Update on the grand scheme of things

How could I choose to move away from this...?

An update on the grand scheme of things: We’re no longer planning on moving to someplace cheaper, and Oats is no longer applying to graduate school for her MFA. I like to think that both of these  goals will again be on the table in the future, but for now neither of them are the focus of our life plan. Instead, we’re staying here and having a baby.

When I write it like that, it makes it sound so easy and tidy, so maybe I’ll rephrase: We’re staying here and trying to make a kid in a biological fashion of some sort, though also thinking that our kid(s) may potentially come to us through other legal means instead, and we’re not certain how any of this will happen, only that we’re committing to working on it.

Oats and I have been discussing this change-in-focus for the past couple months, and our decision was so gradual, that I’ve been forgetting to tell my friends… Until they ask for an update on Oats’ university applications, and I’m all like: “Huh?”

Why the change?  It’s so pragmatic, it hurts.  I mean, I’m excited and eager and all that, but my romantic nature is still off in la-la land while big decisions are being made.  The main points are: We both have secure unionized jobs, we have a 3 bedroom apartment that is owned by our closest friends, and we have the family-style support of said closest friends plus Jag, who is also only a stone’s throw from our door, not to mention a bevy of other excellent friends and chosen family.  To top it off, I’m 30 years old and if my reproductive system is gonna do anything useful, now is a good time to start asking.

Anyway.  Yeah.  So that’s what’s been on my mind lately.  I don’t really have much else to say about it, except all the boring details: Any pregnancy would be carried by me, not Oats; we would use an anonymous donor via a sperm bank, not a known donor; we haven’t yet chosen a bank or donors, or looked into getting a home study for adoption, or consulted a lawyer, or really many of the other little tasks we’re going to take on.  And no, we don’t really have a spare $2000 each month, but are certainly closer to being financially stable than ever before. All we’ve actually *done* is read through the info from the local fertility clinic, a couple books, and researched a little in an attempt to understand the insanity of Health Canada regulations around sperm. (They consider it a drug.  I KID YOU NOT.)

Also, me being me, I’ve become addicted to lurking on a message board where baby-making queers from around the world are chatting about their current tries at conception.  And of course, I’m also charting my basal body temperature every day… Just like I used to years ago, when I had a male, sperm-producing partner, and was trying to avoid pregnancy!  Except back then it was crazy stressful, and now I’m just really stoked about the fun science-experiment-aspect of it.  I recently spat onto a scrap of glass, let it dry, then looked at it through my microscope and was able to predict my upcoming ovulation based on the crystalized patterns of my estrogen-enriched saliva… Science!

The main thing is, we’re off on a bit of an adventure here, different from what we’ve done in the past and from what we’d thought we might be doing.  It’s exciting, and a little crazy, and I guess that’s probably a totally excellent place to be.

It all comes bubbling out

We got a big dump of snow over night, and as always around here, no one was prepared. No winter tires, no plows, not even any salt or sand to throw on the driveway. Driving was out of the question, but I slid and shuffled out to the bus stop with my tools just before dawn. By the time I got there, my foreman texted to say we were canceling work. So I returned home, and spent the rest of the day trying to resolve some UFOs (“unfinished objects”), mostly sewing-related, and watching the latest season of Saturday Night Live. Kristen Wiig slays me.

My mom was visiting this past weekend, which was wonderful in so many ways… We spent a lot of time just talking, and driving around the city and surrounding countryside to all my favourite places.  Her visit also brought up some unexpected thoughts and feelings. I ended up talking about her for the entirety of my therapy session last night, which totally surprised me. That’s been one of the weirdest things about getting my head shrunk each week: Often, I have no idea what’s on my mind until I’m sitting there, and it all comes bubbling out.

Which is the point, I suppose… I mean, if I had it all planned out, maybe I wouldn’t get as much from the sessions, you know?  Though sometimes I do know what I need to discuss: Case in point, it was pretty obvious to me that I needed to talk about how I avoid maintaining contact with a lot of people from my past, from exes to high school friends.  I didn’t know when exactly it was going to come up, but it was on my “list”… The mental list of personal issues I’ve only just realized I’ve been keeping in my head.

