Willy Worms & Flooring

The thing is; only trouble comes 'all at once'. I live in an immobile RV. The carpets represent the total census of every bacteria, mold, cigarette ash, dog hair, and rowdy parade of flaura & fauna since 1986. Well now, I'm a Hardwood Floor Guy.
I ripped out the carpet. It did not yield easily. The 1 inch staples holding it down were sewn with admirable progeny.
I walked around on that stained plywood until I lost sense of Time's scale. Had I been looking at (while sitting downcast above, or moping barefoot on) the dirty brown, stained plywood floor a few moments in eternity, or for all eternity every few hours? Somewhere out there, on the horizon of my Hopeful Mind, lies my dream: installing a Floating, Engineered Hardwood Floor (complete with Sound Silencer Underlayment with an Rh value). But first the Work Phone needs to coronet, distracting my attention from my own bored company with this plywood.
Back where I'm from in the Midwest, they say, that come Fall you can tell whether it will be a harsh or mild winter, just by looking at the Willy worms crossing the road. Sparse fuzzies means it will be a mild winter. My instinctual hide is bristling with thick woolly fuzzies already.
To a Hardwood Floor Guy who lives Off-the-Grid of Employment that means that there isn't going to be much work, if any. I despair- for months.
This year I'm preparing. I decided to Paint my plywood floor, then protect it with Floor Finish.
As a Hardwood Floor Guy, I'm a frustrated artist. I've had grand schemes, but no room to experiment. Until now. So, I dug out my copy of Annie Sloan's “Paint Alchemy”. I peruse the pages, over and over.

Lime Wash: a simple paint much used in the past and now admired for its matte, chalky texture. It consists of lime putty, some water, and pigment. Sounds pretty natural.

I begin thinking. I'd like to walk on a floor as fragile as chalk dust, yet as durable as the molecular structure of chalk.
I pull out my copy of “Recipes for SURFACES, Decorative Paint Finishes Made Simple”. I peruse the pages, over and over. Lime Wash always catches my eye. You've seen it Art Films with old Italian Villas.
Faux Marble paints have always wowed me. Why not in my RV? All those different colors should also help camouflage my dirty floor. I peruse some more. “Ragging Off and Cheesecloth-ing: Light over dark” has the soft look I'm imagining.
I feel good. I'm full of the belief that this project is laying away some Nuts of Happiness for my winter. 1

Color?

As a HFG, I prefer natural, light toned wood. It makes small spaces look larger, it's easier to maintain, and they look great. Sign this place up. I'll paint it Apricot- marbled with Cinnamon. I like it.
At the paint store, deep blues kept catching my eye. I took a gradiated sample card, and then picked a complimentary (?) green card. Once I got home and placed the cards in the hallway, along with Mango Juice and other Apricots, I felt I needed to fall back on the ancient concept of what tone a floor should be- something that makes you feel Solid. I went with Azurite Blue (Imagine a deep Mediterranean Sea Blue) and Green Bay Green.

Texture?

Almost every HFG has experienced the misfortune of trying to apply a Floor Finish over a stain that isn't dry enough. What happens is that the texture of the Floor Finish Applicator pulls some color off the stain. I have always wanted to manipulate that technique throughout an entire floor. Home owners always stagger back from me with a look of staturesque fear when I suggest this. In Decorative Painting this technique is called Dragging. The Dragging is done in a lighter colored glaze over a darker color. I bought a thick bristled Roofing brush, in the hopes that I can show brush patterns in the solid, dark blue base color.
For the Faux Marble pattern (in Green Bay Green) I wanted to convey the idea of movement.

Prepping!

It was too Overwhelming. For two days, I languished. Then, I knew: it had to begin today- or- Despair would show up earlier than Willy worms on a Harvest Moon.
Efficient manual labor works one section at a time, with one set of tools. I noticed that my RVs floor space is broken up into 3 sections of plywood. The sections could be seen to separate the kitchen/dining area, from the living/creative area, and the bed&bath section. How nice! I've been trying to suggest that this Hallway of an Abode is three separate living quarters, but my attempts had been greeted with disappointment.
Thinking task(icaly)- The K/D area offered the least resistance, so I started there. Pulling staples, only in that area. Sweeping that, and the surrounding area; sanding with an Orbital Sander (60 grit); vacuum; Spackle: filling all holes, cracks, and assorted imperfections. That cured. I used 120 on the Orbital Sander, vacuumed that all up and applied a coat of Kilz Stain Blocker and Primer. While that was drying, I started prepping the Living/Creative area.

Well... Behind my back, Overwhelming was sucking up my shares of Willingness. “I gotta do the whole floor! With that wickedly long narrow length- how can I paint That to look random, and just not 'chaos for chaos' sake'?” You know, “How can I capture that Japanese Rock Garden Thing? “
Oh, thoughts like 'those' become Spirals Downward with the increasing speed of one of the world's greatest predators, the Peregrine Hawk. I focused on the effort of my backbone where my wishbone had once been lounging. Once you have your sleeves rolled up, you often discover that Life's obstructions often become the solution you seek. (Often is as Often does).- No matter what I do; it will look like three separate floors. There's no hiding the Seams of Plywood. “So go with it”. I'll make three large single pieces of deep sea blue granite stones, one for each separate living quarter, which will gracefully achieve the affect that has alluded me.



