600 Hours of Edward

or nine years old, but I’m not comfortable with such conjecture. If I could find out the boy’s birth date, I would know for sure and would feel more comfortable about the situation. There is a bigdifference between the ages of eight and nine, and in this case, I just don’t know. This frustrates me.
    I have not seen a man over there, and so I wonder whether my neighbor has a husband or her boy has a father. I would be sad to think that he doesn’t, but having a father isn’t necessarily a good thing. I have one, and while he did buy this house for me to live in, he also has his lawyer send me a lot of letters and may not have given any thought to radiant floor heating.
    I see now that the woman across the street has stopped pushing the lawn mower and is waving at me. I think it would be better if I looked at the weather information and recorded it inside. I close the door. Soon, my data will be complete.
    – • –
    After breakfast, I thumb through my voluminous (I love the word “voluminous”) data sheets, and I am correct: Before today, I have never awoken at 7:28 a.m. Today is a landmark.
    – • –
    Because I have many things to do today, including my weekly appointment with Dr. Buckley, I will have to put off my Internet time until later. I meet with Dr. Buckley promptly at 10:00 a.m., just as I have every Tuesday of every month of every year since I started seeing her, save for one.
    On Tuesday, June 11, 2002, Dr. Buckley had to move my appointment to 11:00 a.m. It was a disaster. All I could think about was that the shuffling had put my 10:00 p.m. viewing of
Dragnet
—episode number sixty-four, “Frauds: DR-28”—in jeopardy, and so I could not answer questions about how my medicationwas doing or what projects I was working on or how my letters of complaint were working out. Dr. Buckley cut the session short, which mitigated against the damage done to my schedule, and we both agreed that from then on, we would meet at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays.
    This is one of the things I like about Dr. Buckley. Although she sometimes makes mistakes, she is a very logical person.
    – • –
    My first stop is Home Depot, in the paint department. I have decided to paint the garage. I need a new project, and the ten-day weather forecast looks as though it will allow me to do this. I don’t like forecasts, though, as they are notoriously off base. I will have to wait for the actual data, and it is my hope that by then the garage will be painted.
    There are more paint varieties and colors here than there were the last time I was at Home Depot. There must be an entire arm of the paint industry dedicated to coming up with new colors and combinations, and I instantly wish that I had looked at some possibilities on the Internet before coming here. I’m frustrated with myself for not thinking of this.
    The man in the paint department, who is supposed to assist me, isn’t helpful at all. He asks many questions, faster than I can answer them, and he is talking about things like ambience, things that I don’t care about. I just want to find the right paint.
    “Leave me alone,” I say.
    The paint man trudges away, shaking his head.
    Did you know that there are NFL team colors available in paint? I am intrigued by this. I like the Dallas Cowboys, but I don’t think that I would want their colors on the garage. I willhave to think of a project that would work with Dallas Cowboys team-color paint. This is something I would like to do, sometime after I finish the garage.
    After I spend a few more minutes looking at swatches, it’s obvious that the paint situation is hopeless. I cannot decide on a color, and I can feel the urge to rip these swatches from the wall welling up inside of me. I close my eyes, as Dr. Buckley has suggested that I do when I feel this way, and I try to breathe. Dr. Buckley says that when I feel overwhelmed by frustration, I should think before I act and find the path that will carry me away from the frustration.
    Dr. Buckley is a very logical person. I do as she has counseled me, and my path becomes clear.
    I walk over to the unhelpful man and say, “I would like three gallons each of the Behr mochachino the Behr parsley sprig, and the Behr bronze green.”
    As the unhelpful man walks over to gather the supplies needed to mix my paints, he is shaking his head again.
    – • –
    I like Dr. Buckley’s waiting room. The walls have dark wood paneling, and the lighting sets me at ease. Dr. Buckley