My mother said that she doesn’t read blogs because she doesn’t like all the navel-gazing, all the boring dramatic details about peoples’ neurotic little lives.  I laughed, and explained that that’s pretty much my favourite thing.  Sure, I follow lots of topical blogs (mostly food nerds and sewing peeps), but I’ve got a huge affection for a well-written train-wreck, and often chide myself for not revealing enough, for not writing the sort of posts that’d hold my attention.  Of course, it’s fine, in the grander scheme, because writing here is something I do for myself, and I’m perfectly content with a limited audience.

I think about audience a lot these days.  Not just in blogland, but in living my life. Therapy is making me think about the concept of my “life song”, the melody I’m creating with my existence, the story I tell myself and tell others about myself.  (Yes, my shrink is an excellently earthy-type individual.) Using this to frame my daily choices, I’m feeling less stressed than I have in the past.  It’s easier to call out a coworker on some ugly bullshit comment, and to make time for a quick visit with a friend.  It’s also easier to let go: To forgive myself when I don’t live up to my ideals, and to get rid of items I’d thought I’d need to keep because they once meant something to me.  Today I tossed out a box of photos, letters, and artwork by ex-lovers, ex-friends, and people I’m simply not close to any more.  I didn’t even look at them, and I don’t regret it.  In my story, they’re still there, and I’m okay with that… But in my apartment, that junk was taking up valuable space, which simply wouldn’t do.

Giddy at the dawn

It’s the second day of winter, and I’m at home, doing laundry and making food in preparation for a feast with friends tomorrow night.  Oats and I celebrated Solstice a couple nights ago, and as our chosen family who live upstairs and across the yard will all be out of town, we’ll be spending most of the holiday weekend cat-sitting and hermiting instead of your typical merry-making.  I’m looking forward to this:  A single big dinner party, at the house of another person so that we don’t have to fuss with our own tiny home, and otherwise simply days of no obligations or distractions.  I plan on reading a lot, and sewing.

For a couple years, Oats and I volunteered for the Christmas Eve shift at the community radio station, then went out for noodles.  It was such an excellent alternative to the Christmas focus of everything… I wish I still had my membership at the station, so that we could have done it again.  At least we can still enjoy Chinese food, though… Hopefully on Christmas day, when so many other folks will be digging into their roast turkey.

Growing up, a lot of my friends didn’t do Christmas, or they did it very differently from my family, which celebrated a sort of cynical Anglicanism that erred on the socio-cultural side as opposed to the religious end of things.  Some of my friends followed religions other than Christianity, or different types of Christianity, and some simply didn’t celebrate any holidays.  I didn’t know any pagans, though, or at least that I remember:  No one ever got excited about Solstice, or even talked about the return of the light after the longest night of the year.  Now, it’s so important to me that I can’t imagine not counting down the days or feeling giddy at the dawn.  It’s such a welcome new beginning.

Walking with Mo among the garry oaks and hawthorns this morning, I was completely content, and I realized that I can’t remember the last time I felt so overall optimistic.  While things aren’t perfect, and I’m still struggling with occasional bouts of intense anxiety, my heart is lighter than it has been in ages, and I don’t feel hemmed in by fog like I have in most winters past.  The news of the world is dreary and terrifying, and I’m waking up to the fact that I’m okay.

It’s strange, and wonderful.

A happy Solstice to you, from all of us at FG HQ… May your new season be similarly filled with hope and joy!

 

And a spot opened up.

Or rather, the surgeons made one: They decided to fit my stepmom into their schedules for Monday or possibly Tuesday of this upcoming week. She had less than a day’s notice for her last day of working at her job, because the hospital needes to run a lot more tests before the surgery: It caused a total scramble, but she says it’s preferable to the waiting. Also, this way she’ll be avoiding holiday stress, simply by being too drugged and busy recovering to really worry about anything.

My dad said it’s strange to prepare for major surgery when you’re feeling totally fine… Surreal, to try to imagine the pain you’ll be in after it happens. I’m reminded of when Oats had her gallbladder removed, and how she said the post-surgery punched-in-the-gut feeling was still preferable to the gallstone attacks that had her crying in agony. My stepmom has no symptoms, no discomfort, nothing.

