Running Away from Home: The Fantasy is Always Better
Last night we ordered sushi take out. The plan was to go to WasaBee for dinner, but my poor kid had a very bad experience at the doctor - second attempt at removing an ingrown toenail, except this one was done with acid. He seriously did not feel good. But I had promised Gage (Tristan's friend) and plus, I was super craving sushi myself so we made do. I have chopsticks and sushi plates at home, so we just did it picnic style on the coffee table. It was fun, except for poor Tristan's discomfort. He was feeling so bad at bedtime that I gave him a nighttime Alka Seltzer.
Although - I see now that Alex has polished off the better part of a bottle of rum so I ought to tiptoe around here for a few hours.
I went to bed early and woke up early feeling pretty good. And the house has been quiet, and that's the way I like it in the morning. I'm not very good at mornings, I need about two hours to get my head screwed on straight. It's best if I have this time to myself, otherwise people get their feelings hurt and stuff.
This morning I spent most of the time drinking coffee and looking at pictures of decorating online. There are a lot of things I want to do to my house, but it's slow going. I look at these blogs and wonder how on earth do these folks find the time?
I have some ideas but I don't know when they will happen. For example, I have a faux-1970's brick fireplace that doesn't work and hasn't for about ten years. I would like to paint it white and get something in there that makes heat. I would like to rip the carpet off my stairs and paint them. I would like to paint and resurface my hallway because whoever did it last did a very shitty job of it. And of course - the mud room, which is where the cat box and the duck food and the winter scarves and soda cans and outside shoes are. It's a mess. This house is 92 years old and damn near on the busiest street in town and it will never be picture perfect, so I plan to indulge my urge to make it feel like "me" anyway.
On early weekend mornings I also have a guilty pleasure which the boys tolerate - I like that show, Sell This House. Not because I want to sell this house, but because they clean up shitty houses and make them liveable, and I would like to clean up my shitty house and make it liveable. After many years of choosing subtle shades, I find myself not so much thinking about whether I can sell my house to a bland buyer, but whether I want to live in the space. That's why I painted my kitchen yellow and blue. It's been about a year, and I still really love it. I bought some antique fruit can label reproductions to decorate with somehow. I took the same deep blue and painted the half-bath with it, and I'm liking that, too - although I need to finish painting the vanity. It's an awful 80's oak and brass thing, but I have this idea that if I paint it white and finish it with yellow handles I will like it. I hope.
Anyway, my weekend morning show isn't on right now, and it's after 9 and still nobody is up, so I'm defaulting to another guilty pleasure - the movie version of Where the Heart Is (Billie Letts). I can't remember how I got hold of the novel, but I remember that it was an Oprah Book Club. I'm not a fan of Oprah, but I generally have a good experience with a Book Club novel! And so I read it - the story of pregnant, teenage Novalee Nation who gets abandoned at Wal Mart by her shitty boyfriend and so, she hides there after closing and keeps a careful accounting of what she consumes, and consequently owes Wal Mart. I love this fucking movie, I don't know why. Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Sally Field and Stockard Channing - how can you go wrong? I think it's that theme I always fall to - the way people can emerge from a fucked up wreckage and rebuild, even despite their setbacks along the way. I like to think that if Novalee can live in an Oklahoma Wal Mart for six weeks, then surely I can [fill in the blank]. Yes, I know it's fiction; don't spoil my idea.
"Home is the place that'll catch you when you fall and we all fall." - Brother Husband
The other thing is, these stories about small town happiness make me want to run away from...well, my small town happiness. Like maybe I need a smaller town, or a harder life, or less money to really feel happy. I don't know what kind of sickness it is that makes my brain think that hardship leads to real living, but there you go. My other new favorite show is Justified; which is the mindless story of Timothy Olyphant (Raylon Givens) and Walton Goggins (Boyd Crowder, who you all might remember as Shane Vendrell/Cletus Van Damme from The Shield). They're on either side of the law but oddly joined in a demented type of brotherhood based on their code of ethics and shared history in the mines of Harlan County, Kentucky. I love this show because of the names: Winona, Mags, Ava, Boyd, Doyle, Loretta, Arlo - and of course Raylan. I love it because Raylan can't seem to stop shooting everybody. He's the fuck-up hero, I love that. And I love my fantasy that small town poverty is somehow rich and romantic. Yes, I realize that's a bias of privilege, and an insulting one at that. I don't mean to offend, but it still makes me want to move to Harlan and buy Ava's victorian house out there in that field of long grass, even though she did shoot her husband dead in it while he was eating chicken dinner. I guess that's the magic of fiction.
