Sid Speaks

Summer 1986

siddhartae — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:01:31 +0000

We arrived with only the clothes on our backs and the shoes on our feet and now all our shoes and clothes are used, secondhand, recycled, bought from thrift stores and Salvation Army booths as we went our way towards here and now. All our clothes are in heaps in our closets. They are ill-fitting and itchy.

Summer 1986

siddhartae — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:06:57 +0000

The door needs repair. The windows need repair. The kitchen needs repair. The bathroom needs repair. The living room needs repair. The garage needs repair. The deck needs repair. The basement needs repair. There’s not a chair in the house that can hold my ass. Not a table to eat on. The bulbs are all busted. The knobs are all loose. All the hinges squeak. The closet doors are lopsided. The beds are on the floor.

Summer 1986

siddhartae — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:58:21 +0000

We move in to the new neighborhood. The residential furniture moving truck company has gone to great lengths at handling our things. From home to plane to ship to home the move has been physically smooth but emotionally wrought and wracking. My brother and I slump against each other’s back on the backseat and listen idly to Mom humming a tune. Dad is leading the carpool to our new home. The residential furniture moving truck company follows lead, snaking through quiet streets, past sleeping houses, across empty playgrounds. I fall asleep on the last ten minutes of the drive. I wake up to Mom and Dad closing the car doors. They stand beside the car, looking at our new home. The residential furniture moving truck company pulls up beside us. Here we are.

House Renovations, Part Four

siddhartae — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:00:35 +0000

I inspect the walls and some are poorer than others. The basement seems pretty okay, but almost all of the third floor has been irrevocably stained. I’ll be giving the drywall contractors a call later this week for a quotation. Between this and the locks and knobs and the janitorial service and the welding work, it’s starting to shape up that it would’ve been better if we left the roaches alone. And this is just the beginning.

House Renovations, Part Three

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:44:25 +0000

Double-checking the locks and knobs, I found two of them – the back porch and the garage – showing signs of either intense wear, or subtle tampering, with me leaning towards the latter. I make a mental note to call the locksmiths later to replace the locks and knobs, maybe beef up parts of the house that are apparently not up to par. It’s a kinda crazy feeling knowing someone actually tried going inside your house and not succeeding and actually trying another point of entry. I’ll ask the locksmiths if they have better locks and knobs this time around. One can never be too careful.

House Renovations, Part Two

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:58:38 +0000

Maybe I can hire a whole janitorial service team, like those cleaning services that take care of entire blocks of buildings? I’ve seen those guys in New York, offering janitorial services and building maintenance for offices. Quite the workforce, honestly. I think I’ll only really need three people to clean up our house in one day, or I can do it alone in five days. Maybe I can hire them all the way from here and hire a transportation service to bring them here in style and be done with all this worrying? It’d take a fleet of quality sedans maybe two weeks to get from New York to California and God knows how much that’d cost me. Will it be cheaper if I get them from Canada? I can maybe hire a Canadian transport service to bring them here. Delusions. Thank God dreams are cheap.

House Renovations, Part One

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:41:10 +0000

A week later and the house is still standing after the Fumigation FUBAR and we still continue to find dead cockroach shells all over the house, mainly in corners, blown awry by the autumn wind. I inspect the place all over and find spots that need repair. The house seems to be under constant rebuilding and repair, even when it’s actually a pretty good place, structure-wise. I just found the gate hinges needing some welding work, and some bits of the chain link fence around the pool needing some reweaving. I’ll have to ask a welder how the gate ought to be fixed. I still know some welding things from my art school days, so I’m pretty confident with arc-light and whatnot, but still, why bother with that if I can get a professional welder in such short notice.

Business Prospects, Part Nine

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:48:12 +0000

I suppose I can always rent out our car for some residential and commercial limo service ’round San Gabriel Valley and San Bernardino. But then again, that’d mean me driving Mom all over town on a tour package she’d probably bitch about too much to too many people.

Business Prospects, Part Eight

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:27:39 +0000

The prospect of investing on – or maybe even starting – a business is a bit nerve-wracking, truth be told. It’s about to be the most adult thing I’ll ever do, next to driving a car and drinking beer. This is really something else. And it won’t be just me putting in money where I think it’ll grow; I’ll need to deal with income tax auditing, accounting and bookkeeping, maybe even mortgages – actual money concerns – and I still don’t know if I have the stomach for that. I mean, I know I can probably hire someone to do my taxes for me, it’s only logical if I do it that way, but still, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still dealing with money – my money – and the idea just doesn’t sit well.

Business Prospects, Part Seven

siddhartae — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:11:19 +0000

For her part, my girlfriend’s suggesting we start a party favors business, ideal gifts for weddings and baby showers, candles and pendants and wedding cake toppers and placecard holders shaped as trees in pots. I’m chalking it up under a hangover from my brother’s wedding. It does sound interesting, and I’d do anything to keep my girlfriend interested in me, and I do have some minimal skill in sculpting, so it wouldn’t be too bad of a move. Wondering, too, if I’m willing to put our relationship through the business wringer. Just as there’s a big issue with mixing family with money, there’s also one with mixing money with your lovelife.