Complex math at 5:45 a.m.

If you have to paint 20 kitchen cupboard doors with space to dry only 8 flat at a time, and each door needs to be primed with super-adherent primer that must have 2-4 hours drying time before covering the cupboards (back and front) with at least two coats of furniture paint, and if the furniture paint requires 10-12 hours drying time before re-coating, what is the minimum amount of time that it will take you paint all 20 cupboards and still have between 6-8 hours sleep?  The front of the doors are already primed.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd.... GO!

My thought process at 5:45 a.m. folks.  Shoot me now.   'Cause this painting of kitchen cupboard doors has to happen  at the same time that actual qualified painters are painting walls and ceilings on our main floor, electricians and plumbers are electrifying and plumbing and my husband and father are making sawdust while framing bathrooms and new doors to bedrooms and the basement - one of which areas is located directly adjacent to the only room that has enough floor space to dry the cupboard doors.  I thought I had it all figured out - the fronts of the doors are all primed, I just have to prime the backs and then start with the good paint.  To save on floorspace, I could just mount the doors on the cabinets and paint them while they're upright - even though the painting rules advise one NOT to paint kitchen cupboards this way.

RULES!  I am a rule follower!  I'd be breaking the RULES!!!

But what if I did really, really thin coats of paint?  All I really have to do is finish the fronts of the doors before Friday.  The backs of them can wait until the freaking summer when we'll notice that they're not painted.

WAIT!!  WAAAAAAAAAAIT!!!!!  

We have some sawhorse/work benches in the garage!!! We could take them over and throw some spare 2 x 4s on them and then we'd have an additional flat surface to rest drying cupboard doors on!!!  All 20 doors might be able to dry flat!!!    IT. COULD. WORK!

BUY A HOUSE

In honour of our new house purchase and attending renovations, I'm sharing an earlier bit from my show How To Leave Adolescence at 30 - written and performed in 1999, shortly after we bought our very first home in Toronto.

Buy a House

Upon returning from our honeymoon, David and I realize that for the first time in almost a year, we don’t have a project.  We flail about very briefly in panic like a couple of large bass on a catch and release fishing show before we come up with a new plan.  

We start looking at those Resale Homes magazines that you can get for free at the Shoppers Drug Mart.  It’s this nice little game we have.  It’s called “Let’s Pretend.”  Let’s pretend we are responsible adults.  Let’s pretend that we have enough money for a down payment and can carry a mortgage.  

We pore over magazines and think about where we would like to own OUR home.  Do we want a house?  Do we want a condo?  A LOFT.  Wouldn’t owning a loft be great?  We could be like Laura Holt on Remington Steele with that great loft apartment with exposed brick and beautiful wooden beams.  We could live in an old factory.  It would be so romantic.  And affordable.  Because everyone knows that lofts are an affordable alternative to owning a house. 

We enter the Candy Factory lofts showroom – filled with large windows and exposed brick and beams as far as the eye can see. We smile at one another knowing that we’ve come home.  Then we look at the price sheet.  For approximately 750 square feet of living space you have to part with approximately 400,000 dollars. Check out the security cameras from the Candy Factory Lofts right after David and I see the price sheet. You know that cartoon wolf whose eyes bug right out of his head when he sees the she wolf and he makes that noise that sounds something like AOOOOOOOOGA?  That’s exactly what David and I look like before we run screaming from the building.

We go back to looking at the Resale Homes magazine and make a call to Betty, the agent.  Two weeks later, after having seen 9 houses in total - thereby becoming true housing connoisseurs - we buy house number 4. 

Why don’t you tell them what they’ve won Bob?  

“Heather and David you have just spent the most money of your entire life on a two bedroom fixer upper with 'potential.'  This home features small cramped rooms, sloping, gouged hardwood floors, a delightfully claustrophobic staircase to an uneven second story and a bathroom so small that only a toddler could find comfort in it!” 

We take possession and spend the entire month renovating.  We’re not just talking painting and wallpapering here.  We’re talking major demolition.  We open staircases replace bath fixtures, move walls. We get WAY dirtier than Bob Villa has ever been.  The kind of dirty where you’re afraid to blow your nose at the end of the day.

We lay our own IKEA laminate flooring in the living and dining rooms.  We take a weekend to do it.  You have to pour some glue into each groove and then whack it into place with a hammer and this special groove shaped thingie that IKEA provides you with.  First day, an hour into our operation, I whack my ring finger.  Really hard.  I don’t just whack it, I rip skin off it.  Mindful of the fact that my Mother-in-law is there helping out I manage to say “Wow, that really hurts.”  

