At a workshop with some of my coworkers today, we were discussing leadership strengths or some such and we ended up divided into tables according to strengths. Thusly, I was seated with three other developers, all very analytical people in order to explore the domain of strategic thinking. One of my fellow developers was laughing at some characterization of strategic thinkers as being critical and difficult – always questioning you when they think they’re just trying to get more input about your ideas or why you think they’ll work. “I definitely get the sense that sometimes my analytical traits make people think I’m arrogant,” I laughed

“Not arrogant,” another developer said, “Aloof, maybe.”

I think I snapped my head up to look at him a little too fast, because he assured me very quickly that he was only joking, but I was thinking, “No, aloof is a pretty nice way of putting it, actually. I’ll take that one.”

Driving home I was pondering that. Thinking about some of the conversations I’ve been having lately. Aloof. Yes, that’s probably exactly how I come across. Maybe arrogant if you’re predisposed to dislike me.

So then I was pondering all my relationships and venues, considering how pervasive a part of me that aloofness is, how well I connect with people in different situations.

When Ian and I were first involved, I remember we were having a conversation one day that ran something like, “Ugh, I recognize that I’m being emotionally standoffish and I’m sorry. I’ve been accused of being a cold fish in so many of my past relationships.” And he said, “What? That’s ridiculous. You’re about the furthest thing from emotionally standoffish. I think you’re warm and you care very deeply about how you make people feel.”

I had to laugh when I remembered that Ian used to tell me how in all his previous relationships he had been accused of being emotionally withholding. Maybe he just has a different baseline of appropriate emotional expression. Maybe cold-fish analytical types should get involved with emotionally withholding types.

For real though, I’ve concluded that this idea of warmth vs aloofness is bunk – a way of extroverts writing themselves permission to write off anyone else who isn’t an extrovert, or something similar to calling someone lazy. It’s the most vague and unprovable of value judgments, is highly context-dependent and ignores the role that the labeler plays in setting up a demotivating situation for the labellee.

Who wants to go out of their way to connect with someone who’s looking for labels to stick you with? Who wants to go the extra mile for someone who’s willing to throw around labels like lazy?

That same developer who called me aloof delivered a pretty brilliant couple of lines to the boss, too, about how structures and feedback on your performance are superfluous given that we’re most of us our own worst critic and “if you’re going to tell me I’m doing a bad job when I’ve already assured myself that I’m doing a good job, then I’m not going to question myself, I’m going to question your ability to accurately judge my performance.” Now that’s arrogance. And yet? More than a label, I think it merits a high-five.

Well the new sewer main has been laid and buried and new concrete has been poured. That all happened last Monday. Ian even had the kids come down into the basement and put their handprints in the concrete. Which delighted them, mostly because the basement looks like a horrific, unlivable wreck right now, and that delights any child’s imagination.

Sadly, Rachel was a little too enthusiastic, and didn’t wait to be directed about where her handprint should go and it will probably end up under the wall to the closet. Given her current personal narrative of middle-child-disenfranchisement, this will be held against us for years to come. Which is sad, because I was devastated for her when I looked down into the basement and realized it the next day. Even seriously considered that we did have extra concrete – but no, I can’t make Ian jackhammer up and pour more basement concrete to prevent a nine-year-old’s disenfranchisement.

Also, a person should be clear with themselves that even if it weren’t this, it would be something else. We are enduring histrionic-self-pitying-baby-talk-tantrums with some consistency, right now.

Anyhow, we have been debating and planning the new stairs since this basement project began. The basement stairs have always been very steep and narrow and there is a risk of banging your head as you enter the basement. There isn’t really a lot we can do about all this. The basement is super-low, and the floor-cutout that can form the stairwell isn’t very large. You can’t save anyone’s head unless you can deposit them on the floor before the end of the stairwell – which wasn’t happening, the stairwell ended with one step left.

We really wanted the stairs to be less steep, but there isn’t much option to accomplish this without cutting out more of our floor – which just isn’t feasible.

To backtrack a little bit, I have this little fetish for old-timey kite-winder staircases. Especially as seen through a door. Especially with slightly random angles. I had just such a staircase at my first house and I couldn’t tell you whether I love the stairs because of the house or bought the house because of loving the stairs. But some months ago, I realized I had been collecting images of stairs like these in my home inspiration folder.

This is kind of what the stairwell at my old house looked like:

I will admit I fell down them a couple of times. It didn’t stop me from loving them.

And here is an example of the classically charming stairs of my dreams. I imagine them as back stairs from a side entryway in a lovely little house. At the top of them must be a back sunroom, full of plants and with big windows overlooking a stone terrace.

So anyhow, you can see how naturally, as soon as I realized we’d need to rebuild the basement stairs and when Ian said he would like to make them better, I began to think of my dream stairs. The last step of the old stairs (the one that deposited you still a few inches too high for the beams of the ceiling) was actually a square landing, at which point you had to turn right into the basement to step off the last step. So we began to discuss putting winders there instead of that landing. Obviously winders aren’t the ideal in safety – but I’m of the opinion that if putting three stairs in place of that landing can allow us to space out the rest of the stairs significantly, then the safety gains are worth it. Indeed, I’d rather someone slipped on the winders – maximum three steps off the ground, than off the higher stairs. Also – Amazingly Charming Winder Stairs for me!!!

Of course they’re much more difficult to build. So, although we had planned to begin the stairs this weekend, most of Saturday went to planning and designing.

Saturday afternoon, Ian went to pick up the lumber, and had a super-crappy time of it. He had to get his truck from his dad’s place. And then the truck wouldn’t start. And so they plugged it in and went for coffee. And then came back and got it started. But then I guess it puked out all its antifreeze in the Home Depot parking lot and wouldn’t start. So Ian had to call a friend with a truck to come get him and get the lumber home. Then he had to get his dad to take him back to Home Depot to rescue his truck.

So today he began constructing. And that, apparently, has just been taking way longer than he thought it would. But he began with the winders.

On the advice of the internet, he’s doing it by just building three solid platforms and stacking them on top of each other. But then that caused problems because it meant that in the case of these three stairs, we needed a different height of risers (because those three risers will be sitting on top of tread).

So we’ve been playing with our dimensions for a couple of weeks, and working out that, indeed, the addition of these extra stairs will allow us to go from a rise/run of about 8.75/8 to 7.25/9. Adding our overhang should mean we have stairs that are actually to code. Well – except for the head room. And also except that the stairway isn’t wide enough to be code and can’t ever be unless we remove a wall and reroute all our ducting (which, fine, we want to do eventually, but not this week).

Now the weekend’s over, I suppose we won’t get much done on it until the next weekend again. So we’re probably looking at another two weeks before the stairs are done and another weekend after that of hauling rubble and cleaning up. At least I think it could be done by Christmas.

Remember when I said how I loved these stairs especially with slightly random angles?

Okay if I had this staircase in real life, that might be too much even for me. In my fantasy life, I am pretty convinced that this stairway also leads to a lovely, sun-filled sitting room.

I can’t wait to post pictures of our staircase – but right now it’s still pretty much all in my imagination. Ian has built some platforms and they are sitting, treadless, on an ugly concrete floor. Once he gets the stringers cut and starts routering some nose-edges on the treads then everything should just fall into place.