22 (It's like New York without the new york yanks, or better yet without the new york franks)

So I have bought my ticket home for wednesday. I'm going home for one day for Passover. I wasn't really thinking about it until I got the tickets, and im actually pretty excited. Its SO hot today, I'm not even wearing a shirt. I am alone in the bedroom though so its cool. No one I've seen for the past couple hours has been wearing a shirt either. I think we might be going out to dinner tonight, and hopefully my new credit card will work without a problem. I couldn't buy my plane tickets online with it though so I'm a little concerned. 

Friday was a half day but then Alex and I worked on saturday. I have some concerns regarding work; I have been working on the same house for a while now and have been the surrogate crew leader when the real one doesn't feel like working (which was 4 of 5 days this past week) but I originally only started on that house to do tiling. And now there is another house that needs tile done on it and I'm not sure if I will be able to go there and do it, especially if I have to keep filling in for my shitty crew leader. I mean the homeowner calls me now with questions about most everything going on in the house, and the crew leader doesn't know anything about what has been going on, not to mention he really doesn't seem to care. He doesn't, and hasn't ever, written the daily site reports on this house, and the reports were created by him. It makes no sense and honestly I'm really fed up with it. It keeps bearing on my mind and I keep getting irritated by it, probably just because it affects what I will be doing, not just the work in general which he has a knack for slowing down. 

Anyway. New York. I'm happy to go back for that day and a half, get a little cold, see the fam, eat some stuff i otherwise couldn't, maybe pick up some new clothing (seeing as i rewear the same 3 shirts every day...) I have direct flights too! I feel like singing. I wish I didn't sweat so much :(

Construct

De Construct

Re construct

I'm torn. Things can go in so many different directions at this point, and I don't know which way to turn. Life here and life in New York make me so entirely different, and I just am not sure where to throw in the chips. I can live and be happy in both places doing totally different things with my everyday life, and its hard. There are things in me that come from how I have lived for a long time that I can't give up, habits of appearance and the like, but at the same time a lot of things I have given up seem to be worthless to take up again. And it's totally impossible to go back to New York and maintain this way of living. 

And honestly, which one is reality? 

I played monopoly today and I bought a bunch of properties that other people needed in order to get a monopoly and I refused to trade them. You get your claws in enough to everything so you have leverage, and keep other people from getting too much power, and you really throw a wrench in everything. No one likes checks and balances when the goal is domination. 

Thinking on that, last night as we were hanging out we started talking about police and the court system, down here, in California (in reference to the Bart shooting...  http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11977698 ) and I was thinking about how ridiculous the system we live in is. Which brought me to thinking about this song by Crass, called Big A Little A. There's a line in it about how if you don't like the system you shouldn't play the game. I don't want to play, but it's all a game figuring out how to not play as well... 

Oy, the curse and gift of thinking haha...

21 (I don't beg for no rich man, and I don't scream and kick when his shit don't fall in my hands man, cause i know how to steal)

Erin's master bath (Before and after... not done yet though!)

The first 2 pictures are Pug's bedroom, the other floor pictures are Elvin and Pat's room. Both of those are finished and sealed. 

So, been tiling a little bit. The visit was awesome, got some good Zabar's and had some nice time with my mom. It was really good to see her. It was also interesting it pulled me out of my world a little and out of the present, got me on the future tip a little. Ate a loooot, won't be doing that too soon again. Tomorrow I'm doing prep on a floor finally so we can start laying down the hardwood flooring, and also hopefully finish tiling that master bathroom. 

I finally got the usb cord for my camera!

And it's pirates week... hopefully should be fun. saturday night was a little ridiculous. very late. brooke also made me laugh a lot the whole night, im pretty bummed she left. hopefully some sweet new people will show up for long term volunteering. i could use a couple new faces. 

I got the sneezes. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about people i haven't seen in a while, and i wish i could see them. i need more sleep. we had a bbq on sunday and it was really good. im hungry. i think i had something else to post but i forget. ill put up some mardi gras pictures when i get the chance. 

20 (despite the truth that I know, I find it hard to let go and give up on you )

I shaved part of a head today haha

I am eating a granola bar and i am craving food from these places

1. Sansotta Brothers

2. Calle Ocho

3. Matsu

4. T&R

5. Big Nick's

6. Sarabeth

7. Ocean 

8. Ollie's

9. Fresco Tortilla

and some places I wish I could go right now

1. Zabar's

2. Citerella

3. West Side Market

4. Tani

5. The UWS in general but for sure sheep's meadow

6. Gurgi's 

Saw Air Bud on TV today... random

I really hope this week is interesting, I feel like it holds a lot of possibilities

And I cannot wait for Thursday I'm shitting myself thinking about it. not literally. 

