It's been a fun year full of new experiences:
editing a magazine,
booking and bartending
at an underground
club, going on tour with
a rock band,
learning to surf, lecturing at
an
art museum, and today--slicing stones in half
with a rented
cup
wheel grinder. I've stopped
booking at the club and am being drawn back
into the simpler, purer world of construction.
The problem was a newly poured foundation
wall needed to have its top leveled off and the
best way to do it was grind away with a 20-lb
screaming machine from Hertz (hurts, don' it?).
The wheel consists of metal rectangular chunks
gritty with industrial diamonds. I donned gloves,
respirator, safety goggles, and ear protection.
Once I got it going, it kicked up an enveloping
cloud of very fine dust, which seeped in under
the goggles and combined with condensation
from the respirator to create an opaque film of
grey grit inside the goggles, making it almost
impossible to see, so I operated more by feel.
It was nice after so much time socializing for a
living to disappear into the anonymity of a
simple task, obscured by dust and insulated
against vision, touch, smell, and sound.
Poof!
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