The Mortification of Unclean Stairs

Stares/Stairs; get it? (OK, so I'm running out of clever headlines.)

It's been hot and humid (in the 90s with nights in the upper 60s), and I'm only running the air conditioner when absolutely necessary. Finances have been carefully planned out, and I've budgeted for the $270 electric bills (about what two months in the summer costs running the A/C full time), but if I can save that, so much the better. Besides, the six weeks of remodel with no A/C at all toughened me. But I still fume when sweat drops fall onto the lenses of my glasses.

The Labor Day weekend was just more sorting and packing for me. And things aren't going as fast as I'd like due to a flareup of my sciatica. It started bothering me significantly in March, when I was constantly being squeezed onto airplanes, sleeping in a different bed every few days, and spending nearly a week bouncing and rocking on the train.

I start out stiff in the morning. The physical sensation is somewhere between sore muscles and a charlie horse, with the discomfort/pain being bilateral. Only when it gets really bad do I have any pains transferring to the legs (which is typical). An ibuprofen and working it out are the only really effective methods of dealing with it. It's my first real old-person's malady, and I accept it with the same dignity as I did my graying hair.

The upshot is that I haven't been moving things as fast as I had planned. Standing at the top of the stairs with a heavy box of books, I take my time going down the two flights of stairs to the garage. Sometimes I forgo the shlepping altogether and just clean and pack. Also, I have been compromising, taking things down just one flight of stairs and collecting boxes in the entryway.

The one thing in the house that's clean is the stairway going up to the bedroom. This is the bamboo that was installed so semi-satisfactorily. I have been trying to get an answer from the folks at ST Builders Group how in the hell to get the wood glue off the bamboo, the bathroom linoleum and the office carpet. After a week, Sam finally called back last Friday, saying he would have a guy here between 11 and noon today.

Of course, no one showed up. But I had swept and mopped the bathroom and stairway in preparation for the work. If we can get the guy here this week, I'll feel lucky. The person with the right solvent and/or technique will spend perhaps 30 minutes cleaning, maybe a little more on the carpet. But it's not a huge job. I could probably have the cleaning ladies tackle it when they do their thing, but I would much rather have someone from the company do it, just in case they screw up.

After getting a few comments about how bleak the last blog entry was, I reread it and, darn if it wasn't just the gloomiest thing I'd read all week. I even wrote a couple e-mails to folks, letting them know that I'm not suicidal, just deflated, defensive and depressed. This condition was middlingly mitigated over the weekend, as in moments of reflection I realized every ounce of effort I put toward getting the house ready is taking me closer to the edge of the friendly cliff. You know, the whole alpha/omega thing: my primary goal is to conclude this portion of my life; my ultimate goal is to launch a heaping helping of Mark 4.0.

When Steve died, I was busy with papers and bills and forms, and it was soooooo good when that part of the death process was over. Now, however, I'm looking at re-entering a new paper phase. Last time, I was formally erasing Steve's existence from the world. This time I will be formally erasing every sign of the home that we shared together. And with the move to Wisconsin, I'm putting the last nail in the coffin of our life together. 'S'gotta be done.

Last entry, I mentioned emptying out the drawers and going through everything. I figured a couple hours, tops. But after 15 years of stuffing crap into drawers, there was a lot to go through. Since the majority of the stuff is Steve's, it often means trying to figure out what this clear plastic doohickey goes to, or getting that urge to save all the loose screws, washers and nuts because they might go to something. There are papers with unlabeled phone numbers, business cards and coupons, AA coins and tiny inspirational books, greeting cards and an endless font of promotional pens that no longer write.

So four boxes took about a week to go through (off and on sorting, since each box results in the creation of three things: a storage box for moving, a donation box for items I don't want, and a trash bag for all the stuff no one wants. The items for the storage box all need to be cleaned and wrapped and carefully boxed and labeled. The donation items need to be wiped down and wrapped enough so they don't break between here and Out of the Closet's sorting facility. Trash is trash, but those in the know will tell you sometimes I have problems even getting that out to the dumpster.

While on box No. 3, I ran across a cinnabar-colored book with a tooled leather cover. It was Steve's final journal (or one of them; I've come across three final journals so far). I skimmed through a bit of it, finding a silhouette of life and dying, with no secrets or details. I then absently leafed through the pages for photos and such possibly stuck in the pages. There was a sealed white envelope with "Mark" written on it in Steve's own hand.

I was kind of creeped out for a second. Now is not the time for some lifelong secret to emerge from the confessional of the grave. After a moment, I opened it and found two pieces of paper: one was a signed "last will and testament" (neither witnessed nor notarized, just a paper he wrote up saying I get everything), and the original copy of our marriage certificate. Did he tell me about this? I don't recall him mentioning it, and I would think he'd put this stuff in our safe place, along with the passports, pink slips, birth certificates, etc. As with all things dealing with the dead, I shall never know what was going through his mind, why he left this.

My emotions were paradoxical, like eating a Peep liberally sprinkled with bitters. At first I was pissed off that, with all the urging I did to get him to fill out a will, this was what he left me. Then I was overcome by all the sweet and quirky things that comprised our life together, and how typical it was of Steve to do something like this. (Avid blog readers will recall that I found the original deed and mortgage documents for the house leaning against a bookcase, under a pillow, in the bedroom. What kind of accountant does that?)

I'm just so glad that I had him in my life for a period of time, and that I got to spend the end of it with him. I'm getting used to the comfort of missing him, and the familiar hollow pain of uninvited moments of grief.

I was going through the house on Friday, assessing where to make my next move, organizationwise, and I realized that there is very little left in the house (save the office/business stuff and the kitchen) that's not organized and/or boxed and ready for storage/donation. I'm sure I'll run across more documents that need shredding before the process is over (I do have one personal box left to go through), but the lion's share of that task is also finished.

This is my job now. None of my clients have pressing graphic needs at the moment, and I don't feel it's ethical to go around town soliciting new clients, knowing I'll only be here for a few more months. Once the house is sold, nothing's finished, just put away. The drive east is going to be the great divide for me, I'm sure.