600 Hours of Edward

compatibility found no one for me, but there are no levels of compatibility on Montana Personal Connect. You just write a profile and post it and wait to see what happens.
    My profile looks like this:
    Edward, age 39
    Status: Single
    Seeking: Dating
    Lives: Yes
    Location: Billings
    Region: US-Mountain
    Looks: Average
    Hair/eyes: Brown/brown
    Body: Average (although I don’t know what average really is)
    Height: Tall (although I don’t know what tall really is)
    Smoking: No
    Drinking: No
    Drugs: No
    Religion: No. I prefer facts.
    Sun sign: Capricorn
    Education: High school graduate
    Children: No
    Career field: Not answered
    Politics: Not answered
    More about me…
    I keep track of the weather and I like to watch
Dragnet,
but only the 1967–1970 color episodes.
    There are no messages waiting for me. Montana Personal Connect seems a lot less scientific than eHarmony, but at least it let me post a profile.
    – • –
    Because I paint the garage so frequently, I need only wash it before painting. When my father bought this house eight years and eighty-eight days ago, the painting on both the house and the garage was in very sorry shape and probably hadn’t been tended to in twenty years. It was so bad that I wanted to write a letter of complaint to the man who sold the house to my father, but my father would not give me his address. That frustrated me.
    The first year I painted the house, I had to use a wire brush and a putty knife to dig out defective paint, and then I sanded down most of the house by hand. The next year, when I painted the garage, I knew better and bought a power sander. My father was not happy about that expenditure.
    Now I need only wash the garage. It should dry quickly. The
Billings Herald-Gleaner
said the temperature was going to reach seventy-two today, which is very warm for this time of year. By contrast, the high temperature a year ago was forty-six, which I know because my data is complete. I won’t know for sure whether the temperature reaches seventy-two today until I see tomorrow’s newspaper. Today’s has only a forecast, and forecasts are notoriously off base. I prefer facts.
    – • –
    My garage, which is detached from the house, is very small. In 1937, when the house was built, people didn’t build the huge houses that are built today, unless they were very rich or very ostentatious. (I love the word “ostentatious.”) The house is 1,360 square feet—680 upstairs and 680 in the basement. The garage is twelve feet wide by fifteen feet deep, or just big enough for my car, a 1997 Toyota Camry, and some tools and other things.
    Still, it takes me a while to wash the garage, mix the paint (I’m going to try Behr’s parsley sprig first), and get my various brushes lined up in the order that I’m going to use them. I also have a ladder for those hard-to-reach areas.
    By 11:00 a.m., I am painting, working in the same direction that the sun is moving.
    I am happy.
    – • –
    “I like that color.”
    I’m on the ladder when I hear the voice, and I’m so startled that I nearly hit my head on the eave. I set my brush on the shelf on the ladder. My heart is beating fast. I steady myself and back down the ladder, and then I turn around.
    It’s the boy I have seen across the street.
    “What?”
    “I said, I like that color.”
    “It’s Behr parsley sprig.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Behr is the company that made the paint. Parsley sprig is the color.”
    “What’s parsley sprig?”
    “Do you know that green stuff they put on your plate at a restaurant?”
    “Yeah. You’re not supposed to eat it.”
    “That’s a parsley sprig.”
    “Oh.”
    The boy has his hands in his pocket and he fidgets. This makes me fidgety, too. I don’t like it.
    “What do you want?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Go away, then.”
    “Well, maybe…”
    “What?”
    “Can I help you paint?”
    – • –
    I am agog. (I love the word “agog.”)
    There is an eight- or nine-year-old boy painting the garage. Holy shit!
    I do not curse often, but I am partial to the phrase “Holy shit!” Many years ago, I saw the movie
Animal House
, which is very funny. In one scene, Bluto and D-Day and Flounder from Delta House take a horse into the dean’s office—I am not sure why; the scene flummoxed me—and Flounder shoots a gun in the air, and the horse has a heart attack and dies. The other two guys come in and say “Holy shit!” a lot. It is a very funny movie.
    I am giggling now, thinking