Or something like that.
Because, here's what's weird. I have a job now, did I tell you that? I'm still in college (about to finish my junior year) but I have a part time temporary job too, and I love it. My title is "temporary property assistant" and I help in the offices of the managers of three low income apartment buildings in downtown, all told about 160 units, I believe. My favorite building is the Mount Baker Apartments, maybe because I have spent so much of the last ten years of my life downstairs in the corner commercial unit. I've always thought of that block as my neighborhood, and I guess I still do. Yesterday I got a tour of the "creepy" basement, and although it was creepy, I loved that too. The old painted-shut boiler hatch, the service stairs that are now sealed off, stuff like that. And I like the apartments too, even though they are small. If my life was different, and all I had was me, I could live there very happily, I think. I like the tenants too, with all their surprises. It's an exciting job, believe it or not. Interacting (even vicariously) with tenants is exciting, and moving paper around is, weirdly, a task I have always enjoyed. I get to do both!
So anyway, Dear Diary, that's my life now. Especially since the weather still sucks and I have not been able to set up my garden. It isn't pouring down at the moment, so hopefully I will be able to get out there later today. After I pick up my new glasses, that is!
Really, life is pretty good. I'm fairly content. There's no logical reason for me to have itchy feet. Probably it's just because I'm content that my brain meats want to explore something new. It's good to remember another notable novel, Ladder of Years (Anne Tyler), which I have written about before. Delia suddenly boards a bus and leaves her life (and family) to start fresh, but it's not as good as the fantasy. Or at least that's what I remember; I read it about fifteen years ago.
Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, and I don't really want to go anywhere. I have a good life. I'm just taking a little Saturday morning vacation in my brain.
"For me, writing something down was the only road out." -Anne Tyler
Although - I see now that Alex has polished off the better part of a bottle of rum so I ought to tiptoe around here for a few hours.
I went to bed early and woke up early feeling pretty good. And the house has been quiet, and that's the way I like it in the morning. I'm not very good at mornings, I need about two hours to get my head screwed on straight. It's best if I have this time to myself, otherwise people get their feelings hurt and stuff.
This morning I spent most of the time drinking coffee and looking at pictures of decorating online. There are a lot of things I want to do to my house, but it's slow going. I look at these blogs and wonder how on earth do these folks find the time?
I have some ideas but I don't know when they will happen. For example, I have a faux-1970's brick fireplace that doesn't work and hasn't for about ten years. I would like to paint it white and get something in there that makes heat. I would like to rip the carpet off my stairs and paint them. I would like to paint and resurface my hallway because whoever did it last did a very shitty job of it. And of course - the mud room, which is where the cat box and the duck food and the winter scarves and soda cans and outside shoes are. It's a mess. This house is 92 years old and damn near on the busiest street in town and it will never be picture perfect, so I plan to indulge my urge to make it feel like "me" anyway.
On early weekend mornings I also have a guilty pleasure which the boys tolerate - I like that show, Sell This House. Not because I want to sell this house, but because they clean up shitty houses and make them liveable, and I would like to clean up my shitty house and make it liveable. After many years of choosing subtle shades, I find myself not so much thinking about whether I can sell my house to a bland buyer, but whether I want to live in the space. That's why I painted my kitchen yellow and blue. It's been about a year, and I still really love it. I bought some antique fruit can label reproductions to decorate with somehow. I took the same deep blue and painted the half-bath with it, and I'm liking that, too - although I need to finish painting the vanity. It's an awful 80's oak and brass thing, but I have this idea that if I paint it white and finish it with yellow handles I will like it. I hope.
