There are two kinds of house project: the ones you want to do, and the ones you have to do. This is, sadly, the latter.
Last weekend I designed and built a house for my fridge, so that my fridge would no longer be a house for a mouse. The “house for a mouse” situation is a longer story than I would like, one that begins with some unfortunate design that positions ventilation and other mouse-accessible openings to the motor housing of my preferred brand and configuration of refrigerator (LG; french-door) at floor level and ended with me on the ground behind the fridge with a selection of enormous bottle brushes scrubbing the most foul crime scene I’ve ever seen (or smelled) out of said motor housing with very hot water and vinegar.
But didn’t end. Because the mouse (or its kin, probably) came back.
Mice, it turns out, prefer to stay near the perimeter of a room, so a decently framed refrigerator surround is a good start to keeping the little fuckers out of this extremely inviting home, where drinking water collects in a condensation tray and the motor is nice and warm and there’s a bowl of cat food a short-if-dangerous sprint away. It is theoretically possible that the 119-year-old house is a problem, as well, but anecdotally, my friends with newer houses have just as many mouse issues, if not more, so maybe not. There’s also the issue with these guys,
who love to play with mice but are disappointingly short on killer instinct, and also the spotted one will actually carry them upstairs alive if he gets a chance. So they’re no help at all.
Anyway. The fridge house.
Plywood, sticks, saws, glue. Just a big box. But this is one of those projects I can’t just shrug off when people ask “how do you know how to do that?” because it isn’t really something you can just look at and figure out, unless you have a bizarre affinity for geometry, which I do, and unless you are really, really confident with both a circular saw and a miter saw, which I am. (A jigsaw came into play, as well, but nobody is really confident with a jigsaw.) One catch: we wanted this cabinet to have a back panel, as well as sides and top, because an open back would do nothing to deter guests. Which also required ventilation, but not ventilation the mouse could get through. So it was a slightly complicated situation.
And yet, given the above, it wasn’t hard. I designed the pieces, then I assembled them like a puzzle.
But back to the two kinds of project. I am, in fact, exhausted of things that have to be done. Our last house, which we loved dearly and sold in 2017, had boards on the windows when we moved in. On the strength of our labor—mostly mine, everyone involved will admit—we sold it for 209% of our purchase price. We came away with a solid down payment on this bigger, more fabulous house, plus a much more solid financial footing. The trouble was that this house that I loved with all my heart, the first house I ever lived in that wasn’t a rental, looked like nothing but work, effort, exhaustion by the time we were done. I don’t want that to happen where I live now, but it’s starting to feel like it might. If I let myself contemplate the list of tasks that have to be done here, I get deeply depressed. I wonder if my whole life will be nothing but labor. I begin to believe it might. I long for rest.
DIY culture is a deeply, inherently ableist institution, something I’ll write more about later. At these times, I get the slightest glimpse of how much it asks of a person. Sometimes I want to lay on the floor. Sometimes I say, “I can’t do it.” Sometimes I can’t.
Other times I believe I am manifesting my whole life from pixie dust and scraps. From my own hands and eyes. And I believe that I can.
The danger is that no one can be both the awed petitioner and the man behind the curtain. And I want to be able to see the shimmering lights and to live inside the stardust. Instead, today, I am living in the sawdust. The mice, I hope, will not be.
Since we last spoke, I also made a new novel chapter, a sixth birthday cake, and a sparkly $14 thrift-store chandelier in a bathroom. It’s a lot! I get a giant burst of
creative energy at the end of every teaching semester, usually right around the time I have to start a giant load of grading. I have also done about 2/3 of the grading, which feels like a push toward freedom. Every day I work a little, make a little something, parent, try to find a minute for myself. Almost every day I fail. Almost every day I know I will.