I am once again at a point in my life that I'm stripping again. Yes, behind my pretty face is a stripper with a heart of gold and a body with plenty of go left in it. So I'm stripping again. Back when I was in school I turned to stripping, and for a while I was making awesome money. Yup, stripping! Now at 44 it's good to now I still have it in me to take it all off...
Hey, hold on there a minute, where did YOUR mind go?
I'm spending the night on my brother's yatch, so all I have to blog with is my blackberry. It's easier than driving the 32 miles back to my house only to then have to drive out here again tomorrow. Cause I'm stripping at the Marina. And while honestly I'd love it if I were doing the kind of stripping you were thinking of because I love to dance, it's not that kind of stripping. My brother's yatch is all stained and varnished wood. It's also thirty plus years old and looks it. People don't like this kind of stripping anymore, so it's hard to find folks who do it these days. When you do find someone to do it, they want a fortune.
When I was a wee one, I followed my granparnts around like a puppy watching everything they did and learning. My granfathers both worked in wood with their hands. One made things and just painted them, the other made furniture and put serious old world finishes on them. Handrubbed oil and so forth. He also refinished wood of any kind and shape. Stripping the old finishes off and then putting new ones on... Even floors.
So all the Mahogany on my Brother's boat? Yup, I'm stripping it and going to refinish
it when I'm done! See? I'm a stripper! And just as proud as if I were taking off my clothes!
So, now, be honest, how many thought I meant the other kind and stripping? It's okay if your mind went there, you can tell me. Frankly while not everyone thinks so, I think sexwork of all kinds between consenting adults is just fine.
In other news, the day after my seven mile, 24 minute ride I felt . . . Wonderful! Still no pain afterwards, but I'm way more limber and flexible than I was! I'm really digging it, cause getting down to sit onthe floor and back up is WAY easier and no longer painful. Circulation has improved pretty significantly as well. No pain, but plenty of gain! So I'm looking forward to doing more. As for upper body, no worries, I'm getting plenty of a work out with the power sanders taking off the top layers of 30 year old varnish. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it.
I read this last night with an ear to ear smile, but didn't get a chance to respond...
ReplyDeleteOf course I thought you meant something else...you knew I did!
But you make me wish I had paid much more attention when my Dad was doing woodwork instead of mechanical things. I can do somethings, but when it comes time for something major I fall apart!
I'm glad you're sanding instead of doing the chemical stuff...I know it's harder work but I worry about the fumes from all the other stuff! I was very glad when I got "bumped" out of the Paint Shop at GM and went to Chassis because I figured I'd live longer.
Keep warm, my friend!
alan
well it certainly DID catch MY attention! You sneaky little devil!
ReplyDeleteI was lucky when I was young, an literal information sponge. I could watch someone do something even once, and be able to do it myself from that point on. If I then read up on the subject, I could be come an expert. It was my way of dealing with the horrors in my life, and the fact that I felt cut off and isolated from the world. So I learned way more than the average little one does these days.
ReplyDeleteI too am not a huge fan of chemical striping either, and in this case, it wouldn't work anyway. Varnish after a certain age sets up like stone on top of the wood. Quite literally. Mark thought 180-220 sandpaper would do the job, and so I started with that and promply laughed. The belt sander just spun and took off just enough of the shine to turn the whole thing grey. Having been through this with my sister's 300 year old wide eastern pine floors I grabbed a belt of 40, which started slowly taking the top layers of varnish off. It's been a whole punch of work. I spent the last three days working on it, making mountains of dust, and slowly the natural wood is starting to show. Last night, I hurt so much I hit my bed and passed out. Today, I'm taking the day off, in large part because I feel like I was hit by on of the many trains that go by my house.
At one point, Mark asked me why I hadn't used the propane heater to keep warmer than just what the boat could do. I pointed out that while sanding, the air becomes full of small particles of vanish and wood. An open flame like a propane heater would have turned the entire main cabin into a very powerful bomb and blown a major hole in the marina. Later as we were talking and the dust had settled enough, I showed him. With the heater on, I took a small handful of the leavings I hadn't vacuumed yet, and dropped them a foot in front of the propane heater. Phooosh! Big bright flash.
I'm glad you got out of the paintshop, because yeah, even with respirators, still big time dangerous stuff.
As to my writing style, yes, I did do that sort of on purpose. I started writing the piece, and the primary nature of language struck me, how easily words, and the common use of them, could cause one thing to be said, yet another understood. It also struck me that one of the hallmarks of a good writer is to take the reader on a journey, but not always the one they think they are going on, and then challenge them to take their minds out of what they'd though was going on, and get them to see something else.
People have been telling me I'm a wonderful author for years, and I really need to be doing it for money. Goodness knows I've read enough good author's works to have more than a passing acquaintance with the "tricks" of the trade, but I've never actually seen what other people tell me is there. As this post was flowing out of me, it really hit me that maybe they have a point. I can write.
So while I'd not set out to be sneaky Lori, I like my stuff to be fun to read, and not bore people into a coma. I know as I was proofing it, I enjoyed reading it, which was cool.
Gee, and I was looking forward to the lurid descriptions! LOL
ReplyDeleteRemoving varnish sounds waaaay too much like work to me, being the lazy sort that I am. :-)
the capcha word-"billycho", sounds like someone's name in a movie or a book. :-)
Be careful what you wish for Amber (wow, deja conversation?) Knowing what I know now, I have every confidence I probably turn stripping wood in to girl wood fairly easily. I am after all something of a girl porn junky at this point in my life, and the best of it I've even come across is written. Guys just don't know what they are missing (Sorry guys...) when it comes to really good "porn" in written form.
ReplyDelete