Clanton Welding

safety!

four days a week i am terribly sweaty, while listening to ac/dc, fleetwood mac, and neil young. these four days a week i am wearing safety glasses (because my dad doesn't want me to poke one of these big blue eyes out of my skull), skinny jeans and work boots. also i am joking around a lot, ignoring men and lugging steel pipe. four days a week i look like a trucker, talk like a sailor, and laugh like a banshee. 

talk shop

Since the semester two weeks ago, I have been working at the welding shop everyday (the above photos is actually my dad's garage [yes, he has a lift in his garage] and not the welding shop) with my dad, my brother and my cousin. I spend a considerable amount of time with my family. And even my cousin, Joe, grew up down the street from us, so we were always together, 

and for years Joe and I worked together at a basket warehouse

but working in the welding shop with them is a completely different experience and I feel like I know them even better. Despite my brother's lack of social desire, he has always been extremely funny and witty, as are most of the people in my family. And I always knew he and my dad were really intelligent, but seeing the insane/amazing/functional pieces that the build out of metal is nothing short of mind blowing. For instance, yesterday I was cutting 3 in pieces of steel pipe for my brother because he was working on some kind of a tank. He had to add three additional threaded holes because pipes were going to be connected. But because of the water level within the tank, the holes, even though they were on different planes, all had to be perfectly even. 

When I sew, I have to do things like this, but I can pin the parts together, I can baste stitch to keep the pieces in place, then sew. But metal is not like that. There is no way to keep something stable and more often that not there is no way to clamp it. It has to be measured, held with a steady hand, then tacked, then welded. I could never, not in a million years, do this. This is something my dad taught my brother to do years ago and it took years for my brother to master. 

Nick also explained electric currents to me and its relationship to welding and some kinds of welding are really poisonous. this kind he had to do in the morning, with a gas mask on his face.

these images are all very interesting and terribly disconnected from my everyday world of arts and letters and looks and books. it is like learning a new language. and everyone keeps telling me i look like rosie the riveter. i don't mind.

rough & tumble: one day fashion three ways

this is me after working 2 jobs one day no make up and finally home. working at the welding shop is no joke. people assume i just sit behind the counter looking cute, but really i am in a dirty shop, wearing big camel colored steel toed work boots and a bandanna tying up my hair, lugging around 40 ft tall steel pipe and drilling on a jig that my dad fabricated. i say tall because it is stacked that tall on a wall and i have to carry it to the jig, drill about 40 holes in the exact same places up and down each pipe (which is why the jig is so smart) then carry the completed pipe somewhere else. i usually look like this but without a kitten (never mind tiger beat, i was on lunch break) and i wear black and purple work gloves.

i have only been working around the shop a few days a week, but i have already reduced 7 lbs and my shoulders, arms and back are getting really strong. i am a very small person to begin with (I am 5 ft 2 and usually around 112 lbs) so to lose weight and gain muscle is nearly impossible. i have been the same size since i was in 8th grade, which is pretty much when i stopped growing. also, i wake up and have new scratches from something i have run into at the shop. like this one on my arm. 

i have one on my cheek under my eye too. tough stuff. some days i work at the shop and at the university. i start out in that bandanna and those boots and quick change to this

which is why wearing my hair all knotted up like this on those days is so helpful.

because even when it is dirty it looks awesome and i can tie a bandanna up to keep my hair out of my face and when i take it down later for class there are no lines from the bandanna (as there would be if i were wearing a headband). 

dead eye grey eye

this week is coming down to the parts where i begin looking worse for the wear. since last saturday i have not slept more than 3 hours a night mostly because i have been so busy that when i try to pause my brain just will not take part. this is causing me to be a super space cadet. yesterday i lectured on a joyce carol oates story and took my ipod to class so i could play dylan's "it's all over now, baby blue" (the story is dedicated to dylan because of this song) and i totally lost/left my ipod there. it is definitely gone gone gone.

i blame this on my subconscious and how i probably sabotaged the ipod because all week i have been making people feel terrible about how unethical and awful apple is, being that my old ipod is the only apple product i've ever owned, and i got it for my birthday 6 years ago, ce la vie. suicide nets. ugh. what a terrible company.

it is just going to make working at the welding shop on my days off from school a little more boring. bowie just makes drilling pipe and lugging heavy steel rods around a little more funky.

hopefully someone found it that digs little richard and girl groups and funk. if not. be damned. oh well. i will buy an mp3 player that does not have an apple on it and hopefully comes in bright orange.

i am so stunt blank out of it, i had to go to two libraries today to find james joyce's dubliners so i could read a story one of my students is writing about. i not only kept going to fitzgerald (for some reason, i could not get fitzgerald outta my skull) but by the time i got the book home and started reading the story, i realized i have definitely already read "the dead". i've read this story at least five times in my recent years.

i cannot keep my eyes open. but i cannot keep them shut either. i need a dream tank. wait. last saturday night i feel asleep in the hot tub. maybe i just need to be submerged in hot water with a scuba mask on my face.