Up-Late
Virgina Woolf says "It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly." I like this because it combines my feelings about gender as well as reminds me about when I learned that exceptional authors write with the knowledge of the androgynous, like Woolf, like Hemingway, like others worth knowing.
V.Woolf also said: It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses. AND, "That great Cathedral space which was childhood." AND, "The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." AND, I could keep going but I think you see the point and how important it is to reread V.Woolf.
She has said everything possible that could ever be said and she has already said everything you have ever said only she has said it better.
I found a place to live. It's in a pretty good location, close-to-between my campus and my "social spots". The house is split four ways between me, a 32-year-old named Jeremy who is an unemployed repairman and plays video games and lives at the bottom of a canyon of clutter (from what I can see through his bedroom door), a 39-year-old nurse named Christy and her dog Jack (who both have another house an hour away, but because Christy works the swing shift in a downtown hospital, she wanted a room to crash during the day that wasn't an hour away). I'm pretty exciting about living with them, mostly because I have all that potential-wisdom-from-30-something-Portland-citizen-wisdom ready to be waded through. Also, living with these two people and this one dog, I will not have pressure to be SOCIAL when I get home from wherever I have been. I think I value having a safeplacehideaway, and the transition from solitude of dorm room to a house where I am friends with every member would probably get old fast, once I started desiring a place to hide in but couldn't because all those peers were milling about, looking for company. After posting an advertisement of myself and my search for housing, I got calls and e-mails from people for two days straight, which was pretty flattering--even when one was a 55-year-old gay man looking for someone to pay $300 a month to share his bed with him and when I told him that was cool but I was a girl he got all offended and flustered and told me I should have said that in my ad completely disregarding the fact that I had PICTURE OF MYSELF up...but I guess if I'm strongly genderqueer this means I've mastered the androgynous boy look, but still--also I may have even made friends with a house of queers I'm not going to live with. It became clear as I was sitting with them, being interviewed and interviewing in return, that I'd always be doing something or feeling guilty because they were doing some cool bonding event and I was doing an editing exercise with old jacket copy for the 43rd time that day. Better to be distant friends, not coming home to friends, I think. There will be exceptions to this rule, but for now I will stick with it and try to always live with people older than myself.
My room is cozy, and yes that is a nice way of saying it's only 9x9. Still, it comes with a big ole window, a decently large closet, and, the BONUS FEATURE of a crawlspacestoragenook complete with fully operational door, light fixture, and carpeting. I've called this storage area The Clubhouse, and I've already bought two pillows for it, with designs to use it as a reading nook, meditation spot, and art gallery. Also, even though the room is small, I have a private-due-to-TALL-plants backyard with grass I don't have to mow myself, a porch that is covered and also home for Jeremy's baby bean plants, an already-furnished living room and dining room, a large kitchen with a dishwasher that the landlord demanded I use for hygienic reasons--to this I said "Sure."--and last but not least a free bookshelf donated to my room from Jeremy.
Ally is coming in ten days and I am beyond thrilled to rediscover this city with her at my proverbial and literal side. I will have FREE TIME to re-experience, and sometimes simply Experience, all the things of Portland I have been missing while I've been face-deep in all the book-publishing-related work I find myself in. We missed out doing some things the last time she was here, so this time we are going to have to do those things. We will visit Powell's, go to Voo Doo Donuts, see the Saturday Market, and dance. I will be her John Cusack, without ever telling her I hate her, but with all the mushiness.
I keep going back to the site with all the V.Woolf quotes and finding more and more perfection. She ALSO said, "Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life." Which, if you know me, is how I feel about sleeping. And eating too, but I haven't found that quote from her yet, except from A Room of One's Own when she talks about needing to eat in order to do anything else well.
V.Woolf also said: It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses. AND, "That great Cathedral space which was childhood." AND, "The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." AND, I could keep going but I think you see the point and how important it is to reread V.Woolf.
She has said everything possible that could ever be said and she has already said everything you have ever said only she has said it better.
I found a place to live. It's in a pretty good location, close-to-between my campus and my "social spots". The house is split four ways between me, a 32-year-old named Jeremy who is an unemployed repairman and plays video games and lives at the bottom of a canyon of clutter (from what I can see through his bedroom door), a 39-year-old nurse named Christy and her dog Jack (who both have another house an hour away, but because Christy works the swing shift in a downtown hospital, she wanted a room to crash during the day that wasn't an hour away). I'm pretty exciting about living with them, mostly because I have all that potential-wisdom-from-30-something-Portland-citizen-wisdom ready to be waded through. Also, living with these two people and this one dog, I will not have pressure to be SOCIAL when I get home from wherever I have been. I think I value having a safeplacehideaway, and the transition from solitude of dorm room to a house where I am friends with every member would probably get old fast, once I started desiring a place to hide in but couldn't because all those peers were milling about, looking for company. After posting an advertisement of myself and my search for housing, I got calls and e-mails from people for two days straight, which was pretty flattering--even when one was a 55-year-old gay man looking for someone to pay $300 a month to share his bed with him and when I told him that was cool but I was a girl he got all offended and flustered and told me I should have said that in my ad completely disregarding the fact that I had PICTURE OF MYSELF up...but I guess if I'm strongly genderqueer this means I've mastered the androgynous boy look, but still--also I may have even made friends with a house of queers I'm not going to live with. It became clear as I was sitting with them, being interviewed and interviewing in return, that I'd always be doing something or feeling guilty because they were doing some cool bonding event and I was doing an editing exercise with old jacket copy for the 43rd time that day. Better to be distant friends, not coming home to friends, I think. There will be exceptions to this rule, but for now I will stick with it and try to always live with people older than myself.
My room is cozy, and yes that is a nice way of saying it's only 9x9. Still, it comes with a big ole window, a decently large closet, and, the BONUS FEATURE of a crawlspacestoragenook complete with fully operational door, light fixture, and carpeting. I've called this storage area The Clubhouse, and I've already bought two pillows for it, with designs to use it as a reading nook, meditation spot, and art gallery. Also, even though the room is small, I have a private-due-to-TALL-plants backyard with grass I don't have to mow myself, a porch that is covered and also home for Jeremy's baby bean plants, an already-furnished living room and dining room, a large kitchen with a dishwasher that the landlord demanded I use for hygienic reasons--to this I said "Sure."--and last but not least a free bookshelf donated to my room from Jeremy.
Ally is coming in ten days and I am beyond thrilled to rediscover this city with her at my proverbial and literal side. I will have FREE TIME to re-experience, and sometimes simply Experience, all the things of Portland I have been missing while I've been face-deep in all the book-publishing-related work I find myself in. We missed out doing some things the last time she was here, so this time we are going to have to do those things. We will visit Powell's, go to Voo Doo Donuts, see the Saturday Market, and dance. I will be her John Cusack, without ever telling her I hate her, but with all the mushiness.
I keep going back to the site with all the V.Woolf quotes and finding more and more perfection. She ALSO said, "Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life." Which, if you know me, is how I feel about sleeping. And eating too, but I haven't found that quote from her yet, except from A Room of One's Own when she talks about needing to eat in order to do anything else well.