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July 1, first day we gots the house. ^^ that's my mom ^^

Turns out we hallucinated presence of kitchen sink in the back apartment. Now all the appliances are out that lil kitchen looks a lot like any kind of room. At least it still smells like 100 years of cigarettes in there.

We are a little afraid of the house, like a rescue pet that might bite you. There are a million things to do and each task can be subdivided infinitely. How many whole-room coats of paint? I estimate: 40. How many hammer strikes? I don't estimate.

Daylight comes in under the back door. You open it, there are no stairs, just a three-foot void.

The family before us has left us some gifts:

1 mini bottle Goldschlager.

1, mostly full, bottle orange juice.

One "Party Time" frozen pizza.

Later, with dust in my mouth, I will drink the orange juice so grateful.

That first night there are only two things to do: drink champagne, bang on the plaster wall over the fireplace till bricks.

this is like trying to get a label off a glass bottle, picking a scab, sudoku. you gotta get that perfect angle so the big pieces will fall off, very satisfying. start from the bottom and work down. ~10 hrs wall. the ring of hammer on chisel is almost dog-level. we put toilet paper in our ears.

We're three or four hours in here. Everyone has hammered their pointer finger knuckle at least once.

intermission ...

Other gifts from the family before: three bags cement, double dolphin trash can.

Meanwhile, upstairs, we are priming out the darkest blue walls. I find a yellow guitar pick. The window falls out of its frame. Somewhere between blue and not blue is a seriously beautiful primer palimpsest.

We do not prime the inside of the closet where we find tiny footprints on the sloped ceiling and my mother says, "there must have been a bassinet in there."