The doctors assume it’s cancer. Which is weird to deal with, for my stepmom, because there’s been no diagnosis, no gentle revelation in a private office with an empathetic health professional and a box of tissues. Instead, the discussions have simply and organically morphed, among the many busy surgeons, nurses, and technicians. One minute they was all about a routine colonoscopy, the next they were all about various findings and possible meanings, and eventually the c-word is casually taking up space midway between thoughts on surgery options and recovery times. If it were me, I’d like to think I’d yell, “HOLD UP! SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE CANCER?!!!”

But of course it isn’t me, and my stepmom is a rather reserved person who isn’t exactly given to loud outbursts.

I’m not going to visit. I did look into tickets, but everything between now and the New Year is crazy expensive, and then in January my mother’s coming out here for a week… And also I don’t really want to. Will I regret it? Maybe, but most likely in the way I regret the few misgivings I carry with me: With a healthy dose of resignation, and acceptance that it was the way it was. Or in this case, is the wayt it is. Certainly, if my stepmom gets sick I’ll make an effort to go, and hope to do so anyway in the early summer. For now though, I’m trying to be diligent with phone calls. Also, a special gift… I’m thinking of a subscription to a foodie magazine, one of the more offbeat ones, the kind with articles by hipster chefs who run foodcarts, and instructions for DIY cheesemaking. My stepmom and I are very different when it comes to many things, but a love for culinary writing is something she successfully instilled in me a long time ago.

Tomorrow night is the company holiday party

Tomorrow night is the company holiday party, and I gotta tell you, I’ve been experiencing a bunch of anxiety over it. Adding to my stress is the hard time I’m giving myself for feeling anxious… The wretched voice in my head keeps saying “JUST DON’T LET IT BOTHER YOU!!!”

Which, frankly, is stupidly useless advice.

The fact of the matter is, it’s one thing to be out at work, and quite another to walk into a company event with my genderqueer spouse on my arm (and in fancy formal dress at that). For most folks I’ve met in the trades, the theory of my being queer seems pretty easy to accept, or at least it comes off that way. (Let’s avoid discussing the rumours of what’s said behind my back, shall we?) What I’m not too sure about is how my coworkers will react when they meet Oats: Luckily, she’s exceptionally house-broken and quite charming, but I know from previous experiences that she is nothing like what they are expecting.

(Why? Well, for one, she’ll look better in her suit than they do in theirs… But also because a lot of straight folks seem to expect me to date women who are femme like me, and Oats is instead a very dapper sir… Just the way I like ‘em!)

So? Fuck ‘em, right?

Right!

Except that this is my job, and this is my trade, and I actually really like it.

And every day that I don’t hear some homophobic remark, I get a little more tense, waiting for it to happen. Anticipating. Because after hearing so much anti-gay bullshit at trades school and at my old construction job and wherever else, I simply don’t believe that it’s not going to happen here.

Anyway. In all likelyhood, it’ll all be fine, we’ll have fun, no one will be rude to us, and nothing bad will happen. In all likelyhood, I’ll look cute in my dress and high heels, Oats’ll be the perfect handsome date, and we’ll win one of the outrageous door prizes that are totally outside our lifestyle. (Can you still use a Wii if you don’t own a television?)

Here is the best coping skill I’ve found: Every time I start into an anxiety spiral worrying about the bad stuff, I remind myself of all the people I’ve met in trades who’ve talked to me about the queers in their lives. From the way they’ve each approached me, I get the feeling that for a lot of these guys, it’s a big deal for them to talk about it.

Of course, for some it’s old news: There was the journeyman who casually told me that his son is gay and has too many piercings, which seemed to concern him more than the queer-thing… And there’s Astro, with whom I hope Oats and I will sit at the party tomorrow.

