...FINIAL.
The furniture men came with my bedroom set yesterday. Near the end of the process, one said, "Oh, I almost forgot your crown." He then took a decorative piece out of his coat pocket and screwed it into the top of my dresser. Very nice, thanks, I told him.
Later, when he'd gone, I noticed a hole at the top of the headboard of my new bed. Hmmm. Thinking that probably something went there, I took down the dresser ornament that the man had added and tried it out on the headboard: perfect fit.
So I was missing something. But how in the hell was I ever going to find it? Was it even there to begin with? Was it knocked off in the truck or warehouse or store or street?
I almost didn't bother calling the store today because chances seemed so rare that they'd know anything about it. I'd resigned myself to living without "the topper" to either my dresser or headboard (depending on where I decided to finally put it).
So I called the store: Hi, my name is, you guys delivered furniture to me yesterday, at the end one guy screwed something, a knob, into the top of my dresser, and I think that same thing's missing from the top of my headboard. Did anyone find a knob lying around the delivery truck?
Furniture-store man: Now, are you missing a "knob," or a "finial"?
Me: What's a "finial"?
Explanation. Then, YES! The man on the phone was the owner of the store, and someone had placed a random "finial" on his desk, with no explanation. He'd been wondering why it was there! We're both 95% sure that it belongs with my headboard. And I shall find out for sure in a couple of days, when I go to pick it up! :)
FINIAL.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Zelda's "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"
While Zelda Fitzgerald was in the throes of her ballet obsession, beginning in 1927, a couple of years prior to her very first breakdown (and while she was living with but emotionally estranged from husband Scott), she apparently spent hours daily at home performing to this instrumental. Says houseguest-at-the-time John Biggs (an F. Scott Fitzgerald classmate at Princeton and later a judge and executor of Scott's estate):
"...she would 'start at six or seven o'clock in the morning and...had one tune she used to play constantly, 'The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.' She would keep it up until ten o'clock at night when she would drop from sheer exhaustion.' So often had he heard the tune played there that he said the melody was 'engraved on every organ he possessed.' The repetitious music and Zelda's practicing disturbed Scott enough to make him move his writing desk from the main part of the house into the library."
The Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parade_of_the_Tin_Soldiers,
explains that the tune was initially written in 1897, then became an American hit with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald in 1922 (which is when Zelda would have first heard it):
More from Wikipedia: "In 1923, Lee DeForest filmed "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", performed by Balieff's company, in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film premiered on April 15, 1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, and is now in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress." [Again, this something that Zelda would almost surely have seen.]
I was unable to find the DeForest film, but here is a 2008 amateur junior ballet version from Fort Worth (I hope to god Zelda wasn't doing this kind of thing for 12 hours a day, but I fear she might have been; I think Scott is a bit of a dick, but I do feel sympathy for him in this instance):
"...she would 'start at six or seven o'clock in the morning and...had one tune she used to play constantly, 'The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.' She would keep it up until ten o'clock at night when she would drop from sheer exhaustion.' So often had he heard the tune played there that he said the melody was 'engraved on every organ he possessed.' The repetitious music and Zelda's practicing disturbed Scott enough to make him move his writing desk from the main part of the house into the library."
The Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parade_of_the_Tin_Soldiers,
explains that the tune was initially written in 1897, then became an American hit with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald in 1922 (which is when Zelda would have first heard it):
| The toy shop door is locked up tight And everything is quiet for the night. And suddenly the clock strikes twelve, The fun's begun! The dolls are in their best arrayed, There's going to be a wonderful parade. Hark to the drum, Oh, here they come, cries everyone Hear them all cheering, Now they are nearing, There's the captain stiff as starch. Bayonets flashing, Music is crashing, As the wooden soldiers march; Sabers a-clinking, Soldiers a-winking, At each pretty little maid. | Here they come! Here they come! Here they come! Here they come! Wooden soldiers on parade. Daylight is creeping, Dollies are sleeping. In the toy shop window fast; Soldiers so jolly, Think of each dolly, Dreaming of the night that's past. When in the morning, Without warning, Toyman pulls the window shade, There's no sign the Wood brigade Was ever out upon parade. |
More from Wikipedia: "In 1923, Lee DeForest filmed "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", performed by Balieff's company, in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film premiered on April 15, 1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, and is now in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress." [Again, this something that Zelda would almost surely have seen.]