I finished the shower today, as much as could be finished! AND Alex told me he's coming back down... see, you just can't stay away once you come down. 

Yesterday was nice, I went out and bummed around the French Quarter a bit, saw a couple songs by a pretty good band, then had a nice hour of waiting for and taking the bus with some girls who are both leaving soon, really unfortunately. I like them both, and a bunch of people are leaving soon. Today is Sarah's last day, Brooke leaves sunday, the next week heather leaves, and then like two weeks from then lil' john leaves too. he's been here foreverrrr. 

i think im finally understanding the frustration with telling short term volunteers about yourself, like today i told these 3 ladies about myself and i did it so many times last week and this whole month, i found myself being rather short with them. i tried to be nice but it just seemed so silly because ryan and i will probably get rid of them before the end of the week, and i'm not even working thursday afternoon or friday, so there's not really a point to talking to them. So many of these college kids come here to make memories with their friends and just don't know anything or care about new orleans. they come here and don't follow the etiquette of the l9 house, they waste paint and stupid stuff and waste time, they are mostly unskilled and just do busy work, or if you try to teach them something like mudding, they usually just fuck it up. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Now don't get me wrong though, they're important and necessary. Just more of a hassle than would be ideal. 

I wish...

I could drive

and had a car

Oh! I think I found myself a job starting in April working at a gelato shop like 3-4 days a week. I really hope it works out...

By the way, the whole world is dirty. Clean is an illusion. just like control. 

19 (You are beautiful)

2 of my friends saw someone get killed last night in front of a bar. it was a hate crime. 

one of the puppies has been gone for a week and these punk ass little kids are the culprits for sure. they go around beating and kidnapping dogs. we think she is dead. 

today is a beautiful day. 

18 (Here is something you can't understand... How I could just KILL a man)

The past 10 days have me a little fucked up, not gonna lie.

Started out with a really strange weekend which has had my head all screwed up and over thinking everything, plus i lost my fucking credit card and that was awful, now im broke and i owe this girl money and i think she's leaving before my card will get here. i also want to go out tonigh but i have literally 2 dollars. which kind of limits my ability to do much of anything. someone is screaming near by. i think its a baby. 

the week started off fine, pretty productive and i have claimed the bathroom as my own project and it worked out so im all over it. i'm a lot slower tiling alone, but i also had to watch the short term volunteers a lot and seal this floor a couple times which took a lot longer than i expected. not to mention someone fucking walked on it before it dried so it looks like crap now :( im really not chill about that at all, not to mention we discovered a TON of setbacks in the house we were previously unaware of, so theres a lot more work to be done. now its true i'd rather have this than lay the hardwood and have it buckle in two years because theres no floor joist under the subflooring, but at the same time its really frustrating. we also were closing up the wall and found that a bunch of studs were water damaged and had to replace those as well which took a ton of time, so the bathroom took a back seat. 

NOT  to mention the fact that my lovely crew leader decided he was too "fucked up from last night" to work yesterday and only came to the work site for 20 mins which was spent onthe phone with the homeowner. then he left me in charge of them without a description of what they should be doing, and proceeded to not call me at all. at lunch i figured he'd be rested and ready to work, but he never picked up or showed up. then at like 2:30 he called and said he was taking care of some insurance bullshit and told me he would be at the site soon. never came. and didnt pick up either, until his friend who lives at the house called him 30 mins before the day was over. 

i have a headache. son of a bitch. today was kind of good but also bad. it was warm and sunny and i had awesome bbq but again my crew leader did no work. he went to the worksite and hung out... and literally did nothing. now i took a much longer break at lunch than normal, but i got a lot done today too, especially because our short termers left at noon. 

im also not in a good mood because of some stupid fucked up things in new york that i cant really deal with, and i cant wrap my head around anyway. 

however i did re-find this thing called PostSecret, the art thing where people send in their secrets anon. to this guy and they go on the postsecret blog. you should search it, its incredibly moving. 

so i found a girl with the same camera as me but she left her usb cord at home too. oh well. 

im realy psyched for my mom to come down, i was thinking about it the other day- she will probably want to see a bunch of cultural stuff, and all i want is mundane luxuries and her company. who will be satisfied first? haha... hopefully both of us. i really need more shampoo. 

im so glad no one reads this. everyone i talk to on the phone asks me about shit i put up on here so they obviously don't keep up with it, so i figure i can pretty much write whatever i want. 

reading post secret made me think of all the things i never say that are true and i dont really admit to anyone, including myself. i still wont put them up here though. i think the lower ninth ward is my favorite neighborhood in america. 

sometimes when i already feel guilty i think everyone is mad at me. im probably just paranoid but whatever. i wish i had long hair. 

