i guess it's about time i posted again...

i've been so busy this past week. training in manhattan started monday, which means leaving home at 5:50 in the morning to catch the train. a quick subway ride later, i'm walking into the building where I'm enrolled in a six week training program to prepare me for entering an apprenticeship in the union of my choice. options include electrician, painter, plumber, carpenter, elevator mechanic, and many more.

so i've completed four days. the first week consists entirely of classroom experiences; i'm excited about what next week will bring. we've been focusing on math (fractions and more fractions) as well as learning about the different trades and how a union apprenticeship works.

i'm not sure union work is for me, but i'm not going to make a definitive statement until the end of this experience. it's interesting to meet the other women in the project. there are about 16 of us in this group--one, like me, used to be a teacher, and is orthodox (!). another went AWOL from the army because her assignment was changed without her consent to drive trucks in iraq, which is a job with a lot of fatalities. some are super shy, others are boisterous. many are single moms who are looking for a better living. some of us really just want to do something different. a girl that i sit by in class used to work for verizon and commuted 2 hours each way--then she got laid off and so this is the plan.

so...that's it. next week we'll be learning about painting, or doing it--hopefully some of the latter.

my investment in this program is the 12 hour days i put in, the approximately $350 i'll pay for train fares, and six weeks of my life. at the end, i hope to have acquired more skills with tools and materials, and if nothing else, feel more confident in approaching a remodeler or contractor for a job where i can pick up skills.

my sense is that union work is highly specialized--you learn a trade and do that. personally, i'd rather have a variety of skills--some wiring, plumbing, carpentry, and landscaping, which i can offer to clients. so i'm still reading my books and researching possibilities for later.

today, over lunch, i wandered in the direction of the hudson river and came across some galleries and a bookstore in chelsea. the photo above shows "dream raft" by thomas beale (i didn't see the raft--just stole the photo). he works with wood he finds or buys from salvage places.

i think i'll do more wandering over my lunch breaks.

clover

yesterday i repotted plants and set them up by the window on a little bookshelf i saved from the curb. this clover is not one of them...but the green of spring is so invigorating and joyful. dirt under the nails.

yesterday was my last teaching day. it affirmed my decision, because once again, i hated what i was teaching--hated how unnecessary so much of it is, how pointless and hard to grasp for so many of my students. the premise that the same educational process and content will work for all students is simply wrong. those who have failed at algebra repeatedly shouldn't be required to keep trying and failing in order to move on. there is other important math that they could learn. but the system is so inflexible.

some students see their hopes of a degree crumbling because they can't figure out what the heck they are supposed to do with all the x's. and this kid that will pass my class just found out that the extraordinary effort he made is not enough. now he has to pass 4 more math classes to get into the business program he is interested in.

i have two days of testing. this weekend i will write tests. i will also cart math books back to school and do more grading.

meanwhile, people who found out what my plans are have been so encouraging and supportive. i've had people tell me of home repairs they need and give me great ideas:

-"go for it! do it with all your heart!" from a wonderful colleague.

-find a company that installs solar panels. [i found one, nearby.] that way you can find environmentally minded builders as well as clients.

-take some environmental archtecture/engineering courses, so that you can be much more well-informed than the typical builder. your work will be more efficient and you will get more business as a result.

-you may eventually find yourself running a business, which you will have to learn to build. [eek!]

-make sure you know the problem is the teaching job, not you. otherwise, you will have the same problem whereever you go. [quite true.]

-"you're single, you can take the risk, so go for it!"

-"i'm so excited for you! i wish i could do something like that!"

many people suggested that i stay at the job and just do this in the summers and part time. in many ways it makes sense, but i felt that it would be the wrong decision for me at this time. it is so hard for me to make a decision like this. taking the plunge when i'm ready to and jumping into something new and exciting brings with it a certain adrenaline that i can use to propel me forward. if i kept doing what i was really sick of doing, i think it would suck too much energy out of me and cause my new venture to suffer as a result.

i'm 30. the time is now.

herein is peace

again & again i'm reminded of how necessary it is to live with a firm grounding in truth. i'm not really referring to truth as a philosophy, although it could be that too. i mean truth as in your most honest assessment of the present moment.

i am so often tempted to "spin" the facts to my own liking, or to my own convenience. but when i do so i feel a sense of unease.

so i wrote on the palm of my hand, with a black magic marker, the words "accept reality".

after all, reality is all there is.