I was unable to find the DeForest film, but here is a 2008 amateur junior ballet version from Fort Worth (I hope to god Zelda wasn't doing this kind of thing for 12 hours a day, but I fear she might have been; I think Scott is a bit of a dick, but I do feel sympathy for him in this instance):
And here's a painting by Zelda of ballet dancers:
I pretty much see EVERY bit of passive-aggressive Zelda symbolism in all of the above!
Saturday, February 14, 2015
No TV in Bedroom: Good Thing Still!
I just have to remark upon how not having a TV in my bedroom is STILL a good thing. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, there's no cable outlet there, and landlady wouldn't let cable guy drill one. I'd been used to going to sleep with the TV on in the same room for 15 years now.)
As I've been doing the past 2 weeks now in my new place, I woke up today with no audiovisual distraction right in my face. Kinda lay there for a bit, then picked up my Scott/Zelda bio and read for a bit, then, as with last weekend, had the impulse to jump out of bed and go get stuff done for the day! Tried a new eatery for a breakfast taco to go; took it into work, where I stayed about 3.5 hours and got a lot done in the silence; on my way home, went again to the used book store on the corner and got a Vivienne Haigh-Wood bio plus Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" for $4; tried another new eatery/cafe for a salad to take home... I like this new "lifestyle"! There's stuff to do all over the neighborhood very close to where I live. Aside from the billions of food joints (some fast food, some longtime Austin staples, some newer Austin staples), there's also the bookstore, the Savers, the Dollar Store, the billions of vintage furniture stores...just lots of places to pop into without making a 1-hr bus trip. (I do miss my one tiny Tex-Mex place with the great fish tacos from my old 'hood. But other than that, there really wasn't anything for me to do just by quickly walking to, unless I wanted a crappy microwaved sandwich for $10.) Oh, and I found a place right next to the bookstore where I can get a pedi for $25 and then walk home easily in my flip-flops! This 'hood is really suiting my everyday needs! I haven't even mentioned how a 12-pack of Bud is $1.50 cheaper at the corner CVS than it was back in my old 'hood!
As I've been doing the past 2 weeks now in my new place, I woke up today with no audiovisual distraction right in my face. Kinda lay there for a bit, then picked up my Scott/Zelda bio and read for a bit, then, as with last weekend, had the impulse to jump out of bed and go get stuff done for the day! Tried a new eatery for a breakfast taco to go; took it into work, where I stayed about 3.5 hours and got a lot done in the silence; on my way home, went again to the used book store on the corner and got a Vivienne Haigh-Wood bio plus Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" for $4; tried another new eatery/cafe for a salad to take home... I like this new "lifestyle"! There's stuff to do all over the neighborhood very close to where I live. Aside from the billions of food joints (some fast food, some longtime Austin staples, some newer Austin staples), there's also the bookstore, the Savers, the Dollar Store, the billions of vintage furniture stores...just lots of places to pop into without making a 1-hr bus trip. (I do miss my one tiny Tex-Mex place with the great fish tacos from my old 'hood. But other than that, there really wasn't anything for me to do just by quickly walking to, unless I wanted a crappy microwaved sandwich for $10.) Oh, and I found a place right next to the bookstore where I can get a pedi for $25 and then walk home easily in my flip-flops! This 'hood is really suiting my everyday needs! I haven't even mentioned how a 12-pack of Bud is $1.50 cheaper at the corner CVS than it was back in my old 'hood!
Happy Valentine's Day!
Went to bed and woke up celebrating appropriately with "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom," about that oh-so-Romantically-dysfunctional duo, Scott and Zelda.