But I also had a trades classmate tell me how upset he was that his favourite cousin tried to commit suicide after the family reacted badly to his coming out. And on a more positive note, another guy at trades school wanted advice on how to best impress this bisexual girl he was crushing out on, when she invited him out a date to the local gay bar. Then there’s my coworker who revealed that when his mother married her girlfriend last year, he was the only one of his siblings to attend the wedding (which was now causing problems between them and him). I could go on, but you see my point: We’re everywhere.

‘Tis the season for therapy

Coldframe in the winter rain, rows of tiny lettuces growing

Truth be told, I’m doing much much better with my mental health compared to how I usually feel this time of year.  And maybe that’s why I’ve started going to therapy: Yeah, I’m feeling shitty, but still have enough energy to try to get help.

I’ve gotten counselling in moments of crisis in the past, but this is the first time I’ve sought out some serious head shrinking as part of a general self-care regimen.  Which is scary.  When in crisis, it’s pretty easy for me to go into someone’s office and just wail about whatever specific trauma has me all fucked up.

But going in there when I’m holding it all together?  Tricky, tricky, tricky.

I found my therapist the usual way: Asked a lot of friends.  Fuck, I love the West Coast!  OF COURSE, everyone has several recommendations, because we heart therapy, hardcore.

I chose mine based on the fact that she’s a pagan, and also because she specifically made mention of respecting “all genders” several times throughout her website, which was a relief from the usual “we welcome clients of different sexualities” or whatever, that I read on other websites.  Just a little nod to those of us who don’t subscribe to the gender binary, but enough to make me feel like I could do this.

And I am, I am doing this:  I’ve only had two sessions, and I won’t pretend that it’s radically changed my life, but it’s… Nice.

Insipid, I know, but I’m not feeling terribly eloquent.

Okay, here’s one thing I will tell you about, that came from therapy:  I realized that I’m not that worried about my stepmom, despite her health scare… I mean, she’s getting the best healthcare in the country, and she’s youngish, and they caught the polyp early.  Selfish person that I am, what’s really stressing me about the whole situation is what it’s bringing up about my place in our family.

Of course I want to go visit during the couple months that my stepmom will be recuperating, but then I really don’t, because I don’t want to set a precedent.  I don’t want them to rely on me, to be that sort of daughter who’ll fly in at a moment’s notice and take care of them. Because this is only the beginning, the start of my four parents’ decline in health… And I love them so much, but I also love my life here on the other side of the country.  If I go, it’s giving fuel to the idea that that’s where I belong, that I’m supposed to spend my life with this family-of-origin as opposed to my family-of-choice. (An idea, I might add, that is most vocally supported by my father and my older sister, and more quietly by others in Ontario.)

Le sigh.

How has therapy changed my experience of this revelation?  Well, in the past I’d get really anxious about such things, so full of angst that I’d get insomnia, fretting over my choices late into the night.  Instead, I just feel sad.  There’s a lot of grief in my heart, grief for the things my family and I haven’t shared since I moved away over ten years ago.

And yet I’m so damn confident that I’m where I need to be, that I spent those ten years doing what I needed to do, that I can’t really get all ramped up and stressed about it.  Instead, I kinda just want to cry.  Which is actually a huge improvement, because crying is something I can do, and afterwards I feel better.

View inside the coldframe: Tiny little lettuces, so far surviving the nightly frosts

6 weeks, or sooner if a spot opens up

Ladder to a roof, which I've climbed too many times to count.

After a short week of looooooooong shifts, I got today off from work. So far I’ve spent most of it cooking and cleaning: Things that get neglected when I’m working a lot. Okay, to be honest, Oats does most of the cleaning around here, so I really was more organizing. The cooking was much needed though, because we’ve been quickly eating through all the stuff I made and froze in the summer. Local carrots and leeks are crazy cheap this week, so soup it is!

My dad texted me at work on Wednesday, asking me to call. Since I was on lunch, I called right away, and learned that my stepmom needs surgery to have some polyps removed from her colon. We barely had any time to talk and it was so loud where I was… When I got home that night, it was too late to call them again, so instead I spent an hour on the internet researching colon polyps.

You know what’s a bad idea? Consulting Dr. Google when you’re trying not to freak out over a health issue.