"cease striving, and know that i am god"
--so says the ever-existing one.

happy earth day

from "the great divorce" by c. s. lewis

"Hell is a state of mind--ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself."

This reminds me of a night (several years ago) when nightmares and foreboding plagued me. I always sleep with earplugs in. It was as if I was floating wretchedly in endless space.

At dawn, I pulled out my earplugs, and what I heard was the most lovely, simple, real thing. It brought me back to earth, back from the whirling torments of a restless mind. A raindrop, landing on my wet windowsill, sounded its single perfect note.

i haven't spent a quiet morning at home in a long while, so it's very peaceful to sit here, drinking coffee, feeling a cool breeze. the sky is overcast outside, but now that we have heat again it doesn't feel quite so ominous.

between the shootings monday and the roads closed due to the raritan river rising and rising (right behind our complex, although we are on a bluff) we were starting to feel a little spooked. add to that no heat or hot water because of flooding in our basement.

but things are back to a semblance of normal, for now. the jade plants are happy that i remembered to raise the blinds for them. just that tiny ritual of caring for two lovely little beings gives me joy.

yesterday the textbook on carpentry (for the vocational building class) arrived in the mail. it's huge, and packed with information.

the day before, my new contract for 07-08 arrived in the mail. it's sad to look at the number of dollars i'll be turning down if i don't sign it. still, my dreams are of houses.

__________

i think there is a common thread running through my love of mathematics, of philosophy/religion, and now of building. there is a large cluster of rules--somewhat intimidating, tangled, and unnecessarily complex. and like a closet filled with some treasures and some junk and desperately in need of sorting, this body of rules draws me. i want to pull it all apart and understand each piece. then, armed with that knowledge, i want to strip the whole thing down to its essentials, so that what was complicated, ugly, and intimidating becomes simple, elegant, and accessible.

the first time i looked at a book explaining how to build a house, i was overwhelmed with the complexity. i was almost turned off. but slowly i'm growing in the hope that it can be done more simply and naturally. i'm learning which systems can be eliminated, and which are essentials.

this is a joyful process! (just as the process of simplifying my religious/philosophical views filled me with a sense of freedom and hope.) of course, there is an inherent arrogance in looking at a system and saying, "i can do it better." and that's before i know anything about it. well, at least i admit it.

what i learned about roofing today at habitat for humanity

(this is all really exciting for me. if it is boring to you, then at least you can be convinced that i have found something i love.)

tar paper goes over the wood. in areas where there's lot of water, you put another kind of tar-rier paper down. flashing goes against the wall, to keep rain from going behind the shingles closest to the wall. moisture is the enemy. it's all about keeping water out of the walls.

shingles begin at the lowest part of the roof and are gradually layered up. you put a double thickness at the beginning. the overlapping is such that everywhere, the shingles are actually two thick. 4 roofing nails to a shingle. the shingles should extend a half inch past the edge of the roof. every other "layer", or course, should begin with a short shingle so that the courses are staggered and cover the gaps between shingles.

in the "valley", the crease where two slopes meet, special 'weaving' techniques ensure that the water that gathers there will be safely funneled down. avoid nailing in the valley as the nails will be more likely to rust.

elsewhere, we make sure that the courses of shingles are well-lined up, use a chalk line and a tape measure to ensure that your shingles are parallel to the edge of the roof. it's easy to get the shingles crooked. it's also easy to erase the chalk lines with your behind if you are scared to stand up on the roof.

near the top you probably will need to trim the shingles so that they stay lined up and go all the way up to the siding (we were working on a roof of a porch, so there was wall above). keep a shingle underneath the shingle you are cutting so you don't cut through and slice your nice roofing job.

