yep, i'm still working on the drywall and it's the 23rd. this dosen't bode well. i should be done today, because the windows should be here by tomorrow and i want to focus on installing them. i lose the weekend to work, because no matter how much pressure there is, i need my life back for the last weekends of the "summer," and hey, there's another person living in this house who is capable of doing some work. D's actually been helping quite a bit, which makes me less bitter about this whole project. we're still going to be quite behind, and just skidding into the finish line at the last possible second. maybe. so much work left to do and the plumbing isn't even started in the downstairs bathroom. things left to do before the end of the month: some drywall, new windows, painting, trim, the entire bathroom, carpet.

wish us luck, because we're going to need it. that, and an extra couple of weeks.

I'm blogging to loosen up my fingers so i can get back to work. i've been doing drywall in the basement for a couple of days now and my hands are locked into action figures' famous "Kung-Fu" grips. i don't really want to work today but the pressure is on, we're running out of time, and even though D took 3 days off to help me, we only made so much progress. my deal was this: if he wanted to add more work to the list of things to do, he had to do the work. So he had to learn how to tile, because i refused to take on the project. I'm not sure how he feels about manual labour but i can only assume it's not his thing, due to all the swearing. Whereas, i can tell he likes me because he buys me Life cereal, and now i have 3 boxes.

2 weeks to go, and then i get what's left of my life, back.

The drywall is hung in the basement, and taped. I'm trying to finish it and prime by next week. i miss the sun. I'm not doing much besides working and going to Japanese. I'm tired.

Certain events defy comprehension. Some of the same events, as a direct result of their offensive nature, truly discourage any possible bridge between wanting to understand, and actually getting the rationale and ideologly behind mystifying actions. As the people of Beslan start to bury their dead, i'm left with a number of questions for the alleged mixed ethnicity/Chechen force, truly terrorists in my eyes. I know most of them are dead, so they can't explain what they were thinking, and how killing people taking their kids to school was a rational protest, and how the siege could possibly give them leverage for independance. I just don't get it. By doing this, they've alienated even those of us who want to understand all sides to an argument and give everyone a chance to speak. By carefully planning the hostage taking, and then killing a largely innocent population of people who had little, if anything to do with your problem just doesn't make sense. i haven't been able to find any reporting that tries to explain their vantage point, and i'm distressed. I would like it to be insane ranting, that would easily be dismissed as the raving of a group of cult like extremists. I want to separate them from a people who have a completely legitimate claim regarding their violent disenfranchisement. I don't want this situation to become so unreasonable as to facilitate the acts of further genocide "validated" by the quest for revenge. There will be 40 days of orthodox mourning and then (if not before then,) the shit will hit the fan.