Anyway, I called my parents last night, when it was only a little past their bedtime, and got the full story. I’m actually glad I’d done some research, because I knew more than a little about everything my stepmom mentioned. The polyp is too big to be removed via colonoscopy, and though an initial biopsy revealed it to be benign, they could only sample a small portion of it so it’s still a concern. Especially since her grandmother died from colon cancer. So, in 6 weeks, or sooner if a spot opens up, the surgeon will remove my stepmom’s polyp laparoscopicly. It’s looking good, all things considered.

I’m trying very hard to remain calm and logical about this.

My dad’s pretty upset, though… And my older sister is being too blase about it all for my taste. I’ll be talking with my younger sister this evening, and have no idea how she’s coping: This is her mother, my stepmom is I mean, and they’re very close.

Le sigh. We’ve been so lucky, my family, to have been relatively untouched by disease and disaster. I try not to take it for granted.

Funny, that this should happen, just when Oats and I have decided we’re definitely not moving to Ontario anytime soon and are most likely staying here for the next year at least… In part due to how damn trying Oats found it, to be visiting her own family there last week.

In other news, I found a dead mouse in the (empty) washing machine this morning. This did not upset me nearly as much as did the second dead mouse, which I found later amidst my clean laundry. It was in bad shape, and my laundry no longer seemed so… Clean. Fuck, I hate vermin.*

* I had a pet mouse as a kid, who was simply lovely… And a pet rat later on in high school, who was also sweet and friendly.  But since then I have lived in waaaaaay too many rodent-infested shitholes, and I draw a firm line between the sort that are pets and the sort that eat my stuff, shit and piss all over everything, and then die messy deaths in bad places. Ick ick ick.

Another Michael.

Once upon a time, I spent a few days at a communal farm on a wooded hilltop in southern Somerset, UK. I was there as a WWOOFer, but the weather was terribly stormy and the hosts didn’t really have much lined up for my friend and I to do. Mostly, I cut firewood in the rain, then dried out by reading Harry Potter aloud to one of the resident kids next to the woodstove in the common kitchen.

One night, all the residents were leaving to go to another community’s dinner, and for some reason or another it was impossible for my friend and I to join them. We accepted this, and bid them all adieu while curling up with books in the lounge hut (Which was a little thatched cabin! So rad!). The beams of their flashlights disappeared as they departed through the trees, and the rain pelted down even harder. Suddenly, a light appeared again, and then at the door was one of the residents: He’d had a change of heart, felt bad about ditching my friend and I, and returned to spend the evening with us.

He was old, this resident, wrinkled and wiry, like a stereotype of an eccentric British man who has decided to run away to a commune in the woods and wear gumboots every day. He’d been the one to pick us up from the local village when we arrived, and seemed more concerned with the role of host than any of the other residents. Not that they were rude, by any means, just… Distant. Distracted. Whereas this old dude was busy, but also making the effort to check in with us throughout each day.

There we were, in a tiny cabin on a rainy hilltop, and we started to share stories. The friend I was traveling with wasn’t exactly my friend really, more like a random punk I had met and decided to force friendship upon. So I didn’t know much about him, other than the fact that he was from Antigonish (anyone from Anti reading this? I know three other people from there, which means I know someone you know!). We were almost strangers, talking about our lives, and it was great.

The old dude told us about growing up in Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as he still called it. In the 1940s, his dad was involved in business there, so he spent his childhood on tea plantations. “I had a friend,” he told us, “Whose name was Michael, same as mine. We constantly got up to mischief together, and caused so much trouble!”

He paused, thought a second, then continued.

“Actually, that Michael moved to Canada later on. We haven’t stayed in touch, but I read about him once. He’s become a rather successful writer, I think. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

I was all of 19-years-old and a know-it-all, so told him that I sincerely doubted it.

“Hmmm,” Michael said.  “One of his books was made into a film, I’m told. Won some awards. I never saw it… The English Patient, was its title. Anyway, yes, it was a marvelous childhood.”

Young FG’s jaw was on the (packed dirt) floor. I mean, really? As the offspring of a bunch of teachers and a librarian, I grew up in homes where Michael Ondaatje‘s books were practically compulsory reading… And this old dude on a hillside in rural England was his childhood friend?!!

