Part of the ceiling came down.
There was rot. A lot of water came through during the storms. The house needed major work quickly, but construction rules meant I could not bring in the normal crew. If it was going to get fixed, I was going to have to do most of it myself.
This has been a ridiculous month.
Amanda, Eva, and I came to Poughkeepsie when New York shut down. At first it was temporary. We needed more space, the city was getting scary, and I already had the house. It was still a long-running renovation, but it had come a long way from my original goal to make it sleepable.
Then the gutters failed. Water got into the living room. Now a piece of the ceiling had partially collapsed.
I have been working long days on the house and not spending much time online. There is no clean boundary between owner, contractor, and person living inside the construction project. I am climbing ladders, pulling apart damaged material, trying to stop more water, and figuring out who can legally do what.
We also moved out of our Brooklyn apartment and did not renew the lease. That gives us a short window to decide what happens next. I still think we will return to New York City. I do not think Poughkeepsie is the permanent plan. I am also not in a rush to go back while the city is under restrictions and nobody knows what the next few months look like.
Work is changing at exactly the same time.
I have fully left Aaptiv. I had planned to spend this stretch launching Apply with a close friend. Instead, the urgent house work has pushed some of that down to a consulting level while we try to get the first version out. The career decision did not disappear. It just got mixed into windows, ceilings, contractor notes, and storm forecasts.
This week I picked a Hudson Valley window company. That is not the important startup decision I expected to be making in May, but it is the decision in front of me.
Everything feels temporary right now. The move. The work plan. The rules about who can repair the house. Even the idea that I still live in New York City.
For now, I live in Poughkeepsie. I am fixing the ceiling. We will see what stays temporary.