For the past several days the floor lamp in the den has flickered. Occasionally. Somewhat. Was it the new bulbs? If we abandon the pretext of additional nontelevision entertainment, we turn off the floor lamp and on the Anglepoise* clamped to the bookcases on the back wall, because the den must have some light even when we're just watching television because Blake is afraid of the dark. Except the Anglepoise flickered too. It's allowed to die--my mother gave it to me when I graduated from high school in 1986--but it's not as if lamps have a hard life.
* I don't know what this sort of lamp is called in the States. In Possession, it's an Anglepoise.
To avoid the Scary Darkness, I usually turn on the glary overheads with the switch at the top of the stairs, descend, light the floor lamp, and douse the overheads with the switch at the bottom. Tonight for the first time in a while, because it was still light when I spelunked with cockatiel, cockatiel tray, laptop, and decoy book, I didn't bother with the overheads but turned on the lamp and then plugged in my iBook. Flicker fade flicker fade fade fade.
Aha. So I decided it was that outlet. Except both lamps flicker when you plug anything--even a cord without a laptop at the other end--into any of the three outlets on that wall. The circuitry dance commenced.
Now. The den is at the front of the house, downstairs. The bedroom is at the back of the house, upstairs, and the bathroom is next to it. The circuit that controls four of the five outlets in the den (there might be a fifth behind bookcases) and two (but not a third) in my study, but not the overheads, is also the one for the bathroom (all) and the bedroom (overheads and two outlets but not a third). So we can't keep the circuit turned off, but there might be...arcing (for clarity's sake, that should be "arcking," like picnicking and singeing, n'est-ce pas?). That's bad. And difficult to diagnose. And probably requires a certified electrician to fix.
Also we've been trying to figure out how to install a hood in the kitchen. There's not a spare circuit in the junction box. Is that what I mean? what used to be called a fusebox? The range, being gas, doesn't need its own dedicated circuit. Maybe the hood doesn't either. That's just the electricity. Construction-wise...the hood will require cutting out a square of lathe and plaster, nailing 2x6s between the studs, drywalling a patch on, and screwing the hood into the 2x6s.
Also, the walls under the tiles are a fusion of glue and crumbling plaster and backing material and I don't know what else. So now we're hypothesizing granite up the walls for a backsplash, instead of tiles.
And the kitchen might be the lesser of the current house worries.
What have we got ourselves into?
I'm sorry, Haitch, but this is allegedly my "journal," so you'll have to cope.
I usually read myself to sleep. This means that I read, fall asleep, refuse to admit I've fallen asleep for the first few times RDC asks if I'm asleep, and finally mark my place, drop the book on my bedtable, and switch off the light. Often I refuse to admit I'm asleep because the marking and moving and switching might wake me up. Last night I woke from a dream in which I had finished my chapter, moved the post-it that is my bookmark, dropped the book (sometimes I lean it on the bed slat, against the table), and turned off the light. Like Calvin, waking from a dream in which he had already got up, eaten breakfast, and run for the bus, I grumbled that my dreams had become way too literal.
This morning I was grateful to my alarm clock (which hey! means I slept all the way to 6:30!) because it woke me from Yet Another high school dream. Can't I be done with these people yet? Taking French. Being the butt of this one's joke and that one's faux sympathy and the others' perfect blind eyes.
Last entry I mentioned a lamp my mother gave me, for high school graduation, as part of my expected dorm furnishings. Eighteen years, OMFB! Make it stop!