In 22 hours, Alaska Airlines will allow me to check in to my last flight home. Fourteen hours ago, I crossed 3,000 miles on the bike. Four hours ago, I finished book 8 of 11 in this monster. I have three more legs to ride. 45 miles. One more bitter-ass cold run through the dark. Two more sketchy-ass runs through rush hour. Oddly enough, it's enough time to read all of Breakfast at Tiffany's despite the fact that I spent most of this morning listening to music. I will then do laundry, tune the bike in preparation for next year (whatever that may bring), load up a suitcase, finish the last of my Armenian brandy and prepare to return to humanity. The carpet is in. The doors are in. The plumbing works. I'm going to get off the plane, take a nap, take my daughter to sushi, and then sleep with my wife. Then we're going to get up, go to a birthday party, go to another party, sleep, and then buy a birth center's worth of Ikea furniture which I will spend all next week putting together, in and around terminating 24 runs of CAT5 and standing up a network and a phone system. Our last City inspection is today; once that's crossed off we can basically get the State to come through whenever they can come through. It's possible we'll be licensed by the end of the year. I'm ready to not get calls about how things are going to be a week (actually three) late because some inspector or other decided to no-show. I'm ready to not hear "and so I had to write a $20,000 check" at random moments throughout the week. I'm ready to not worry about rats crawling on me as I make my way to work. I'm ready to have a life again. I want to say I'm eager, but shit has been upside down since about January 2015. I no longer have the ability to be eager about anything.
We're building a 2100sqft, two-suite freestanding birth center with a family room, a staff room and three offices. The goal was always to be "just a little bit nicer" than our competition. However, we consistently chose to do that little bit extra between "cheap and kind of okay" and "still cheap but looks pretty awesome." The end result is that we will have the 2nd or 3rd nicest birth center in the United States that I know of, and it's been my business to know of birth centers for about the past three years. But fuckin' A it wears you out.
I imagine that even the most bedeviling Ikea furniture will draw mirthful laughter because it so entirely beats the hell out of what you were doing for the last ~9 months. Congrats klein, enjoy that brandy.