Ouch

It's been too long. The title and the sentiment have likely appeared sometime in the past in my writings here or at little bits of me. Perhaps in a written journal, somewhere there are words to this effect.

I feel reluctance to write. I don't want to write. I want to write.

It is the effort required to do the latter, well, that gives rise to the former. The idea in the middle is a rationalization meant to buttress my reluctance to take action. I do want to write, practice makes perfect, but I am lazy.

Making a marble mosaic mesh. I spent part of the afternoon and all of this evening slicing 30 centimetre by 30 centimetre Bianco Carrara marble tiles into three-cm-wide strips. Ash-white stone cut with smudged charcoal viens, the marble yielded nicely, for the most part, to the spinning of the blade.

It took about 10 tiles to get my rhythm going, to get a feel for the saw's vibrations and sounds. The whining of the cutting-wheel deepens as the blade slows from being pulled too quickly through the marble. Some pieces cut like butter and others bite back at the stone, threatening to yank it from my hands. The trick is to recognize the sound it makes just before it jams up in mid-cut.

The repetitive motion is tiring and my left hand was sore by the time I had reduced 5 square metres into strips. There are another 2.5 sq. m to be cut, but they will have to wait for another day.

The 30 cm strips will then be cut down to six cm bricks and meshed together with a black marble in a basketweave mosaic. The meshing process brings the tediousness of the task to a whole new level, but in the end, somewhere in the city, someone will have a remarkable bathroom floor.