high cost of a quick fix...

In the movie, As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson's character says, "people who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch" and I happen to agree with the sentiment.  Metaphors are annoying, even more so when they're accurate.  

And so my tiling problems are also relationship woes.

Bare with me.

Here we go....And the miraculous thing about miracle cures is that they rarely cure anything at all...

I globbed this gluey substance on a pointless, seeping shelf in this shower of mine and it promised to prevent leaks, but it took very little of my time and cost very little of my money and worked, well, it worked not at all.

I googled grouting and found this detailed, tedious route to caulking that gave me tiling nightmares.  No kidding.   

So what am I left with?

Shoot - the middle ground.  How dull.   Somewhere between the quick fix and the all day labor lies the answer.

Not the simplest cure, nor the most daunting task, but somewhere in between a nightmare and a quick fix rests the solution, for tile, for shower leaks, for cracking grout and for every single, ingle thing-le.  

Because we're all just tiled together, we're all mosaics, bits and pieces held in place by some thick substance, added onto over time and tacked together with cement, glue, spit and love, collagen, ligaments and maybe some butter or olive oil.

We're all structures in need of repair or remaking at different times and there may well be no easy answer and the good news is, it doesn't have to be so hard to find the solution.   There is this lovely place called middle ground which I can't help but liken to somewhere along the lines of "Stepford", but thats not fair at all.

When something is leaking like a sieve or squeaking like a wheel it needs attention, but knowing how much is the hard part and giving too little leads to a certain result and giving too much is almost as detrimental as too little, because giving too much takes away from who we are and leaves us with less then... 

The middle ground, as lacking in passion as it seems, is really the place where you can be the most creative, the most alive and even the most in-love, in every regard.   In the middle area, you're more free to experiment, not taxed too the max and not happy-go-f-cking lucky.  You're in reality and you're invested, but not enslaved.   When you temper things out, you can actually feel connected, be in reality, aware of your situation and then you can deal with anything.

So whether I'm solving a caulking issue or a talking issue, I hope to find the do-able midland.

The space between easy and hard is where you'll find me waiting for you.