Other favorite literary Valentines:
 |
| Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes |
 |
| Anne and Kayo Sexton |
 |
| Vivienne Haigh-Wood and T. S. Eliot |
(Wound up my Valentine's Day by buying a bio of the tormented female half of the last couple at my favorite used book store up the street.)
p.s. Why was it always the woman going mad in these relationships? You could say that Vivienne was not her husband's equal, talent-wise. I think Zelda Sayre was definitely her husband's equal, though unacknowledged and constantly tamped down by Fitzgerald, actually forbidden by him, with the complicity of her psychiatrists, to write about her own life for fear that (1) it would "excite" her too much, and (2) that her writing about her own life would interfere with Scott's desire to incorporate her own thoughts/life into his writing, which he'd done constantly, often verbatim. (This is the sickest thing of all--his argument was that since he made the money in the family from his writing, that he had the right to HER thoughts as well as his.)
Plath, a more profound poet than Hughes, though he received the accolades while she was alive and married to him (after SHE, with her early East Coast US literary connections, ensured that he was published in America). Sexton's husband was a non-literary businessman and supportive, while violent.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Screaming at strangers...
...sometimes feels sooooooooo good.
Of course, there are always the doubts: "WHY, Steph, WHY? Aren't you even a bit embarrassed about losing it? Aren't you afraid that it's only going to get worse as you get older, and you're going to end up as the neighborhood 'Really Crazy Old Lady Who Always Screams at People'? Some things are a Slippery Slope, you know."
Yes, I'm a little bit embarrassed. Yes, I'd eventually, ideally like to be a calm, gracious old person and not a crazy, bitter one.
But... oh well.
With my new apartment, my bus-ride to/from work is only about 20 minutes each way. On the Rapid, which my employer pays for. The Rapid's 50-cent-higher rate also ensures that mainly professionals and students ride it, so it's not the writhing-masses-of-humanity scumbag hell that some of the regular city buses are. The rate difference, though, sometimes creates confusion among those waiting at the stops shared by both regular and Rapid buses. As in, sometimes people at the stops want to get on whatever bus stops there, without a realization that the Rapid buses cost more. When the driver tells them about the price difference, there are often arguments and annoying minutes of delays while we passengers all sit there and listen to the pointless blah-blah-blah back and forth.
Same happened this afternoon on my way home. Mid/late-20s couple, both grimy, with backpacks. White guy with dreads. Bleached-blonde Asian woman. As soon as I saw them, before they even opened their mouths, I thought, "San Francisco."
When they initially stepped onto the bus, the guy had a soda, the girl had a Styrofoam container of food. The driver told them no food or drinks on the bus. They, grumbling, went back out and tossed their stuff. When they stepped back onto the bus, there was the above-mentioned argument about what fare they were supposed to pay. They finally got all of their appropriate loose change into the fare box and headed toward the back of the bus, muttering.
GIRL: This is so fucked up.
GUY: Austin's a shitty city anyway.
ME: [turning to look at the guy, having had my absolute fill of smarmy San Francisco attitude 20 years ago and carrying the "trauma" forward to this day, and yelling] Why the FUCK are you here then?!
I was sick of (and nauseated by) San Francisco attitude in '94, and I've been sick of the recent influx of West Coasters into Austin who've been partaking of the town while tossing out smug judgments on it. (One asshole I overheard on the bus months ago was actually CRITICIZING the fact that the streets here weren't more "dangerous," unlike his hometown San Francisco. Another guy on the bus, a grad student, hometown unknown, was bragging about the money he was getting from the University to study here, but belittling the state as a whole.)
Why the FUCK are you here then, indeed?!
When I shouted at the guy today, just about every professional/student head on the previously quiet bus looked up at me, then just as quickly turned back to their devices. The response of the guy himself was first a smirk and then a subsequent quieting down. (I must admit that I was, at that moment, in the incredible mood for a fight.)
