Dreampepper

I've been finally attacking the extra stuff in my house, much of it left here by other people or from a time when I lived in a house instead of a three room apartment. It helps that poor people buy less, so the influx of new things has gone from a slow trickle to almost zero. Plus, unemployment may be depressing, but it certainly makes for a lot more "free" time.

My cleaning method is fairly simple: clean what you have time for, put everything else in boxes to be sorted later. The idea is to separate the mess into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be sifted through later until everything has either found a home or been put aside to be sold or recycled. The upside is a tidier apartment, the downside is that I never quite know what's where. The other problem is that the boxes pile up in closets and spare corners when life gets busy, untouched for weeks or even months, a perfect example of out of sight, out of mind. If I need something, where is it? How much space am I using up with things I don't need?

The first step to conquering the boxes is to actually set aside some space and open one. (Or even better, two). It's often surprising what I'll find inside. Anything small enough to fit in a box has probably been fit into a box. Anything! So usually when I decide to tackle one, I lay out some tools - a recycling box and a garbage bag. I also like to have a space set aside for things to sell or donate. That way, no matter what it is I find, I can immediately sort it into place. Is it something I missed while it was packed away? Then I find a home for it in the apartment. If I can't, back in the box. If I didn't miss it or it isn't important, it's discarded. Eventually, the boxes begin shrinking. Five to three to two to one.

Some of what I find is difficult to place, though, so I have to ask myself harder questions. The broken things I find, the ones I always intended to fix - are they worth keeping? It can be hard to let go of broken things, especially if you're like me and tend to mend rather than replace, (save the environment! save money!), but will I actually get around to it? It's hard to admit, but unless I fix something within two weeks, it might as well be never. The flash of guilt I get for discarding something that could have been saved is overwhelmed by the fact that I will never have to feel bad about it again. The same with gifts I never use that I've received from people I like. They meant well and that's what counts. The thing itself can go.

Given my recent progress, my goal is have all the boxes emptied and dealt with by the end of October. The rest of the plan is to go through the rest of the apartment and get rid of everything else we've been meaning to sell or give away, like the unwanted-stuff pile that's swallowed our front hall. List it all on Craigslist. Apartment yard-sale anyone?

House cleaning and (un)employment classes swallowed me whole upon my return from Burning Man. The classes, in part, were hideously depressing, there was a day where I came home and almost cried, but at least I've brought some peace back to my apartment from the belly of the sad whale. The front closet has been seriously decluttered, the bicycles have been operated on, some mirror frames have been painted white, and at least four boxes of miscellany have been removed from the house, never to be seen again. I also, and this was also depressing, easily halved my wardrobe, by taking all the clothes that are now too small for me and tucking them into a suitcase, out of the way.

Today Lung is taking the remaining bicycles, helping me drop off unwanted parts at the Our Community Bikes recycling program, and swinging me past A Baker's Dozen, where I hope to sell some of my antique ephemera for grocery money. In the same vein, I'm also looking to find homes for my white frosted glass chandelier and the home made foam-topped storage bench that's been living in my hall. $25 each, because that's how much it costs to feed the cats.

We began with Craigslist ads, scanning through pages of apartments that offered beautiful views in inconvenient neighborhoods or move in bonus televisions instead of laundry rooms, weeding them down until we had four likely candidates, two of which called us back to view.

The first building felt like a horror movie set. Wide, dark hallways lined in red, with wavy leaded windows on the stairs occasionally missing a pane of glass. The building manager was a young man, passably nice, slightly more sleazy than eager, who in another situation I might have liked, but in this time and place felt like a liar. The apartments we were shown were much the same. Old, antique, almost pretty, with hardwood floors, high ceilings, and wide, open windows, great to visit, but not to live in, even the newly renovated ones. The kitchens were cramped hallways thin as the galley of a small sailing ship, with washrooms much the same, but more awkward, and the entire building slanted as if entire rooms had bumped their heads and never quite recovered. The word charming was thrown around, as was quaint. It was a relief to leave it behind.

Our second building, thankfully, was not so disheartening an experience. As buildings go, it was merely uninteresting. The outside looked promising, a great red brick edifice shaped like a castle, and the hallways were nice, as befit its history as a posh art deco hotel, but the room itself was less than inspiring. We were more concerned with the shaky emotional state of the nice, young building manager whose grandmother was in the hospital than for the space she showed us, crooked, cramped, filled constantly the sound of the I5 louder than live music. When we left, we were glad we let her vent about her family, but also that we'd never be back.

Capital Hill is currently bristling with APARTMENT FOR RENT signs, however, so we called and took reference photos of at least one building every block we passed on our way to lunch at the B&O, basing our choices on capricious things like garden friendliness or how much we liked the font of their signs. Though we'd been having a rough start, our mood was far from dire. Instead we were having fun, finding an unexpected delight in our arbitrary superficial judgments. Even better, they snagged us the perfect place.

The phone rang over lunch, "We could come by in half an hour," we said. "Perfect," they replied, "Come on down."

Our first good sign was the woman waiting for us outside, Penny, and our second was her amused reaction to our amused reaction to the "flesh" tone dildo tied to a pair of colour matched expensive leather boots hanging from a telephone wire just across the street. Smiling, competent, she seemed immediately our sort of person. As did the building once we were inside, a 1920's three story, with six or so apartments on every floor, even the foyer was gorgeous. Someone had come through and meticulously faux finished every wall to be a fancifuly distressed work of art. From then on in, it was all roses. The apartment itself was utterly lovely. Graceful, airy, well balanced, with wide, pretty windows, and incredible light. Describing it feels like trying to capture dance. Even cluttered with the detritus of someone else's life, it glowed with the possibilities of home.

