I painted my shed today while Penny was at work. It's done now. I could spend a lot of time talking about the particulars of how I painted it, the colors and the brush types and the tarp and the places where I cut corners, but I won't. I know that stuff already and there's not much point writing about stuff I know. Writing is for about stuff I'm exploring. Stuff that feels real and true as I write it.

I wondered while I painted who I was doing it for. I think I was doing it for my Dad. Or if not for him, then at least because of him. Because it is something I could share with him on the phone if he calls. And it's something he can instantly understand and relate to, because I painted a shed with him once, forty years ago when I was ten and he was my age.

From there I could hear his voice in my head. It's good to paint a shed once in a while. Seals it up, helps it last a while so it doesn't collapse on you. That's the main thing, that you're protecting your investment. It's why I keep up on things around the house.

It's a value he stuck in me, right beside getting drunk on Sundays and making sure you're always busy, and he did it when I was young and defenseless against this sort of thing, value insertion by parents. It is often difficult to surgically remove them once the systems become embedded – even when you identify they've infested your mind and want them gone, there is no clear path to removal.

But on top of the value thing I guess I just don't mind painting. It was a nice day out, the right kind of day to paint, sunny but cool, just hot enough to cure the paint.

So I did that and I smoked cigarettes and I listened to the supergroup prog rock band OSI that I just discovered last week. Lyrics pass through my head as I work.

This quality won't come again

Completely overwhelmed with nothing

I think of when I was lost back in 2018, when I broke up with my partner because of a lack of intimacy. I remember the sense of emptiness.

Compare the quiet to the pain

I remember that too. The quiet of no longer having her around, monopolizing my time and energy and thoughts.

But I was stricken by the pain of loneliness. I couldn't summon the energy to do anything, to try again, to believe in myself. I thought I was ready to live alone again – I've lived alone before and I've felt alone most of my life. But this time it was different. This time the quiet held menace. I didn't know it could.

Just tell them everything is perfect

I remember that too. Telling everyone that I was fine, perfect, so happy to be separated from that woman, that it was my choice, yes of course I'm happier now.

When inside felt anything like that. Inside felt like I had melted into something that pooled around my chest and dragged me downard and I couldn't call for help or tell a single soul about what was happening because if I did I would lose the last bit of myself that makes me a man.

I finished two gallons of paint and realized I needed a third so I ran to the Home Depot even though I was mildly stoned by then, aware that I shouldn't be driving but also aware that studies show that being stoned reduces your driving skills and overall ability to focus by less than ten percent on average. I spoke to a guy a foot shorter than me with a stocky build and stains on his orange store blazer. I realized I shouldn't be making small talk with people younger than me. They don't like it. I don't want to become an old person who imposes himself on others.

I thought of all the times my Dad would make small talk with people in stores when he dragged me around town and how embarrassed I was. But here at his age, I do the same damned thing. I told the Home Depot guy that I needed the extra gallon for the shed, I misjudged it initially at 2 gallons but realized I did need the third. I also thanked him. He smiled. He said good you only need just one more gallon instead of two more gallons, cheaper. He said it in a bright way that made light up for a moment. It wasn't what he said, which was mildly funny and supportive. It was the way he said it, which was kind of warm but with a thread of the New Englander's natural cynicism and practicality coming through. This was how he told me he didn't mind me saying something about myself. That it wasn't an interruption or a bother. It might have even helped him pass time.

And when I got home I pushed through the rest, double coated the street facing side, did the trim with my cheat, and cleaned up. I repeated the OSI album Blood twice in a row. Somewhere in the middle I sat on an old hockey net frame the previous owners left next to the shed and smoked a cigarette, looking at the blue sky and the brilliant sun against yellow leaves on green, green grass and I realized that I was having a wonderful day. That I enjoy days like this, where I don't have to do too much or talk to anyone else. Days which are largely absent of pressure and interruptions from others. They feel freer.

My wife is coming home. Sometimes it fills me with anxiety but I feel good about it today. I think it's because I had a solid block of time to myself to listen to music and just think. No phone, no dog, no work, I put things down and was able to focus on a fairly mindless task, or at least a task that only requires occasional inputs to my body, which freed up my brain to just reminisce, listen to music, crawl-its-own-filesystem and theorize.

I need the spaces.