Meanwhile, our own feng-shui-the-garage project took all summer and included scenarios of asking for both permission and forgiveness.

Trish asked our landlord, GI Jeff, if we could pull up the carpet. She wanted an organic concrete stain and showed me pictures from a magazine that looked like everything from bricks to marble tiles.

Instead of waiting for Trish to be available, I started cutting out swathes of carpet and moving bookshelves. We tried an experiment of sheltering possessions in our tent in the vain hope that we could get the project done in one fell swoop. I’m sad to report that my old sepia toned globe was ruined one night when it rained in an unzipped tent flap.

Eventually we abandoned that idea and switched to the garage sale idea, which, of course, evolved into the take-it-to-the-free box idea. I’m still working on that one.

A quick aside > I’m a frequent caller to Radio 8-Ball on KAOS 89.3 FM, and I called in June to ask what my summer would look like. The answer came from Heather McElhatton’s book Pretty Little Mistakes (instead of a randomly selected CD set to shuffle). Andras read from a random page: “At one point there are over 100 people in the flat ripping and tearing, hauling and moving as quickly as they can.” The main character had put up a sign that read “Everything for free.”

The book is a Choose Your Own Adventure Novel for Adults, and in spite of a diligent and methodical search for this particular passage I could not seem to find it. Until last night. I meditated on the question again and ‘shuffled’ by flipping through the pages several times and stopping on that exact thread; our heroine had been lured to England by an online romance. After he dumped her for his radiologist she took her revenge by opening his flat up to the public for looting.

Back to our garage/ office>

I did get the floor cleared and even painted a yellow accent wall to match the one we’d done in the living room. I seemed a shame to cover most of it with bookcases, so I asked Trish if I could remove the cheap cardboard backing. At first she resisted the idea. They do provide some extra stability, but I convinced her that the benefit would outweigh the risk. Even with books on the shelves we get about ten more square feet of color.

On the floor Trish had wanted stain. I had wanted a fancy epoxy to add an insulating layer of rubbery goodness, but Trish didn’t like any of the color choices. We finally agreed on a stain color named ‘Moroccan Dunes’, in the red-brown family. However, the concrete was actually two tones, and Trish quickly determined that her stain would not achieve the desired effect on either tone.

Exasperated, one evening in the Fred Meyer, I noticed some deeply discounted latex exterior paint. I asked Trish if any of the various colors would work as a substitute. They even had something from the red-brown family, so we settled on that for $5. It turned out to look less like ‘Moroccan Dunes’ than ‘Chicago Abattoir’. That is to say: ‘Ox-blood on the butcher’s apron’. No, I’m joking you. I’m kidding. I’m pulling your leg. However, the office is sort of like my womb away from womb anyway.

We’d been planning to get a new desk for a long time, an upgrade that would correspond with the upgraded computer and desire to leap to a higher standard of living. I had brought the two old desks into the relationship. Uncle Luke had scored the white desk from either the free box area or outside of the dumpster. Jane Galaxy had given me the silver one with drawers. Both were overflowing with junk.

We thought for a while that we could replace them both with an L-shaped computer desk/ work station. Maybe from Ikea.

Of course, we always come back to competing priorities. On the one hand, we’d rather save money for things like retirement or the new dryer we need. On the other hand, we’d rather have a product with supply chain accountability. On the other hand, we’d rather have a future heirloom made by a local craftsman using reclaimed materials and eco-friendly practices. Toward that end we had a guy come over and help with the brainstorming. Unfortunately for him we didn’t know what we were ultimately willing to spend and he couldn’t give us a quote without knowing exactly what we wanted. I almost asked for a quote on a plain 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood with legs. Trish knew I wanted to recreate the table my Grampa Del had made of a door with black pipes for legs, so we looked at old doors and even talked with Windfall Lumber about the cost of several floor boards reclaimed from old Ft. Lewis barracks.

Then Orion and I went to World Market.

They had a large, beautiful and robust desk made of Thai rubberwood with three drawers, the “Tao Desk”. I told Trish, and we both looked at it. It was over $300 with taxes. We thought about it overnight, and shortly before they closed I sent her back to get it. She bought it, but it wouldn’t fit in the car.

The next day I picked it up with the help of Steve Suski’s station wagon, and managed to assemble it by myself though the top weighs nearly a hundred pounds.

Wait, let me go back. This whole project was racing to a conclusion because Trish had arranged to take Orion to Tulsa, OK for her cousin’s wedding. They would be gone for a week, and I was not about to spend it deskless. I did spend the week going through boxes in preparation for our garage sale and for a big playshare (performance and workshop) I was going to give on Humor and Laughter Yoga for the Evergreen Spina Bifida Conference. I booked it before she booked the tickets to Tulsa.

Notice the orange rose linocut on the wall. It was made by Ron in '91.