I've been told that my last post rambled on a bit. I think that is a fair critique. That’s what happens when I let all my "would be" posts collect in my dome and then try and be introspective with my blog... the result is a jumble of ideas, however revolutionary their intent. My bad

I signed a contract last week for my exterior stucco. I did so in the hope that they would get started over the weekend. As with most things lately, my agenda was none too important. The scaffolding and stucco material supplier folks decided that they would not be shipping anything until after the Thanksgiving holiday... which is understandable, but not preferable. It seemed to work out for the best since my guys at the site aren't ready for the stucco guys to come. IN FACT, I think their might be some animosity between the two crews. Perhaps there will be steel cage grudge match in my courtyard? ... A Stucco flyin, sawdust slippin, battle to the death? Good thing I don't have any windows to break[Insert sarcastic shoulder shrug here]

you can do it, we can help...

or can you? I had a conversation with an intelligent young woman who likened the downfall of modern American society to Home Depot. Her point was basically that the individualistic tendencies of modern culture are personified in the motto of America's Home improvement mecca.

"You can do it, we can help."

You, as an individual, as an island unto yourself... can AND Should do "it" yourself.

Don't rely on anyone else.

Do it yourself. It will cost less. You can have more.

An interesting analogy. It speaks to the issue of whether self-reliance is a crutch or not, as well as, an apparent societal obsession with acquisition valued by quantity. It’s all about me. I have been seriously planning on laying down the bamboo wood floors in the house on my own. I think I can handle it. I can buy my hardwood floor materials and install them myself. Yes. Yes, I can. I don't know how right now, but I can learn. It can't be that hard. I don't need to pay some people to come and do this. Not at all. Plus, I can have people over and tell them that I did it.

"Hey, you like the floors? Yeah... well that was all me. yup.. surprised? didn't think I could handle it? Well I showed you, didn't I? I got skills. I did it without you or anyone like you. Its all about me."

I probably wouldn't say it like that, but there is still some truth in there.

Here's the problem with me doing my hardwood floors, myself...

skilled labor

or lack there of.

Instead of going to someone who does floors, I do it myself. I do a semi-decent job. Take that action and multiply it over other house growers. we have a steady growth of cheaper cost, cheaper result floors being installed. It soon becomes cost INeffective for workers to specialize in hardwood floors anymore. As a people, we start to convince ourselves that we are better off, because we have evolved beyond having to depend on some floor guy/gal to set the stage for our bi-weekly swiffer sweeping. BUT... what we are actually doing is watering down quality in lieu of self-affirmation. I am not sure that that is what house growing should be all about.

Why is it so important for me to feel autonomous?

Long story short and analogy together... here we go...

I spent a summer in Rome about 7 or 8 years ago. Every Thursday morning, I went to a butcher to buy my various meats to supplement my pasta dinners for the upcoming week. Every week, same butcher... just meats. I imagine that had I stayed there longer, I would have started to develop more of a relationship with the butcher, but nevertheless... we were cool. I mention this because I trusted the meats from the butcher for two reasons.

They only sell meats.

I'm trusting partly in the product and partly in the person.

The modern supermarket has meats... in fact.... they have people as well.... BUT... I don't trust either of them. The folks working there vary regularly. They could care less about meat. It could be chicken, salmon, or lamb chops... doesn't matter... you want it? how much of it? How much does it weigh? Here you go... plastic wrapped and Styrofoam packaged, price tag made before my eyes. And why would they care? No one one cares about them. Descendants of independent butchers... trained in the ancient art of meat selection and refinement...reduced to an apron and a box of loosely fitting plastic gloves, in an over air-conditioned, back corner of a 40,000 square foot building with no windows. That’s gotta suck..... plus.... there’s all this questionable meat around... I definetely Don't trust the meats. Usually, first check is the expiration date, then the dig to the bottom of the pile for the furthest date in the bin. Hmmm... definitely not signaling "trust." I can walk the aisles of the grocery store and marvel at every item being within a stone's throw of each other. How convienent and clever of us. Point is, the industry was watered down and because we are so used to it, it seems okay.

I think ultimately, Yes, I CAN do it, but.... I need to be careful how much quality and trust in people I am willing to sacrifice for a my own self-aggrandizement.

my apologies

In my attempt to be a master builder for the ages, I have been neglecting my blog. Quick update:

Heating & Air man has roughed in all of his duct work and will be setting the furnace in this week.

Plumbing guys started. They dug up the concrete slab for the first floor bathroom, dropped in the pipes for the third floor bathroom and the kitchen and told me today that I need to give them the specs for the bathtubs and the faucets, so they can rough in their copper lines to the appropriate locations.

I recieved serveral bids to do the exterior skin of the building. Now here is where you get played if you're not careful. For the same work, I got bids ranging from $28,000 to $68,000. Now you tell me that that makes sense.

So things are moving. Things are getting a little hectic, but again... my apologies for the downtime.

as good as it gets

I want to believe that there is going to be a magical moment when my thoughts about how beautiful the symmetry and synergy between architect and contractor can be, comes to fruition. Designer and Implementer.... Imagineer and Manifester....

It could be beautiful.

But instead... it is this.

The this that I speak of is the maylaisse that has me wondering why I'm the only one who wants to finish building this house. I mean... when I go to work, they pay me and I design buildings. Pretty straight forward. But some how, in this C+ student- constant excuse- vortex of residential building "professionals," normal 21st century supply and demand conventions do not apply.

I'm going to try going in to work tomorrow and ... no... actually... I'm going to NOT go in to work tomorrow and when my office calls me and asks me why I'm not there, I'll tell them that I'm waiting for yesterday's paycheck to clear. We'll see how that goes over.

Perhaps the union of which I yearn is an urban myth... a clandestine unicorn... just wishful thinking.

I wish... I wish....

I wish I had the free time, skill, and resources to build this house with friends, family and mid-day cocktails. I wish my house had windows. I wish I hadn't slept through my mechanical systems classes.(All of them) I wish that somebody involved in this project, who is not a loved one or relative, would surprise me with an unprompted, kind gesture.

Who am I kidding... I don't want kindness.... I want accountability.

We've ventured down this path before... so stop acting smug, nephew.