17 (Diva is the female version of a hustla of a of a hustla)

Today and yesterday were both kind of bad. No, they were both just bad.

Yesterday I got more frustrated then I have been in a reallly long time. I thought I might explode with anger. Every little thing that another guy on my worksite did pissed me off. Largely because as a long term volunteer he gets a stipend, so he gets compensation and isn't just a bad volunteer, he costs them money. He works a month on a project that took me and Alex 3 days. He doesnt clean up after himself, leaving thin-set (tile adhesive) to dry onto and inbetween the tiles making it impossible to grout without 3 full days of labor by 2 volunteers just scraping. That is fucking ridiculous. And he had a 2'x2' space on the bedroom floor that Alex and I took 2 days to do, and it took him a whole 8 hours to complete this stupid little mosaic. Granted, it was very nice, but it couldve been finished within 3 hours. Now, he's a good kid, but I can't stand shitty work ethic. I hate it more than most things in the world. If this were a company, no one would stand for that shit. And to think that he's gotten much better since I have been back. I was told that like 2 months ago he would come to the house at like noon and watch movies with one of the people that lives there. Ok. So then at the end of yesterday once he had grouted the bedroom and there were 5 minutes left til we had to leave, theres grout all over the floor. huge mess. and hes sitting outside in his van already on the phone. I was going to kill him haha. but i didnt, and he went back in in the evening and cleaned it thankfully. But of course didn't clean the tools and so when we arrived at work this morning we had and extra half hour of cleaning shit up just so we could start working. And largely we started grouting the bathroom that was finished so that he couldn't. We started working on the master bath in mid morning and it went pretty well though it was slow, there were a bunch of complications we didn't expect. Ryan came in a couple times and asked if we would be done with it this week... I hope he doesnt think he's taking over in there, cause that's my project. 

I think tomorrow I will get to home depot to deal with the rotozip bs. Tonight though theres a mandatory meeting for long-term volunteers about dealing with stress and like psychoanalyst bull. I really don't want to go, no one does. It's going to really suck. Plus I have to leave for it in like 15 minutes and I have no idea how long it goes for. I need to eat something before we leave. 

No poems or lists on this one. just notes. I'm not in a bad mood by the way, just venting a bit. Also I'm pretty psyched to get my package tomorrow :-D

16 (Just blame it all on me, say I was shameless)

Today was good, I worked from 10-12:30, and Alex and I finished the floor in Pat's bedroom as well as the last lonely tile in the shower of the bathroom. Finally!

A List of Things in Construction I have SKILLZZ in:

1. painting/priming 

2. mudding/taping

3. sanding/scraping

4. siding (removal and application)

5. flooring (from floor joices to finished floors, removal and application)

6. sheetrocking

7. framing

8. roofing (removal and application)

9. tiling!

Things I would like to acquire skills in:

1. Electrical work

2. Plumbing

3. putting in windows/door hanging

4. Getting better with detailed cuts in sheetrock/tile

5. Grouting 

I also need to work on being able to conceptualize the way things will work without them being done so that I can forsee potential problems or inaccuracies before I get to them. I also would like to get to know some tricks of tiling to cover up ugly edges and all the rest, but I'm sure that really comes with experience rather than anything else.

Today I had a muffeletta. For those of you reading this who do not know what a muffeletta is, it is the largest sandwich every created. I swear they really use a small round loaf of bread, its cut into quarters and its thick full of meats/cheese. I ate half and i felt as though I might explode, or puke. So, I am inquiring about staying longer, through July. If that is possible I think I will definitely go home for Passover, even though I would really like to make a Passover meal here. Maybe I still can even though it won't be exactly on the right day. I got a serious craving for Zabars yesterday. Sometimes there are real pangs of sadness I get when I'm away from the city, but I never really get homesick. Honestly, I could live in another place for the rest of my life as long as I could go back once or twice every couple months. 

NOW, a nap.

15 ( Your bones have been my bedframe and your flesh has been my pillow, I am waiting for sleep)

Sooo, sorry it's been a while since  I updated. The week inbetween has been killer. I switched to tiling, and it's really a lot of fun. I have been using a wet-saw, which is a saw that uses water to offset the cutting and protect the tiles while you cut them. It's very effective and easy to use. I have been working with a super cool guy named Alex, who is from Michigan. He is an EMT (basic) and he has explained a lot of things to me that I had questions about. He is also a great teacher because he had a job doing tiling for like 6 months before he came down here. He is leaving in about a week though, and once that happens I will likely be the one to take over the majority, if not all of the tiling projects that lowernine has. I'm really excited about that! We totally banged out a sweet looking bathroom. Once the next floor is done, I'm going to take some pictures of what it looks like. It really helps that the homeowner is not only one of the nicest and most easy-going ladies, but she also had great taste. NOT to mention her wonderful son barbeques lunch for us pretty often, so Im eating like a king for sure.

