Monthly Archives: August 2012

What a day.

I’m trying to think of reasons not to kill my driver ’cause the truck needs something else again.

Miss Carol comes home in a foul mood.

My little brother and his little cupcake stand in the driveway working out familial problems via iPhone conference call.

But.

The music washes quietly over everything, gently trying to assuage, to push back the roiling dark blackness. The music tries. But the black seeps into the evening roiling up against us and Tug and Cutter sit staring and wondering.

Miss Carol shrieks and storms.

And I bite down on fuck you, because fuck you leads down roads irretrievable.

So I try- fuck this.

And it seems to maybe work.

Old tile guys prolly would’a rocked back on their thinset smeared kneepads, pushed back their sweat-stained hats on their collective heads and said, boy-you are WAY over-thinking this.

And I was. Mostly ’cause I’m not a thinset smeared old tile guy so I gotta think things through. And through.

Tile, mostly because of it’s permanence is daunting to me. I lay it out, I re-measure and re-lay it out, I look at it from all available angles in all available lighting thinking about how long I’m gonna have to stare at it.

And then I re-lay it all out again.

This weekend my little brother and I poured the shower floors and then, on Sunday, Miss Carol and me laid out the kitchen counter tops. The tiles Miss Carol decided were her heart-throb must-haves are 12×24 big ‘ole homers so layout was even more crucial. As if.

We did it one way. Then we did it another. Then we stared at it and tried it another way.

Then we got dressed and looked at the tile.

Kidding.

Anyway. Long story short we finally got the countertop tiles laid out in a direction and combination that is both pleasing and prolly something we’ll be able to stare at for the rest of our lives.

My little brother and his little cupcake moved in with us a coupla months ago and honestly? things couldn’t be going better. We all get along, I don’t want to kill him and he doesn’t seem to want to kill me.  No rancor and lots of sharing.

It’s been fun. I think we’re actually gonna miss one another when we part ways again.

So it was funny to watch something develop the other night.

Of all of us, what with our differing schedules, Miss Carol always seems to be the one getting home last and latest. Cutter and Tug kinda, sorta, like me. But they loves, lurrrves, Miss Carol. They sit on the couch, staring out the window, impatiently waiting for Miss Carol’s car to round the corner. And when she does, they go wild.

So. Me and my little brother and his cupcake were having cocktails and waiting for Miss Carol when cupcake said, Watch this.

She turned slightly and whispered, is that Miss Carol?

Cutter and Tug went berserk, searching for her and her car. My little brother and his cupcake laughed and I thought, oh shit.

Some time and another cocktail passed and cupcake says softly- is that Miss Carol?

And the boys bolted into action again.

But this time when they came back in Cutter looked at cupcake and goes pfffffttttt. Tug lays down and glares at us.

Uh-oh.

Later on, after dinner, my little brother and his cupcake decide to go for a walk on the beach. She goes out to the florida room to put on her sandals and squeals- why are these wet?

They leave.

Dudes, I say.

Cutter goes pffffttt and Tug nuzzles him.