the shingles we were working with are called 'architectural shingles'. they have lots of flaps at irregular intervals, so they look fancier than the simpler ones with just three flaps each. habitat for humanity doesn't go for fancy accessories but they get lots of donations and sometimes the donations are for the high end version of a product.

i had so much fun today. i didn't wear sunscreen so i'm a bit burnt. the weather was gorgeous and i was just having the best time enjoying the air. the other people are nice. my hands are a bit raw--i really need to find a pair of gloves that fit and a tool belt. they have equipment there you can borrow, but the gloves are all enormous and the tool belts are little wimpy canvas aprons that slide everywhere.

course description: building and construction basics

This is an introductory course designed for the person with little construction or mechanical knowledge. The course will focus on building and construction basic terminology, theory and practical application as it relates to wood framed construction of a single family dwelling. The main topics of this course will be comprehension of dimension, scheduling sequences, measuring and marking for building location, foundations, framing and sheathing. This is not an all inclusive course for construction finishing, however it touches on each and every aspect of rough construction. The course is an essential for those contemplating contracting or becoming a home inspector.

This is the course I begin this Thursday night.

I also have been accepted into NEW's pre-apprenticeship program. I have mixed feelings about it, as being a union carpenter is not really my goal. Still, it's a positive thing. The ball is rolling. I am just a little scared of making a commitment.

the trees are home.

my painting is home! i like the freshness of the air in the sky. it feels like early summer. also, i love the distant horizon. i miss that here. it's so open.

thank you so much, michael. he graciously touched up the farthest tree at my request right before i brought it home. it was cool to watch and to request red dabs. it makes me want to get some brushes and try, too. here is an earlier version michael posted about on his blog. it looks like winter. was it winter? how did the painting become summer?

maybe the next one you paint for me can be a winter one. but i'm really enjoying having this here. what did you put in its place above your table?

wednesday

i went into the city to interview for the 6 week pre-apprenticeship program.

afterwards, i took the subway up to central park. i walked across, pausing to admire the wonderful american elms in the literary walk. i wrote:

one particular tree has tangled limbs that remind me of very long hair blowing in a seaside wind, tangling hopelessly and beautifully.

the branches are veins pulsing dark mystery into the air.

i was headed for the metropolitan museum of art. the painting above is the one that i was most struck with on this visit.

i usually am not a fan of staring at abstract art forever and trying to figure out what it means. but this one really had me. plus, it's huge and the colors are spectacular. a tempest of red, orange, pink brushstokes, and it's HUGE (112 x 148 inches). It's called 'Galisteo Creek' and Susan Rothenberg is the artist.

as a non-educated art lover, my interpretation is probably too obvious (but it's not trees). what do you see in this painting?

this is funny/beautiful

my dream. all these humans, all these dreams. so much yearning. so much chasing.

franny & zooey

i read this a couple of years ago, but i don't know where my copy went (unless it was borrowed). so i ordered another copy and when i got home yesterday and found it in my mail, i promptly sat down and read it straight through.

in some ways it was better than i remembered, and in other ways more irritating. the narrator seems a little too enamored with his characters and their brilliance, attractiveness, and eccentric family dynamics. also with their endless cigarettes and cigars and where they are placed and how they go out and are relit and so on.

yet the frustration of these young adults with the superficialities of society and academia rings true. their critical stance, and then the realization that the disdain is itself an ugly, destructive force, and the resulting despair--all this is expressed well, even if it takes a long time, and the conversation circles and circles and circles again.

zooey and franny grapple with cliches and easy answers from their philosophical and religious upbringing and seem to arrive at a sort of peace by the last page.

i think i read it too fast, but then again, i'm not sure i could have lingered more slowly in the maddening meandering without losing the train of thought completely.

my jade plant is happy and is budding new shoots everywhere since i put it by the east window.