Of course, there are always the doubts: "WHY, Steph, WHY? Aren't you even a bit embarrassed about losing it? Aren't you afraid that it's only going to get worse as you get older, and you're going to end up as the neighborhood 'Really Crazy Old Lady Who Always Screams at People'? Some things are a Slippery Slope, you know."
Yes, I'm a little bit embarrassed. Yes, I'd eventually, ideally like to be a calm, gracious old person and not a crazy, bitter one.
But... oh well.
With my new apartment, my bus-ride to/from work is only about 20 minutes each way. On the Rapid, which my employer pays for. The Rapid's 50-cent-higher rate also ensures that mainly professionals and students ride it, so it's not the writhing-masses-of-humanity scumbag hell that some of the regular city buses are. The rate difference, though, sometimes creates confusion among those waiting at the stops shared by both regular and Rapid buses. As in, sometimes people at the stops want to get on whatever bus stops there, without a realization that the Rapid buses cost more. When the driver tells them about the price difference, there are often arguments and annoying minutes of delays while we passengers all sit there and listen to the pointless blah-blah-blah back and forth.
Same happened this afternoon on my way home. Mid/late-20s couple, both grimy, with backpacks. White guy with dreads. Bleached-blonde Asian woman. As soon as I saw them, before they even opened their mouths, I thought, "San Francisco."
When they initially stepped onto the bus, the guy had a soda, the girl had a Styrofoam container of food. The driver told them no food or drinks on the bus. They, grumbling, went back out and tossed their stuff. When they stepped back onto the bus, there was the above-mentioned argument about what fare they were supposed to pay. They finally got all of their appropriate loose change into the fare box and headed toward the back of the bus, muttering.
GIRL: This is so fucked up.
GUY: Austin's a shitty city anyway.
ME: [turning to look at the guy, having had my absolute fill of smarmy San Francisco attitude 20 years ago and carrying the "trauma" forward to this day, and yelling] Why the FUCK are you here then?!
I was sick of (and nauseated by) San Francisco attitude in '94, and I've been sick of the recent influx of West Coasters into Austin who've been partaking of the town while tossing out smug judgments on it. (One asshole I overheard on the bus months ago was actually CRITICIZING the fact that the streets here weren't more "dangerous," unlike his hometown San Francisco. Another guy on the bus, a grad student, hometown unknown, was bragging about the money he was getting from the University to study here, but belittling the state as a whole.)
Why the FUCK are you here then, indeed?!
When I shouted at the guy today, just about every professional/student head on the previously quiet bus looked up at me, then just as quickly turned back to their devices. The response of the guy himself was first a smirk and then a subsequent quieting down. (I must admit that I was, at that moment, in the incredible mood for a fight.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
I'm asking this question in the hope that you'll be kind
Well I tried so hard to stay alive
But the angel of destruction keeps on hounding me all around
But I know in my heart that we never really parted
Oh no
They say the Lord helps those who help themselves
So I'm asking this question in the hope that you'll be kind
Cos I know deep inside I was never satisfied
Oh no, Lord help me
Lord help me now
Please help me Lord, yeah yeah yeah
Help me to help myself
But the angel of destruction keeps on hounding me all around
But I know in my heart that we never really parted
Oh no
They say the Lord helps those who help themselves
So I'm asking this question in the hope that you'll be kind
Cos I know deep inside I was never satisfied
Oh no, Lord help me
Lord help me now
Please help me Lord, yeah yeah yeah
Help me to help myself
Monday, February 09, 2015
Whatever comes with a fox
Just ordered this pillow. The fox is not my totem (I don't think I have one; I'm more attracted to the cat family on a conscious level, though I also pay attention to foxes and wolves.), but I came upon it by accident. The pillow reminded me both of Klimt's style and of two of my favorite poems by Ted Hughes (one exultant, one utterly heartbreaking). I felt I needed this for my study, where I keep all my poems.
The Thought-Fox
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Epiphany
London. The grimy lilac softness
Of an April evening. Me
Walking over Chalk Farm Bridge
On my way to the tube station.
