I have a job now. Building decks and surfacing condo balconies with some sort of plasticky carpet. I am in debt to a friend for thoughtfully recommending me, saving me from the tedious business of trundling resumes from place to place selling myself, which i loathe. This means i will no longer be despicably poor, and i can afford to pay for a few things, pay some debts, get some bounty hunters off my back, maybe even...buy new shoes. Hmm.

This also means that the list of body parts NOT in contant pain makes for very quick writing. It means i get up at 430 in the morning and work, some days, until 430 in the afternoon. And some lucky days, like today, for example, I get to do the above, run home with just enough time to shower and change, and come here, to the cafe, to work until 11 at night. Get home by midnight, and get up 4 hours later. It means i am more thourougly, bone-crushingly exhausted than i can ever remember being, and have reverted to a basic survival mode. Which means if you cheerfully bounce up to me like a happy little squirrel, and i snap at you, or just growl, don't take it personally. Things like diplomatic and polite social interaction, or patience, or outward perkiness, may not be considered efficient uses of energy.

That said, there's a satisfaction to being back in what one friend calls "manwork". I go into the store to pick up a snack, and i am one of them. Sweaty. Sunburned.Covered in dirt. dust. glue. paint. Wearing a harness for hanging off balconies, dangling a dented metal thermos. Thumping around the gutted carcass of a building, stepping over rubble, drywall, lumber, and insulation recklessly strewn about, swinging a hammer and a staple gun, a huge roll of vinyl decking casually tossed over a my shoulder...
Less glamorous, perhaps, would be getting my fingers glued together, shooting myself in the arm with a staple, my ignorance of the relatively basic operation of power drills, air compressors, and the aforementioned homicidal staple gun. Heck, i can't even figure out my vinyl knife. I routinely get lost in the building, forgetting which floor i was just working on.
At times, i'm forced to consider that, as was suggested, i may be "inescapably white collar".

I'm sure I will learn. I have learned more difficult things. And, as i get used to it, i can only hope it will hurt less. Or i will become completely unable to walk. Or i will fall off a balconey, while stapling my foot to the deck and simultaneously dropping a hammer on my head.

I am working in fresh air. There is sun, true, sometimes blazingly hot, but not flourescant light. Sometimes, blessedly, there is a breeze. When i go to work it is early enough to catch the sun practicing its most dramatic purple-pink cloud canvases. I am working with my hands, building something. Leaving something behind. Doing my part in an intricate symphony of trades and specialities, each contributing their planning and expertise, working together to create...another tasteless, unimaginative box condo, a blight on a once charming rural landscape. But at least I get to dangle off fourth floor balconeys and be one of the last to enjoy that landscape. Horses graze in a field on my left, and to my right, beyond a small cluster of sterile, photocopied housing, gently rolling forested hills, fire-tinged in the morning light. If one can mentally edit out all the "development", this is quite a beautiful place.

And while I'm grimacing at the shooting pains in my back, my leg, my shoulder...etc, i have to remind myself that all that money i'm making will be a beautiful thing, too. And I AM grateful to finally have a job, and to have some prospect of earning my keep.