Jeeze I Already Forgot....

what I was going to say here. Must not have been a burning issue, in which case your tender sensibilities have been mercifully spared. I expect to get my shiny new, innocent Paasche VLS airbrush from the Brown Truck tomorrow! YIPPEEEE, I've had to wait um...19 days, but I'm sure it's gonna be worth every moment of anticipation.

Now I have to order paint tomorrow...E'TAC, I want to try that stuff, everyone is raving about it. Oh boy, I'll be broke til 2007, but that's ok, it's gonna be fun if it stays at least 30F, so I can play a bit. Any colder and the paint freezes in the gun and takes days to dry. Guess I didn't tell you about the shop I paint in? I cannot remember, if you have heard this before, go take some coffee while I repeat myself.

The shop is for semi tractors, it has 2 huge bay doors, one on the west and one on the south side, with a normal sized entrance door at the south end of the west wall. At least one is usually open, the shop holds two semi tractors, sans trailers, at a time. Its cold, grimy, gritty and a veritable candy store for anything containing testosterone. Usually there is one bay door wide open, with a semi protruding from it, so if it's 25F outside, it's 25F inside. If by some miracle the doors are closed, the 30 foot open beam ceiling makes it virtually impossible to heat, as all the heat is shot straight up to the roof. There is a monster wood stove (you could comfortably fit 4 grown men horizontally in it) which I am set up next to, so if it is hot, one side of me is roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey. Since heat attracts cold, whichever side is facing away from the fire gets a frigid breeze as the air circulates.

Oh how I wish that Publishers Clearing House van would hurry up and get here already, I would build myself a dandy shop, with insulation, doors that close tight, ceiling fans to circulate the warm air back down, storage, windows so I can see outside, shiny and clean with painted concrete floors. I'd probably even put living quarters in the corner somewhere, since I'd likely be spending so much time there anyway. I get carried away, if my back didn't hurt so horribly, I'd stay out longer than I do, it's so much fun I hate to stop. 7 hours with one quick break is just too hard on the bod.

You back from your coffee yet? Good. I know I neglected to tell you about the ghost in the shop. I go for walks, often at night. When I get back home, sometimes I go to the shop first to look at what I am working on, make decisions, and ponder the fate of cannibal pygmies in darkest Africa. One night, I open the old door with the loose window that rattles and as I step in the pitch blackness, I hear what sounds to me like a large hex bolt and some lighter metallic object hit the concrete floor at the back of the shop behind one of the semi's parked in it. I fumbled for the ill placed light switches and gingerly walk toward the facing semi's to take a look around the other side. I stood between the bumpers, not sure I wanted to find an intruder, so I turn to walk out. Chris's truck isn't all the way in the shop, so the bay doors are open on either side of it, his passenger door is ajar.

I walked back out the door I came in, turning off the lights as I went, and stood for a moment. Curiosity got the better of me, I just had to see who was in there, so I re-entered, turned on the lights again, and looked for a weapon. I walked back to where I heard the noise, there are plenty of hiding places, cupboards, huge boxes, nooks and crannies...I looked on the floor and there was a semi lug nut and a huge metal washer lying on the floor. I stood there for a few minutes, waiting for some noise to give the intruder's whereabouts away, but there was none so I left.

A few nights later Chris and I were in the shop talking, the west bay door was ajar about 3 feet, the south bay door wide open with a truck on the threshold. We were near the east wall where the stove and my airbrush setup is, when we heard the entrance door open (it rattles and makes a hell of a racket), close, open, close, open, close...5 times, very fast and very hard. He started for the door, I ran to the open west bay door and we both peered out. Nobody was there. The parking lot is about 80 feet across and at least twice that wide, there was no way someone could hide. We both looked at eachother and shrugged then went inside and told ghost stories, lol. A few weeks later I started to tell my cousin about what happened and she shrieked "THAT SHOP IS HAUNTED!!! IT'S CREEPY AND I WON'T GO IN IT!" She said when she was very small, my dad had the back door unlocked, so she went in (this was supposed to be an office but was never finished. It's on the north wall, I can't remember if it has a window or not, but I was only in it once when I was quite young. He keeps it locked) and when she got all the way inside she said she "saw a man" in there. She said it scared her so bad she never wanted to go in the shop again. Ahh, boys and girls, there are your bedtime ghost stories. Redrum. :D