A new father – slightly light-headed
With the lack of sleep and the novelty.
Next, this young fellow coming towards me.
I glanced at him for the first time as I passed him
Because I noticed (I couldn't believe it)
What I'd been ignoring.
Not the bulge of a small animal
Buttoned into the top of his jacket
The way colliers used to wear their whippets –
But its actual face. Eyes reaching out
Trying to catch my eyes – so familiar!
The huge ears, the pinched, urchin expression –
The wild confronting stare, pushed through fear,
Between the jacket lapels.
'It's a fox-cub!'
I heard my own surprise as I stopped.
He stopped. 'Where did you get it? What
Are you going to do with it?'
A fox-cub
On the hump of Chalk Farm Bridge!
'You can have him for a pound.' 'But
Where did you find it? What will you do with it?'
'Oh, somebody'll buy him. Cheap enough
At a pound.' And a grin.
What I was thinking
Was – what would you think? How would we fit it
Into our crate of space? With the baby?
What would you make of its old smell
And its mannerless energy?
And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox?
The long-mouthed, flashing temperament?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved?
The little fox peered past me at other folks,
At this one and at that one, then at me.
Good luck was all it needed.
Already past the kittenish
But the eyes still small,
Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone
As if with weeping. Bereft
Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,
The den life's happy dark. And the huge whisper
Of the constellations
Out of which Mother had always returned.
My thoughts felt like big, ignorant hounds
Circling and sniffing around him.
Then I walked on
As if out of my own life.
I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back
Into the future
Of a fox-cub in London and I hurried
Straight on and dived as if escaping
Into the Underground. If I had paid,
If I had paid that pound and turned back
To you, with that armful of fox –
If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage –
I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?
But I failed. Our marriage had failed.
Great Day!
I haven't had a great or even pretty good day for months, it seems, but I sure had one on Sunday!
I think it has something to do with no TV in the bedroom. (Surprisingly, there was no cable outlet there, and the landlady didn't want the cable co. to drill one. So... I only have the one TV in the living room.) I woke up with only a mild hangover, but normally, at the old place, that would be enough to keep me in bed channel-surfing all day unless I just desperately had to do laundry or grocery shopping. This time when I woke up, however, I just lay there for a bit and then got pretty bored with myself!
So UP I jumped and guess what I did! Went into work for a few hours! Again, back at the old place, there's no way in hell I would have gone through all the drudgery of between 1 and 2 hours each way to and from work, especially with the Sunday bus schedule. At my new place, though... 20 minutes, and there I am! There's a crapload of stuff that I need to get done this week, with 2 hard deadlines, and it had been weighing on my mind. I ended up staying for 3 hours and cleaning up a lot of odds-n-ends so I could focus on the big stuff this week. Felt great!
After that, it was about 4 in the afternoon, and a GORGEOUS 78-degree springlike day in Austin. There's a little used bookstore a couple of blocks from my apartment, run by the Austin libraries, which I'd been eyeing, and I finally went in... Hardbacks $2; PBs $1! That is how used books SHOULD be priced, I think, but unfortunately, even at Goodwill and Savers, they're charging $5 or so for hardbacks--and they're usually extremely stained, grimy hardbacks! (Half-Price Books went bad over a decade ago. When they started out, they charged exactly half, for instance, of what a PB cover price was. So if you found a PB from 1973 or so and the cover said $1.95, you'd pay a dollar. NOW, though, even if the book is from '73, they mark it with what the same title would sell for TODAY; so you'd end up paying $3.50 or something for a tattered book.)
This store, though, was FANTASTIC! It was set up like a library, with some tables and sofas for browsing, and all the books were arranged by category. I spent over an hour in there and ended up getting "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom" (Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald bio), "Culture of Ancient Egypt," and the Collected Gertrude Stein. $4 total!