I jump up and down a little bit and get a bandage and that’s that.  It hurts, but I am above giving into the pain and a better person for it.  The next day?  Just as we are on our second to last row?  I hit my middle finger, same hand.  All the poise and grace that I had demonstrated the day before leaves me as I collapse into a heap on the floor, wailing and screaming and weeping screaming phrases like “JUST KILL ME!”  David tries to help me up and I wriggle through his arms like a toddler still screaming, "I WANT TO DIE, OH GOD, PLEASE LET ME DIE!!!!"

It takes 4 months for my fingernails to lose their blackened ends.  But you know what?  It’s worth it.  I look around our house and I know that pretty much everything, we did ourselves.  We are creating our home.  And we’re doing it from the inside out.  And every time a person comes in and says “Wow, nice floor,”   I have to smile and say “Yeah, it is.”  

I will not give up these pants!

My ass felt colder than usual when I got out of the car.  When I made it inside and took off my coat - I reached around to feel the seat of my pants.  The seat of my pants was gone.  My entire right cheek was exposed.  My shoulders slumped.  My pants were giving up the ghost.     Over a decade old - castoffs khakis from David that he had probably sourced from Value Village - my painting pants give a visual history of every paint project I have participated in.

The stark white trim from our 1st house in town.  The 1/2 tint Standish White at the 2nd house - with Mayonnaise accents.  The light Lilac from Rissa's room.  The chartreuse and orange from the Cabaret set.  Espresso brown from the front and back stairs to the basement.  Prussian Blue in the bathroom.  Stains and spackle and putty adorn these pants.  They already have a red and white polka-dotted patch from when  left half of the ass went.  I have to keep them up with a belt - they're so baggy - but  I feel like Katharine Hepburn in them, ready to tackle the world with moxy.

These pants are the perfect blend of softness and abrasion.  The fabric so aged - if you look at it too hard it'll tear on its own, and yet there's oil based paint that roughens my hands every time I wipe paint-covered digits on my legs.  I'm a colourful clown in these pants - paired with the striped painting t-shirts I do impromptu soft shoe numbers in between paint strokes.  David looks at me in this get-up and adores me - I will not give up these pants!

Which meant that last night, after my sewing machine refused to comprehend the geometry of the required patching, I sat, pantless, in the family room, in front of old Veronica Mars episodes and I hand-sewed patches to the right ass of my pants.  I'm unwilling to give up their history.  In time, they may well become held together by only the applied patches, but that too will give me joy.

Oh Body - why have you forsaken me?

Yesterday, we began renovations on our new home.  Today, my neck, back and achilles tendons no longer work.  Eight years ago, when we started the same process on our present home, I don't remember feeling like this.

I remember holding the mini-jack hammer and cackling with joy as I exposed the brick in our kitchen.   I remember swinging the mini sledge with ease.  I do NOT remember having to pause every two steps as I moved a bathroom fixture out into the hall.  Sure, a 70 inch whirlpool tub with the motor still attached is heavy, but I used to be able to heft with the best of them.

The majority of my time yesterday was spent applying a rough plaster finish over top of painted wallpaper.  Until yesterday, we hadn't realized that the walls had been wallpapered, nor that many spots on those walls were peeling.  Not a problem!  We'd had a similar issue in a couple of rooms in the old house.  I purchased a 20 lb container of spackle (felt my back twinge as I carried it to the car), brandished my spackling blades and went to work.  It was spectacular spackling!  Problem solved!  I didn't realize there'd been an issue until we'd stopped for dinner at Tim Horton's and I made the mistake of turning my head.

A couple of months back, I rolled over in bed and put my neck out - this time around it wasn't as terrifying - probably because I wasn't half asleep when it happened and I could actually move my head 15 degrees in either direction.  Plus, the "OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?" question was way easier to answer this time around.  I had just spent 2.5 hours moving my right shoulder up and down and up and down and side to side and side to side.  DING!  DING!  DING!!!  That clarified the shit out of this pinched nerve.

My face turned white as I tried to tilt my head back to receive David's kiss in the kitchen this morning - it immediately became apparent that this body of mine needs a tune up.  I'd been putting it off becasue I'd been in the midst of a show and I didn't want to deal with tension then, because I was afraid that if I had a massage, that my immune system would think that it was okay to give up and I'd get sick.  I was WRONG.  I should have had that massage.  'Cause now?  I don't have any spare time and I kind of need to be able to move my neck and back and Achilles tendons.

Bright side?  I did get to spend my first full day in the new house.  And even if it is now covered in shards of drywall and the upstairs bathroom no longer exists and our bedroom only has sub-floor - it's our wee cottage of a home and it WILL be amazing!

When the past comes back to bite you in the ass...

I should have been prepared. It's not like I'm new to this.  I've done shows before - I've suffered from Post-Show Depression.   But this time around - there's a 6 piece set + carry-on of emotional baggage that I hadn't counted on.

As an actor - for concentrated amounts of time - your cast and crew become your family. Generally from tech week through to closing, they're the people you see the most;  the ones you tease, the ones you cuddle, the ones you laugh at/with, the ones you tell to shut the hell up when they're making too much noise backstage.