Anyway, my weekend morning show isn't on right now, and it's after 9 and still nobody is up, so I'm defaulting to another guilty pleasure - the movie version of Where the Heart Is (Billie Letts). I can't remember how I got hold of the novel, but I remember that it was an Oprah Book Club. I'm not a fan of Oprah, but I generally have a good experience with a Book Club novel! And so I read it - the story of pregnant, teenage Novalee Nation who gets abandoned at Wal Mart by her shitty boyfriend and so, she hides there after closing and keeps a careful accounting of what she consumes, and consequently owes Wal Mart. I love this fucking movie, I don't know why. Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Sally Field and Stockard Channing - how can you go wrong? I think it's that theme I always fall to - the way people can emerge from a fucked up wreckage and rebuild, even despite their setbacks along the way. I like to think that if Novalee can live in an Oklahoma Wal Mart for six weeks, then surely I can [fill in the blank]. Yes, I know it's fiction; don't spoil my idea.
"Home is the place that'll catch you when you fall and we all fall." - Brother Husband
The other thing is, these stories about small town happiness make me want to run away from...well, my small town happiness. Like maybe I need a smaller town, or a harder life, or less money to really feel happy. I don't know what kind of sickness it is that makes my brain think that hardship leads to real living, but there you go. My other new favorite show is Justified; which is the mindless story of Timothy Olyphant (Raylon Givens) and Walton Goggins (Boyd Crowder, who you all might remember as Shane Vendrell/Cletus Van Damme from The Shield). They're on either side of the law but oddly joined in a demented type of brotherhood based on their code of ethics and shared history in the mines of Harlan County, Kentucky. I love this show because of the names: Winona, Mags, Ava, Boyd, Doyle, Loretta, Arlo - and of course Raylan. I love it because Raylan can't seem to stop shooting everybody. He's the fuck-up hero, I love that. And I love my fantasy that small town poverty is somehow rich and romantic. Yes, I realize that's a bias of privilege, and an insulting one at that. I don't mean to offend, but it still makes me want to move to Harlan and buy Ava's victorian house out there in that field of long grass, even though she did shoot her husband dead in it while he was eating chicken dinner. I guess that's the magic of fiction.
Or something like that.
Because, here's what's weird. I have a job now, did I tell you that? I'm still in college (about to finish my junior year) but I have a part time temporary job too, and I love it. My title is "temporary property assistant" and I help in the offices of the managers of three low income apartment buildings in downtown, all told about 160 units, I believe. My favorite building is the Mount Baker Apartments, maybe because I have spent so much of the last ten years of my life downstairs in the corner commercial unit. I've always thought of that block as my neighborhood, and I guess I still do. Yesterday I got a tour of the "creepy" basement, and although it was creepy, I loved that too. The old painted-shut boiler hatch, the service stairs that are now sealed off, stuff like that. And I like the apartments too, even though they are small. If my life was different, and all I had was me, I could live there very happily, I think. I like the tenants too, with all their surprises. It's an exciting job, believe it or not. Interacting (even vicariously) with tenants is exciting, and moving paper around is, weirdly, a task I have always enjoyed. I get to do both!
So anyway, Dear Diary, that's my life now. Especially since the weather still sucks and I have not been able to set up my garden. It isn't pouring down at the moment, so hopefully I will be able to get out there later today. After I pick up my new glasses, that is!
Really, life is pretty good. I'm fairly content. There's no logical reason for me to have itchy feet. Probably it's just because I'm content that my brain meats want to explore something new. It's good to remember another notable novel, Ladder of Years (Anne Tyler), which I have written about before. Delia suddenly boards a bus and leaves her life (and family) to start fresh, but it's not as good as the fantasy. Or at least that's what I remember; I read it about fifteen years ago.
Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, and I don't really want to go anywhere. I have a good life. I'm just taking a little Saturday morning vacation in my brain.
"For me, writing something down was the only road out." -Anne Tyler