The rotozip (a sheetrock saw/tile cutter which is small in size) I bought totally crapped out today though, so I need to get the reciept and return it. I was pretty bummed about that but hopefully it can be resolved next week. 

Good and Bad of the week:

1. Good: Got a lot done and I am looking forward to working on the weekend

2. Bad: The short-term volunteers who were here for the week were REALLY obnoxious

3. Bad: I took too many cold showers this week

4. Good: I went to a sweet open-mic last night that was awesome

5. Good: I'm practicing learning to play pool and I have some really good teachers

6. Bad: I STILL have that shitty rap song in my head

7. Good: I found a sweeeet website with really random lists of things on it (i will post the link below)

8. Good: I got to see my friend Chelsea again before she goes to Costa Rica

9. Good: I have decided to stay through July at lowernine

10. Bad: I'm not sure if there will be room, but I have high hopes. 

11. Bad: I still cant find that usb chord!!!!

12. Good: I made everyone help clean our room and now its beautiful

Overall Verdict: GOOD week :)

P.S: Mudding: After the walls in a house have been sheetrocked/drywalled, there are seams in between which need to be filled for the wall to be smooth. Mudding is the process in which mud (limestone, water, a bunch of other components that make up a mud-like substance) is spread over the seams to fill them. The first step is putting mud in the cracks, and then a sort of tape over it, scraping out the excess, and covering the tape with a nother layer of mud to make it even with the wall.

The next step after mudding and sanding to make it even is then texturing the wall (it helps to cover any imperfections and it looks quite nice), then priming and painting it. However, if you are using tile on the walls it is not necessary to paint the walls or even texture them in the areas that will be covered. In that case, you would use cement backer board (which you screw into the wall or floor), cover that with thin-set (nickname for acrylic tile adhesive) and then lay your tiles. After which comes grout... I digress. Mudding comes long before tiling. 

Another good thing: my knee is almost better from when i scraped it! this means I can return to learning to bike :), which then hopefully will allow me to get to that job interview haha!

 

14 (Is there something that you wanted from her? yes. And is there something that you needed from her? No...)

So last night was pretty interesting.

I didnt go to sleep until 7am... not sure why. but paul stayed up with me and we were talking through the night. it was suprising that there were about 5 people that were around at some point, you know, coming outside at 4am or something. but i really liked it, paul is a really cool kid  and we got to see the sun rise. the dawn light was pretty sweet and the sky was intense. 

Things I would like to deal with pretty soon:

1. get the shitty rap song in my head out finally

2. eat something 

3.this job stuff

4. emt/cpr/whatever

5. biking

Things I am content/happy with:

1. friday i had house duty which was a nice break from mudding

2. thursday i got to sheetrock

3. monday i get to do roofing... even though its with darren

4. my momma might come down next month to visit me

5. were having a bbq tonight

Im not excited about:

1. short term volunteers

2. working on the weekend

3. chelsea leaving

4. i still haven't found my usb chord 

5. its supposed to rain today

you know what? i dont give a shit who reads this. if no one does or if everyone i know reads it, i dont care. im not hiding anything. im obviously not going to write everything, let alone in detail, but im going to write whatever i want. paul just came by and i minimized the window and even though i wrote about him its not a bad thing, and its certainly no secret, so i dont know why i did that. i hate blogs. i really like it here. yesterday was kind of really strange though, over in the french quarter my friend john told me there was a drunk guy walking around with a gun who got arrested right on the corner. pretty strange. not to mention there was a shooting over on north rampart, which is really rare and out of the ordinary. i havent really heard anything about it aside from the shots. 

IT'S ABEL'S BIRTHDAY! HAPPY 101st ABEL :) 

ive made my final judgement about maine: it is full of baby-faced fighting men. hahaha. ohmygoshhhh 

i am hungry i have to go find food. 

13 (Can't you find a clue when your eyes are all painted Sinatra blue?)

So work is pushed back an hour but ive been waking up every hour at least twice since 4. waiting to work. Mardi Gras was fun. the Zulu parade was awesome and i got some useless pony/unicorn on a stick. the parades were great and i got some awesome street food.

 we went out to eat at like 4, and i have no idea where. it was good though. and then i went to sleep at 6pm hahaha. the day was very... exhausting. we were going to get up at 9 and go back out, and most people stayed out a lot later than i did, but i think its probably for the best that i just went to sleep.. i just want to not deal with sillyness and go back to work. i got some good pictures but im sure other peoples are better cause i didnt get a lot of the guys in drag, which was hilarious. i have to find the connector cable for my camera. i promise pictures soon.