My mood was getting better and better, so I moseyed on over to the café up the street -- it was jam-packed, so I didn't stop and eat there, but I did pick up a menu to take home and saw that their prices were reasonable (gourmet sandwiches for $6.95-$7.95), so I'll definitely be stopping in again; just have to figure out an off-time, when so many people might not be there and I can actually eat in and stay a bit to read and/or write... I ended up getting a take-home sandwich at Thundercloud. My kitchen (yes, I now HAVE one!!) looks beyond the small apartment parking lot to surrounding trees and the wooden buildings that house a Wellness Center and small vintage store next door, and it's high enough up to where I can look toward the street that I was just shopping on, as well as watch bicyclists and walkers going by. The sun was starting to set as I ate and looked out and browsed through my new books, and I was just smiling and thinking to myself: I have a kitchen! I have a bookstore! I have a café! (And, from Saturday--I have a diner, too!)
Once it got too dark to read with the blinds open any more, I took my Scott-and-Zelda book to my bedroom (that's about to be so much lovelier even) and read until I fell asleep, waking up sans alarm in time to read some more and STILL get to work Monday an hour early! (And my boss is out all this week, so the day had a relaxed feel to it, despite the workload.)
I'd forgotten what a sense of contentment felt like!
I think it has something to do with no TV in the bedroom. (Surprisingly, there was no cable outlet there, and the landlady didn't want the cable co. to drill one. So... I only have the one TV in the living room.) I woke up with only a mild hangover, but normally, at the old place, that would be enough to keep me in bed channel-surfing all day unless I just desperately had to do laundry or grocery shopping. This time when I woke up, however, I just lay there for a bit and then got pretty bored with myself!
So UP I jumped and guess what I did! Went into work for a few hours! Again, back at the old place, there's no way in hell I would have gone through all the drudgery of between 1 and 2 hours each way to and from work, especially with the Sunday bus schedule. At my new place, though... 20 minutes, and there I am! There's a crapload of stuff that I need to get done this week, with 2 hard deadlines, and it had been weighing on my mind. I ended up staying for 3 hours and cleaning up a lot of odds-n-ends so I could focus on the big stuff this week. Felt great!
After that, it was about 4 in the afternoon, and a GORGEOUS 78-degree springlike day in Austin. There's a little used bookstore a couple of blocks from my apartment, run by the Austin libraries, which I'd been eyeing, and I finally went in... Hardbacks $2; PBs $1! That is how used books SHOULD be priced, I think, but unfortunately, even at Goodwill and Savers, they're charging $5 or so for hardbacks--and they're usually extremely stained, grimy hardbacks! (Half-Price Books went bad over a decade ago. When they started out, they charged exactly half, for instance, of what a PB cover price was. So if you found a PB from 1973 or so and the cover said $1.95, you'd pay a dollar. NOW, though, even if the book is from '73, they mark it with what the same title would sell for TODAY; so you'd end up paying $3.50 or something for a tattered book.)
This store, though, was FANTASTIC! It was set up like a library, with some tables and sofas for browsing, and all the books were arranged by category. I spent over an hour in there and ended up getting "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom" (Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald bio), "Culture of Ancient Egypt," and the Collected Gertrude Stein. $4 total!
My mood was getting better and better, so I moseyed on over to the café up the street -- it was jam-packed, so I didn't stop and eat there, but I did pick up a menu to take home and saw that their prices were reasonable (gourmet sandwiches for $6.95-$7.95), so I'll definitely be stopping in again; just have to figure out an off-time, when so many people might not be there and I can actually eat in and stay a bit to read and/or write... I ended up getting a take-home sandwich at Thundercloud. My kitchen (yes, I now HAVE one!!) looks beyond the small apartment parking lot to surrounding trees and the wooden buildings that house a Wellness Center and small vintage store next door, and it's high enough up to where I can look toward the street that I was just shopping on, as well as watch bicyclists and walkers going by. The sun was starting to set as I ate and looked out and browsed through my new books, and I was just smiling and thinking to myself: I have a kitchen! I have a bookstore! I have a café! (And, from Saturday--I have a diner, too!)
