DIY

A few days ago a friend of mine I adore said, "Hey, Hilary, there is this amazing new store in Silverlake that is all DIY. You want to take a course called women and power tools?"

At the time I scoffed and quaffed some more red wine.

My father was perpetually using me as a child to change tires, to sand paper wood, to hold things while he fixed toilets, windows and doors in our leaky old New England house. As a result I sort of shut down. I had had enough of drills, nails, screws and tools. I can't really do anything very well, though I am not intimidated either.

But that idea took root. I wake up these days thinking, "I would really really like to build some book shelves." We have so many books they are stacked in piles around our bedroom. They are flowing down in cascades from the book shelves we do have, and stacked on every open surface in our home. I love books. They are my best friends. I love other houses with books. I love walking in and seeing what people read, what art books they like, whether they read only high brow literature or only junky, fast-paced novels (I love both!)

We go through our books constantly, giving away books we are done with to people we love, and donating books to our local library. (The last drop-off my husband made to the LA public library the delighted librarian said, we have not had this many books donated since Katie Holmes married Tom Cruise!)

But we have reached the point where I can no longer even find the books we have that I love that I want to reference and use. We are a chaotic library desperately in need of a librarian, and some book shelves.

And I think I can do it. They don't have to be perfect. And I am willing to sand and stain and measure and saw. And I would feel such a tremendous sense of accomplishment if I could build a bookshelf, or two, or three, to make a home for the books I love. So they could be seen, loved, used, appreciated and found.

I am going to go look at the DIY store for inspiration on this rainy day.

Maybe I will be a woman with a power tool.