Five years ago I did another show.  We were a tribe.  We got naked - both emotionally and physically and the fallout PSD from that show was spectacular.  Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth - fallout. Those forged friendships then, bonded some of us together on a cellular level.  We were a mess.  5 years ago, right after HAIR closed, one of my best friends died.  The last conversation I had with Shannon was my coping with the loss of my onstage tribe.

On Sunday night, I closed Jesus Christ Superstar.   Half the cast had also been in HAIR.  Same people. Same bonds.  Same teasing, cuddling and laughing.  I thought that I'd be too busy to fall into PSD.  We're moving - take possession of the house this week - my days and nights are full.  I am too busy for fallout.   Thing is? This time 5 years ago, when I was coping with PSD, I could talk to Shannon.  Shannon, The Queen of Commiseration.  Shannon, the  holder of hands and reminder to breathe.  Shannon,  the depository of secrets and the safe haven to get through the bad.

I dreamt all night of my tribe... Upon waking, my first thought was "I need to talk to Shannon."  My second thought was, "I can't, she's dead."   Hiccuping sobs, near to vomiting, as David smoothed my back and told me it would all be okay.   He doesn't understand though, that the perfect emotional storm has been set into motion. Tamped-down memories from 5 years ago, compounded with new-felt anguish from the loss of this cast and crew to which was added the remembrance of Shannon's death.   My stomach pitched and roiled - I didn't have my sea legs under me until half way through the day.

Stoicism is not amongst my character traits.  I immediately reached out to my friends, old and new, who support and 'get' me - those who suffer along with me as we regain our footing and remember that life goes on - even without those you love within arms' reach at your side. 

Chivalry is not dead.

I parked the car.  It was the first in the lot.  When I opened the door, three inches of freshly fallen powdery snow were at my feet.  The snow around my parking spot and all the way to the loading dock door was pristine.  It was too good to pass up.  I put on my hat, dropped my bag and sat my ass down in the snow.  I lay back, arms and legs outspread and revelled in snow angel creation.

I had risen and was dusting myself off when the loading dock door opened.  It was Riley, one of the dancers from the show.  He's about 16.

"Are you okay?!?"  True concern on his face.  "I saw you on your back in the snow..."

A few days previously, Riley had seen me in the midst of a sugar crash in the green room.  He probably thought I'd passed out.  He'd come to check on me.

I let out a bark of laughter.  I was still brushing snow off my jeans.  "No... Nope.  Just making a snow angel...  But it gives me such joy to discover that chivalry is not dead.  Thanks for checking up on me."

My heart broke at Value Village

The shoes were stunning.  Beautiful burgundy brogues, glowing in the flourescent lights of Value Village.  I spotted them from the end of the women's jackets aisle.    I'm always on the look out for a great pair of mens' shoes for David.  They have to be big shoes, David has massive feet.  Wide, wide, WIDE, flipper feet.  He usually buys an 11.5 or even a 12 to fit his toes into them.

So when I saw these spectacular shoes on the wall, my heart leapt.  They were pristine.  Beatifully polished - I looked at the soles, hardly any wear to them.  The tag said 14+ on them.  They were at least a size 14.  Such a shame - they were actually too large for David.  They'd be like clown shoes on him.  But they were stunning.  Probably from the 50s - I wanted to photograph them and make an encaustic print of them to hang upon my wall, they were so lovely.

Then I spotted another pair of shoes - same size - equally beautiful.  And another... and another.  6 in total.  All beautifully polished, all size 14+.

My heart sank.  These shoes, like everything else in Value Village, had belonged to someone.  They had belonged to someone who cared for them, who polished them, who took pride in wearing them.  These shoes had been donated in bulk.  Not because they were unfashionable or worn out, but because their owner had died.  A man, with size 14+ feet had died.  A snappy dresser of a man who shoed himself in the 50s - was now dead.  I imagined him very tall and thin - like a young Jimmy Stewart, with pleated trousers - possibly suspenders, a quick smile.

My heart sank again.  Who had donated the shoes?  His wife?  His life partner?  Had his surviving loved ones been responsible for the impeccably polished leather?  Had they spent an afternoon polishing these shoes before carefully placing them inside a box?  Before stuffing that box with paper and then taping it shut to go to Value Village?  Had their hands trembled while holding the packing tape?  Had they wept?  I was near to weeping imagining it all.

I started when Rissa placed her hand on my arm.

"What's wrong?"

"These shoes belonged to someone," I said.

She looked confused.  "Didn't they ALL belong to someone?"

"Yes baby, they did.  But this someone is now dead."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

She didn't ask any more questions.  She held my hand and squeezed it.  We stayed quiet for a few moments more before we turned away, still holding hands and walked to the jeans aisle.