Once it got too dark to read with the blinds open any more, I took my Scott-and-Zelda book to my bedroom (that's about to be so much lovelier even) and read until I fell asleep, waking up sans alarm in time to read some more and STILL get to work Monday an hour early! (And my boss is out all this week, so the day had a relaxed feel to it, despite the workload.)
I'd forgotten what a sense of contentment felt like!
Sleep with me!
Bedding that I just bought to go with my new bedroom set. (Yes, I plan on having sex again. Sorry, but you can't NOT have sex with covers like that!) ;p
Sunday, February 08, 2015
Feed me!
Saturday after furniture shopping, I got a good chicken-fried-chicken meal with mashed potatoes and a side salad for only $10 + tip. In an old-style diner, the type of place I like, and only 2 blocks from my apartment. Old-school Austin that I'd been missing so. Why I fell in love with it in the first place, back in the '80s when I first traveled here from Azle for a high-school UIL writing competition and found a "John Lennon: Shaved Fish" T-shirt at a local record store on the Drag.
Furniture Shopping
Now that I'm in 750-sq-ft instead of 400, and 4 rooms instead of 1, I realized just how crappy (and inadequate) all of my stuff is! While my 4 tall bookshelves add warmth and interest to the rooms they're in, my actual furniture has been ridiculously cheap and unattractive. It was "cute" stuff to "start over" with when I was forced to live in the 1 room... The cheap bed bought sight unseen (and unfelt) online, whose springs started poking me within a year... the 2-ft-wide little "desk-on-wheels" I was doing all my work on (a hand-me-down from my mom)... plus random odds-n-ends tables and such bought cheaply off Craigslist or found by my old apartment dumpster or also handed down from my mom. It all served a functional purpose in that 1 room. (Thought sometimes ill-used: My mom had given me her old 3 x 3 solid wood kitchen table--a nice one--which I had shoved into a corner with papers and reference books and my printer piled onto. It's now properly a KITCHEN table! Though one of the two chairs is still IMproperly used, as my desk chair.)
My route to work for the past year, and the new area where I live, are filled with many vintage/consignment furniture stores, which I've been eyeballing while on my daily bus-trip to work. I already had personal experience with a couple of them, from shopping for bookshelves the past couple of years, so I knew which one I wanted to hit up first---and because it had a flat $80 delivery fee regardless of how much you bought, I wanted to do the bulk of my shopping there.
So I got up today with my furniture shopping list already made (*s are how I'd starred them on my list, by most needed/wanted):
**couch (my living room currently hosts nothing but a TV table, a 1999 TV, and one bookshelf)
**chest of drawers (my old apt. had built-in drawers; all of my underwear, socks, etc., are currently either lying on the bedroom floor or housed in cardboard moving boxes)
*desk
*coffee table (living room)
small bookcase (for the study)
ottoman (study)
end table (living room)
dressing table & chair (bedroom)
plus various lamps for all rooms
When I got to the store I liked, I quickly saw that the couch selection was meager, so I gave up on that right away. (Plus I'd been online browsing recently for a charcoal-gray couch/chaise combination--that seems to be trendy both style- and color-wise nowadays, but I actually like how that looks; none of the used couches came close to what I was in the mood for.)
OK, no couch. Next, I focused on the chest of drawers and/or dresser. Was torn between a vintage oak dresser (no mirror) for $389 and a cheap $90 black particle-board chest that actually looked very good and seemed solidly built for what it was. But... the black chest wasn't going to match anything else in my bedroom, and it was a cheapie, and... I was darn sick of the hodge-podge, the throwaway furniture I'd been living with. I didn't want to buy yet ANOTHER thing that I'd just be keeping for a couple of years, or just for utility's sake. I kept pacing and pacing, staring at one, then the other... The vintage dresser was a bit scratched, not exactly hitting the spot, either (for nearly $400, I wanted EXACTLY what I wanted, not just something to settle for)...