How very strange, the places we end up.

Anyway, I told Michael that the other Michael’s books were indeed beloved by many people, including my parents. “Oh, how nice,” he said, genuinely pleased. “How nice.”

I was reminded of this conversation earlier today, when I heard Michael Ondaatje on the radio reading from his latest novel, which is a fictionalized account of his own life experience in Sri Lanka as a kid.  He talked about being very focused on seeking out trouble, and I smiled, remembering the night in the rain when I first heard about these adventures, from another Michael.

Me at 19 years old, traveling and being too cool for just about anything.

Coming out at work, this time ’round.

You would NOT BELIEVE how much time I spent in washrooms, or rather in the ceilings of washrooms, where it always seems that the wiring I'm working on is right above a toilet. Out of the closet, and into a stall...

The first crew I worked with when I started my electrical apprenticeship job back in September was a bit odd.  At the time, I thought my two coworkers were typical of what I’d be experiencing in the company, but after being moved to a few different crews, I realize now that they are exceptions:  Silent, reserved, and socially-awkward, whereas the other dozen or so folks I’ve met are friendly, engaging, and interesting.  So, I didn’t come out as queer, with those first guys.  There simply wasn’t an opportunity, because they didn’t talk much.

From there, I was sent to a giant condo development for a day, where a large crew was working on the initial construction wiring.  Two old classmates from tradeschool were there, and it was great to catch up.  They, of course, know I’m queer, because I was pretty vocal in calling-out the rampant homophobia in our classroom.  No one mentioned it that day, but the journeyman I worked with implied that he knew, with some funny (and otherwise completely non-sequitur!) comments making it clear that he was cool with “teh gays”.  I really liked him, and was sad that we only got so brief a time together.

After that, I was sent to the mall construction site where I was for two weeks.  On my second day, I arrived to find that the foreman, the other apprentice and myself had been joined by another worker:  My buddy Astro.  We bear-hugged, and then just grinned at each other.  The other guys thought we were nuts, because we just couldn’t stop smiling.

Astro is the brother of my friend Starling, who is pretty much the QUEEREST PERSON EVER.  Well, in my life, anyway.  Starling is genderqueer, polyqueer, sexqueer, foodqueer, litqueer, cuddlequeer, bikequeer, lifequeer, just so so so queer.  We first met at the womens’ centre at the university many years ago, then both worked at the organic farm, and just generally have had overlapping lives for a long time.

Astro was actually at the hospital construction site where I first worked two and half years ago, but we never talked until we both got laid off and happened to be at the union hall on the same day.  I mentioned working at the farm, and Astro said that his sibling worked at an organic farm, and we quickly realized it was Starling.  We became friends on a social networking site, and he ended up coming to my birthday party a couple months later. That’s when I found out he’s an artist, a painter with a Fine Arts degree… He and Oats spent a part of the evening talking about her paintings, which cover the walls of our apartment.  I soon found out that Astro also shares my love of post-apocalyptic daydreaming, food preservation, dumpster-diving, and traveling, and has a similar push/pull relationship with academia.  He is soft-spoken and a little nerdy-looking, and more than a little weird and spacey, in all the best ways.

So anyway, to suddenly be working with Astro was an amazing gift.  Not only because he’s hilarious, but because I felt so safe.  I hadn’t been consciously tense about my situation before, but just knowing that I had a solid ally was a huge relief.  Also, it provided the perfect opening to come out to the other two guys, because it was natural that Astro and I would talk about Oats and her dreams of doing an MFA.

As easy as that:  At break one day, sitting in the food court, Astro and I started discussing the challenge of getting a gallery show, and so I told him about the small art gallery that Oats and I booked for our wedding last spring.  He laughed about how the owner confessed she wasn’t too into the paintings of spring flowers that happened to be on display during our rental, but thought that at least they’d be nice, non-complicated backgrounds for our wedding photos… Like Oats and I, Astro is not a fan of “nice, non-complicated” art.  Our other coworkers listened and ate their snacks and eventually when the conversation turned to a broader topic, they joined in.  No big deal, really… But enough of one, to make me feel better.