whew! i just got back from working on a habitat for humanity house. i have a headache, brought on from the lethal combination of dashing out of the house without coffee, too little sleep, and the pounding of hammers & shrill whine of the saw in the next room. it was good, maybe almost fun. the two duplex buildings are getting close to completion--we nailed in the subfloor luan boards that go under linoleum in the kitchen & bathroom. that's pretty much it. nails every four inches in an entire kitchen/dining room. i was pretty bad at driving nails but improved a lot. the other people working there were pretty nice. they were all a lot older than me, many of them retired, i think. i have a lot of respect for 50-something women kneeling on the floor pounding nails.

a lot has happened in the last week. thursday i was up early and took the train into new york to attend the orientation at Nontraditional Employment for Women. they offer pre-apprenticeship training for women in the areas of carpentry, painting, and maybe other stuff like welding & electrician, i'm not sure. i think i was the only person there that was white & had a degree. i felt a little awkward, like i might get yelled at if they knew i had a teaching job and a master's degree. a young woman talked to us about what a day of work is like in these jobs. they pay well, but the work is intense, and you can face some prejudice.

we took three aptitude tests in english & math. a video they showed gave me the impression that the construction they are talking about is in large buildings, and maybe big industrial projects. that is not what i'm interested in. i left feeling a little discouraged--feeling like maybe this thing i'd been counting on to be my way into building wasn't really something i could count on or that i even wanted to be a part of. besides, this is for underprivileged people who can't do something else, right?

but the next day i got a phone call saying they wanted to interview me.

after some reflection i decided that they can disqualify me if they want to, but i'm not going to back out. i'll be open with them about what i want to do, and i think i can gain some useful skills working with them.

i spent the afternoon in brooklyn with b. and the boys. good chats, cute boys, legos, thai food, and my beautiful tree painting is nearly done. can't wait!

friday this unbelievable blizzard started dumping right as i was getting ready to drive up to vermont. i hadn't checked the weather. the internet said it would take about 6-7 hours to get there; it took 12. however, i arrived safely in the end and sank gratefully into bed at the hotel near yestermorrow.

the two-day workshop on building energy-efficient houses loaded us with information. we calculated heat loss through various materials such as wood, drywall, windows, insulation. passive solar means orienting your windows to face south and also putting awnings over your windows so that the summer sun is minimized while winter sun is maximized. you can use trig to calculate the necessary angles to achieve this.

composting toilets, super-insulating walls, stone masonry to surround a wood stove and absorb heat which is then released slowly during the night. floors that absorb winter sunlight and then release it slowly. the specific heat of a material is the rate at which it absorbs and then releases heat.

putting insulation around your foundation so that it can retain the heat that seeps out of the house. different types of foundations. making sure that water drains away from the foundation/basement. types of windows (double pane, low emissivity is pretty standard now). being aware of toxic chemicals in many building materials. arsenic & formaldehyde & carcinogens... knowing about less toxic alternatives. also being sensitive to where materials come from and the impact their manufacture has on the earth. cement isn't dangerous to be around, but the manufacture of a ton of cement releases 1.25 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere!!

about 15 people attended: a mix of builders, interns from yestermorrow, and people who have plans to build houses. the instructor was quite an interesting guy--here's the blurb about him from the yestermorrow website:

From geodesic domes in the 1970s and a community land trust homestead program in rural Maine in 1981, Robert has worked as a project manager, trainer, and consultant for non-profit building projects from inner-city Boston to the hollers of Tennessee. He has focused on passive solar super-insulated buildings, with one of his design/build projects receiving a Citation for Excellence in a national energy/resource-efficient design competition. He is also a ritual leader, vision quest guide, and rites-of-passage facilitator.

it was interesting to chat with some of the others who attended. one guy works for a building company (north of pittsburgh) that specializes in natural/environmentally sensitive building practices. he seemed to know about strawbale construction, among other things. i asked him if i could come and work/volunteer at his job & he gave me his boss's contact information.

i also asked our instructor if i could come up and work on the house he is building this summer. he gave me a less than enthusiastic yes, but it was a yes, nonetheless.

i don't think the style of houses that he builds are exactly what i have in mind, but they are certainly closer in spirit than the traditional style of building.

i want something very small and simple. exceedingly simple. i hate the idea of having so many layers and complexities in the floors and walls and ceilings of your house. however, robert told us about many things that he does not put into houses because he engineers around them. no air circulation/central heating/air conditioning system. no crawl space or basement. so i certainly picked up tips.