The shaping of the Dragging and Marbling pestered me; those chalky colors comforted me, and I thought of an old dream- a tree as old and magical as the first colors in the cosmos had charged me with Heavenly Destiny. That Tree must be in it, but how? And what else? It took me a couple of days to create 3 living environments. But it's been worth the humility of grasping at The Evermore Elusive Floating Whims of Un-gestured Feathers.

The Complete Floor Plan: All the base color will be Azurite Lime Wash, portraying in texture, 3 different realities. Separate living spaces (each with it's own aspect of our Planet and Spirit- Earth). The “L” of the Dining Area will be Drugged Upward in the wave form of the Ying/Yang coupling. The length of it's hallway will convey the boughs of a Deciduous Tree. The Faux Marble Green Bay green will express the movement of boughs Praising the Full Sun.
For many years now, I've wanted to paint a Lilly Pond in my bedroom. That way I can say, “Every day I wake up, I walk on water”. That was the birth of the Lilly Pond idea, but not its geography. I'm opting to paint a Lilly Pond in my Living/Creating Room. The Green Bay Green will create faux lily pads, and I've have to coax some gold fish into it too.
My Bed and Bath will be textured like Big Fluffy Clouds, yet behind them will be the excitement of Green Bay Green Faux heat lightening.
I'm thrilled.
No. The thing is, it's more than that. You see, this winter when Despair is talking shit, I will have spent the night, and woke up with my head in the clouds. I'll make some coffee where the Earth gives birth to the infinite tenacity of life, and I'll sip the nectar of the gods, and go stoke up the Creative Surety of Walking on Water.

None of these leaps from Despair would have possible if I had not first subscribed to Imagination Troubador.

For the first time in my life, I see my down time as The Cycle of Creativity: composing at the the Subconscious Level- transposing it into the Life-Giving Language, and Dreaming in the Unconditional Thunderclouds of Forgiveness.

Toe-Crossed Lovers

I think my toes are Star-Crossed lovers.
It's written in the planets, where omens
come to prosper as sure as tomorrow.

I find myself in curious jams, which I just seem to naturally walk into: the occasional bank robber, an irate husband or more, embarrassing klutzy moments, and 'the proverbial foot in mouth' giddy bastard.

Will you take my Big Toe out on the last Great American Cattle Drive?
My Little Toe is dabbling in West Texan Oil Fields.
My feet are Giants,
Rock, and James Dean.
Before there was Steinbrenner and the Yankees, there was Johnson's Texas and NASA.
My toes, with the burning urgency of puberty, want it all
All God's little children got toes,
some be gifted, some be bone bare
some just stand around with their hands in their pockets
wondering just who the hell they am.

The other day, I had my toes in sand and foam of sea, walking along with sand in my pocket. Carrying sand like loose change, remembering the weight of loose change, and the unconscious comfort of having loose change. I wasn't looking anywhere, aside from inside my head. I stubbed my toe and nearly fell on a woman reading a book on the beach.
She became alarmed. I have this way with women, yet seldom do I have a comforting line. I had caught the title of the book, “Oh, you're reading 'One Summer's Bud'. I know that book. In fact, I once wrote a book called 'One Summer's Bud'. My picture's not in there, is it? My picture was in the one that I authored; first. By the way. Oh, yeah, it's a different book alrighty. But the title. It was the title that was mine. Title is everything. I mean, that's how you find books, isn't it.
No, I didn't actually think that you could be reading my book. It didn't sell very well, on this planet. It had huge sells across The Milky Way, though”.


She had paid her way through Charm School working as a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. After charm school there were athletic scholarships that would blunt a buzz saw. Then she met an Island Boy and ran away. Got into voo-doo, and crossed into the spirit world for a lifetime or two.

One summer afternoon she just appeared on this beach; she found a place to live near-by, and has been coming back every day to read. She's reading the worst fiction first. Because it's comforting to know that her life is far better than theirs, no matter how well-off their assets conclude: Poorly written, haphazardly conceived, boring dialogue, weakly developed; she knows she's better than that, even after the lapse of physical memory within the physical world for the last couple of years.

These were not her exact words. I read it from the energy that radiated from her cheek bone, from the way the light fell across her eyes, and the way her hair moved like aroma. I rubbed my sore toe, and forgot what it was like to know that you're rubbing your sore toe, while I read the heart of a friend.

“Can I ask you a question?', and she went on talking, without a way to get a wrench in sideways, “Why are you talking to me?”

Some friendships don't mean a thing if they don't have that BS thing, and some... well, you can't even imagine bullshitting. “Because, I know who you are”.

“That just can't be. That's all there is to it, and there ain't no more to it, than... it just can't be”.

“Tisk, tisk. Tisk-a-kiddy. Don't you believe that The Heart Ain't in the Details, Babe”.

“I know exactly what you mean. And it's all details. Pure Love and details.

“Then, we agree. We gotta find more places to talk”.

“It may take a Lifetime to arrange it all”, she said.