With my next crew, the one I’m with now, I came out to my primary coworker within five minutes of meeting him:  He commented on how professional my flashlight looked, and I told him that it had been my partner’s, from when she was a security guard many years ago.  Apparently, I told him, it’s the heaviest flashlight allowed without being classified as an actual weapon.  “Wow,” he smiled, amused, and asked to hold it, then it gave some swings through the air like a club before handing it back.

Again, no big deal… But enough of one.

After this, I’m sure word will travel fast.  Apprentices move from crew to crew throughout the company on a pretty regular basis, and everyone always asks who you know, who you’ve worked with, what you think about them… And I’m guessing my being queer will be a little factoid tacked-on to the things people say about me.  Of course, I’m hoping that they’ll also say I’m a fast learner and an easy-going, friendly co-worker, with a good sense of humour.  And they probably will, because I seem to be well-liked.  But I’m pretty certain that as one of very few women in a large trades company, my sexuality will be of interest.  Whatever, I’m over it.  I’m just glad to be out.

(If you want to read about me coming out a little at my first trades job, click here!)

A smartphone in my tool box

Shiny shiny DIN rail, awaiting installation

After years of using hand-me-down cellphones from my dad, I finally decided to get a brand new one of my own… And ended up with a pretty fancy smartphone.  It’s impossible to validate the environmental costs of this choice, so I won’t try.  Instead I’ll just assure you that I plan on using this new phone the same way I do most things:  Until it’s completely worn out.

Having a phone with a pretty good camera integrated into it has totally changed my work as an electrical apprentice! And not just because I can occupy myself with art projects during the slow moments… Though let’s be honest, I’m really into that.

But art aside: Now when I’m sent off into the far reaches of a building to find a sensor or valve or junction box hidden in a ceiling somewhere, I don’t have to rely on my memory of the layout or my hastily scrawled directions! I can simply take photos of the building plans, and bring them up to reference as I search.

It's amazing that this schematic now makes total sense to me, since it sure as hell didn't a couple weeks ago.

When I finally find what I’m looking for, I no longer have to struggle to explain to my foreman what it looks like, how it’s arranged, the specifics of its location:  Instead I show him the photo I took, so he can see for himself.

(…And therefore have confirmation that YES, the sensor is broken in pieces, YES, the valve isn’t connected to anything, YES, there’s no junction box at all and the fucking conduit just turns and disappears into the roof.  Le sigh.)

Why? Why no junction box? Why?!!

As an electrician working in established buildings, I’m often looking at wiring done by previous sparkies, and sometimes replacing things they’ve installed. So, it’s important to know how they wired a component before I remove it, for when I need to rewire the new one.

I always carry a small notebook with me, and even with the camera I take copious notes on everything I do, and really it’s easy to quickly jot what coloured wire was in which labeled connection. Still, it’s even easier to take a photo of the circuit.  I like to take a “before”, with the original component, and an “after”, of how I’ve installed the new one. And then when I’m rewiring the next 40 or so thermostats, I don’t have to translate my notes into something visual: I pull up the “after” photo, and make my new thermostat look like that.  I can also show it to my foreman and get his approval without him needing to physically visit the location of the component.

This is a thermostat, for realz.

I’m not about to start recommending that all electricians or tradespeople start carrying fancy communications gear, or even supposing that having a smartphone is making me a better electrician… Fuck knows I still have a loooooooong way to go in developing those skills!  But in a bunch of small ways, it really is improving my productivity (to use the corporate keyword).  It’s not that my note-taking or descriptive abilities are crappy, because I think they’re actually quite excellent (Seven years of university was good for something).

And yet as someone new to the trade, I don’t always know what I’m seeing, and so have trouble describing it…  Or I don’t even notice issues or errors that’re completely obvious to an experienced tradesperson.  Being able to take a quick photo and use it for my own reference or to explain stuff to my boss just makes my job so much easier.

Also, as mentioned previously, more fun… Because everyone needs to kill time when hanging out at the top of a ladder inside a dropped ceiling by taking ridiculous self-portraits.

I am serious. And inside your ceiling.