[by the way, i really like vermont's landscape and culture. it's a mix of what i think of as out west ruggedness with a little bit of gun rack and some folksy music and a dreadlock or two mixed in. and skiing.]

monday i got on the phone and called habitat for humanity and found options for volunteering on wednesdays and saturdays. i also called the local carpenter's union and was quite intimidated but managed to ask the guy what was involved in getting an apprenticeship. he told me that there was a paper test, a drug test, and then a probationary period (which i guess means if you are a total clutz they'll let you go). i also asked if there was demand for carpenters and he said, 'yeah, we keep pretty busy.'

meanwhile, i'm prepping for calculus, which is really taking up a lot of my time. i'm so used to teaching algebra which i can do with my eyes shut, but calculus stresses me out because i have to memorize everything, like the derivative of the arctangent of x. i can't remember this from when i had it (in 1994!) and i'm requiring my students to know it all, so i'm terrified that i'll be doing a problem at the board and not know some basic fact.

and the funny thing is that i'm enjoying my teaching quite a bit this semester. it's like now that i've stopped trying to be a model faculty member, and don't really go to the annoying faculty meetings, and i have decided that i'm just going to do what is good for my students, not what looks good for tenure...well, it's just a lot more fun.

this has me quite conflicted and confused. i have no idea if i will regret leaving this job. it's so complicated. i feel an obligation to be a sort of guardian to this generation of kids that may be somewhat neglected by their parents, by society. and yet, what am i giving them, really? how to factor a polynomial? what's the good in that? i can love them, teach them self-discipline, and allow them to crash & burn if they choose to do that. but i wish i could spend more time talking to them about life instead of variables and equations.

is it selfish to take time off to learn how to build a house? is what i really want not the actual building (i can be a clutz with a hammer), but perhaps architecture or interior design? i think of both as careers in which you work for the wealthiest 20%. I don't think I'd find it fulfilling to design an interior for an ostentatious home. i prefer the aesthetic of simple living. i'd rather build shelves or do repairs for someone who needs it. i'd like to have a say in the design of the house.

i know it's a lot harder for me to work with my hands than with my mind. and yet i crave the satisfaction of being able to see the fruit of my labors.

wow...i haven't been that sick in a very long time. after nearly an entire weekend in bed, i'm back on my feet and i feel like i'm walking on air. actually i am a little lightheaded still, but much better. good thing this is spring break. getting sick like that has zapped me of my usual drive to do a lot. i'm moving in slow motion, marching to a different drum.

inspiration

this reminds me of dean's house at the coast in ecuador. of course, not terribly practical for new jersey, but lovely, lovely. remeber arboleda? it would work there, too. let the breeze blow through the walls. climb the rafters. (found online.)

see, i don't think i could do fine finish work. i prefer the rustic, simple look. but i know there's artistry in me, too. it's just not the fine woodworking kind.

don't you love that low table? and the plank-style work bench under the window at the left?

this week is spring break. i came down with something last night. even though i'm sick, i feel pretty good. i cleaned up my room and lit candles. curled up & watched a movie. i made a list of fun things to do this week. and i'm going to go to the yestermorrow workshop next weekend. and i'm going to go check out NEW in New York Thursday. i think after this week I'll have more of an idea of what my dream looks like. not much, but a little more.

a friend talked to a friend of his who is a carpenter/remodeler. this guy, chris, seemed happy to let me shadow him at his work sometime. however, he hasn't returned my call. i'm hoping it works out for me to spend time with him at his job.

i'm also reading about home building in a book. this is the update. i love the idea. i love the idea. i just have to get past thinking about this and see if i like the reality, too.

helpful tips for life

1. do what is hard for you.
2. do what is easy for you.

light on stone

this was taken at the exit to a market in cuzco. if i had stayed and taken more than just the one shot i might have gotten something truly spectacular. but i just clicked and walked on. always so self-conscious of being the stereotypical white tourist and not wanting to be.