Tony put the deposit down on Thursday. We move in right after we get back from SF.

Southern California is Burning Again.

Yesterday someone replied to the Craigslist ad I put up regarding our old catboxes, (the cats have taken over the bunny-igloo litter-spaceship David brought over and will never give it back), and I replied, "Sure! Come on over." while sending David a note, "were they bleached or were we overwhelmed by other things?" The message back, "overwhelmed." So while I'm at work, feeling guilty for having David scrub the catboxes, as it was my chore to do, I decide to rectify matters I must fetch him delicious treats and chocolate while getting groceries on the way home.

(It's fully dark by the time I leave work. The only benefit to this: Keith and I watch the result of the four p.m. sun set from our seventh floor office window as the tips of ordinary architecture are suddenly beautiful, bathed in melted girl-music gold, while everything at street level is already a heavy blue day-crunched dark.)

Fast-forward to arriving home. I stumble in, ready to drop, heavy with bags of vegetables and canned soup, and then I stop, stunned. The apartment I left in the morning is gone, replaced by an entirely new portion of space. Everything unsorted that was haunting our living space, (minus the bathroom and the bedroom, untidy disasters both), has been shifted into neat piles in the spare room library. There are no more boxes to step over. The floors are clear, flat surfaces have resurfaced, it's a miracle. The apartment has been organized.

Summary: There is Not Enough Chocolate In The World.

Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses.
I didn't make a penny with my time intensive Hallowe'en post-an-hour this year, which is only disappointing when considering how much time I put into it. Last year I made fifteen dollars grocery money and barely put a lick of effort in. Lesson learned: just throw junk together at the last minute.

Alas. Alack. Whatever. I sincerely have better things to care about, (and I mean that, as apparently it's in doubt), like when will our painting get done, how hard is it to put up wallpaper anyway, what colour should that bit of wall end up, and, most importantly, how soon can we have you wonderful people over to scope out our terrific newly semi-renovated place!?

A map of breaking news.

Prairie sliding past in the dark, giving the illusion of being in orbit, five feet above the ground.

David and I are back in Vancouver, spending the weekend entirely on house things - putting away our clothes, doing laundry, dishes, clearing out furniture, swapping out my monitor, putting up curtains, acclimatizing the cats to the rabbits - preparing space for him to move in. It's interesting, how I can hear doors slamming shut all over my future while we do this. I know, given all the options, this is the best possible decision we can make right now, yet still, it's unnerving. Whispers of change, of stability, less possibility of incipient chaos creeping, cheerfully twisting my days like promises. Bridges burning. A day-job, a live in partner, multiple pets. My number up at last, or again, depending. Back against the wall by choice, the blindfold thrown away, considering a final metaphorical cigarette. Sunlight.

"A toddler whose remains were found inside a suitcase in Philadelphia in April was starved to death by members of a religious cult, including his mother, in part because he refused to say "amen" after meals, police said."

Listening to the Kronos Quartet covering Sigur Ros' Flugufrelsarinn, music as quiet, rich, and thick as the calm pumping of blood. Sound like running hands over sheets, straightening them out on a September morning, as leaves fall outside, golden and red and silent in the gutters. I'm letting the cello soothe out the jangled nerves of today's news, of going to bed at three and waking up at eight to the telephone ringing with police on the other end wanting to talk about permits and crowd size and kids running around with replica guns.

Karen is considering moving out the end of October. She misses Main St, hopes to find a nice flat there, something vintage with wooden floors and windows that get stuck when it rains. I've been worried about her lately, she's been absent from the house a lot, and I know her family isn't as supportive as they could be, little things that add up into hoping she's okay, so it's nice to know that she's well and together enough to keep on top of things. Plans will coalesce, they will calcify, they will become fact. It's one of the nice things about living, how we continue to change and transform and become more of who we are as we become who we think we need to be. I hope that wherever she finds, she gets to paint her room again, whatever shade of light, minty lime green she likes best.

David will be moving soon, too, though more immediately, at the end of the month. No longer will he be staying with me as his place becomes piles of boxes full of books, instead the two of us will be staying up too late, unpacking his life-things into a nice, wine coloured room in a big house across from the Ridge Theater on Arbutus. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to teach him how to make really nice, to-the-ceiling cinderblock shelves, (remember to pad the ends of the blocks with hidden felt), and lie in the garden with the rabbits hopping on leashes as the city drowns around us in every day, ordinary life. I might not have very much passion these days, but I can see putting a mild time aside for just that sort of thing, and being okay.

Does anyone know how to install lights? I bought a chandelier off Craigslist awhile ago, and Nicole's then-boyfriend Brett installed it, but it's turns out that it hangs too low and everyone keeps bumping their heads, so I went back to Craigslist and got a better one. However, Nicole and Brett are no longer together and I really have no idea how to take the old one out and put the new one in. I know that somewhere the internet will have instructions, but I am leery about attempting to muck with electricity without help.



edit: this is why the internet it fabulous. within half an hour, not only did I have a comment which made me laugh, I had actual, reasonable instructions from someone competent, and two offers from people to just come over and do it. you are all fabulous. thank you and thank you and thank you!