{"id":34038,"date":"2017-11-26T15:54:29","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T23:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=34038"},"modified":"2017-11-26T15:57:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T23:57:00","slug":"great-literature-has-many-uses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/26\/great-literature-has-many-uses\/","title":{"rendered":"Great literature has many uses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Drywalling today. Ugh. Far from my favorite job, especially when I’m working alone. I’d have given anything to have help lifting that top piece into place and holding it flat while I screwed it down.<\/p>\n

But I know<\/em> this is a job I can do on my own. I’ve done it before with bigger pieces than this on higher walls than this. I will not<\/em> allow some silly bit of gypsum and paper to defeat me, even if it does seem to outweigh me today and even if I am feeling old, weak, and wimpy.<\/p>\n

First I dragged that bookshelf over and lifted the sheet up on it. That seemed like plenty of work right there. I was already shaking, both from weakness and from apprehension that I’d drop the drywall and break it (along with heaven knows what else in the room) when I tried to lift it the final foot. I just. Could. NOT. I tried slipping a sturdy box between the bookcase and the drywall to achieve that last foot of height, but simply didn’t have the oomph.<\/p>\n

So I went and fetched some helpers, one by one. Thank you Black & Decker for your Complete Guide to Home Repair. Thank you Allen Drury (and Allen Drury and Allen Drury); very glad you wrote such thick novels! Thanks, Harry Turtledove for also writing massive tomes. Finally, bless your witty (and much less verbose) self, Alec Guinness. Your light-and-easy memoir (not shown) lifted that weighty slab of drywall to precisely the height where I could push it into place, then body slam it long enough to get a couple of screws in.<\/p>\n

The moral of this story: Don’t ever let any sweat-stained ignoramus tell you books aren’t good for anything. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drywalling today. Ugh. Far from my favorite job, especially when I’m working alone. I’d have given anything to have help lifting that top piece into place and holding it flat while I screwed it down. But I know this is a job I can do on my own. I’ve done it before with bigger pieces than this on higher walls than this. I will not allow some silly bit of gypsum and paper to defeat me, even if it does seem to outweigh me today and even if I am feeling old, weak, and wimpy. First I dragged that bookshelf…<\/p>\n

Continue readingGreat literature has many uses<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","category-home-improvement","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34038"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34047,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34038\/revisions\/34047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}