In the same area of the store was a bedroom set for $1149 by Broyhill: queen-sized bed, dresser with triptych mirror, chest of drawers, 2 night tables. Solid wood. Made in the '90s, but a classic look. Hardly any wear. The plush mattress/box springs was $250 extra.
I hadn't come in there for a bed. My own full-size bed with a metal frame (no headboard) was still serviceable (after placing a thick bed pad on it and rotating it so the various springs poking out weren't directly poking me). But I'd been waking up back- and neck-achy for the past couple of months--personal stress, work stress, hitting middle age, bad bed? All, probably. But I suddenly blamed the bed. And I suddenly equated being a middle-aged adult with having a bed with a headboard, and a footboard, and, moreover, with thick mattresses. Plus I needed somewhere to put my underwear and socks. And something else to place my perfume and jewel-box on. This set gave me the whole she-bang. It wasn't a hodge-podge. It looked like something that would last me for the rest of my life, which, at nearly 50, I wanted: MY bedroom furniture. To grow old with.
I bought the set. A hundred dollars knocked off the price helped, but STILL... It was a MAJOR purchase. The most major purchase of my life. (My computer cost nearly $1000. And I've never bought a car on my own. So this bedroom set is really THE most major purchase of my life.)
I also ended up picking up a small desk and accompanying chair, plus an ottoman, for the study. (All three of those, though, only totaled about $200.) This makes the bedroom and the study done. What did NOT get done at all, however, was the living room! With only a TV and no place to sit, it's completely unusable for the time being. I can't quite bring myself to spring for a couch, etc. (and the big-screen TV I wanted), right now, though. Too much, too soon, I feel. I feel like I need to, in the coming weeks, simply spend time in my bedroom, appreciating both the cushy bed and the ability to sort out my undies. No sensory overload! ;p
Below: Not quite the Broyhill style that I bought today, but similar.
My route to work for the past year, and the new area where I live, are filled with many vintage/consignment furniture stores, which I've been eyeballing while on my daily bus-trip to work. I already had personal experience with a couple of them, from shopping for bookshelves the past couple of years, so I knew which one I wanted to hit up first---and because it had a flat $80 delivery fee regardless of how much you bought, I wanted to do the bulk of my shopping there.
So I got up today with my furniture shopping list already made (*s are how I'd starred them on my list, by most needed/wanted):
**couch (my living room currently hosts nothing but a TV table, a 1999 TV, and one bookshelf)
**chest of drawers (my old apt. had built-in drawers; all of my underwear, socks, etc., are currently either lying on the bedroom floor or housed in cardboard moving boxes)
*desk
*coffee table (living room)
small bookcase (for the study)
ottoman (study)
end table (living room)
dressing table & chair (bedroom)
plus various lamps for all rooms
When I got to the store I liked, I quickly saw that the couch selection was meager, so I gave up on that right away. (Plus I'd been online browsing recently for a charcoal-gray couch/chaise combination--that seems to be trendy both style- and color-wise nowadays, but I actually like how that looks; none of the used couches came close to what I was in the mood for.)
OK, no couch. Next, I focused on the chest of drawers and/or dresser. Was torn between a vintage oak dresser (no mirror) for $389 and a cheap $90 black particle-board chest that actually looked very good and seemed solidly built for what it was. But... the black chest wasn't going to match anything else in my bedroom, and it was a cheapie, and... I was darn sick of the hodge-podge, the throwaway furniture I'd been living with. I didn't want to buy yet ANOTHER thing that I'd just be keeping for a couple of years, or just for utility's sake. I kept pacing and pacing, staring at one, then the other... The vintage dresser was a bit scratched, not exactly hitting the spot, either (for nearly $400, I wanted EXACTLY what I wanted, not just something to settle for)...
In the same area of the store was a bedroom set for $1149 by Broyhill: queen-sized bed, dresser with triptych mirror, chest of drawers, 2 night tables. Solid wood. Made in the '90s, but a classic look. Hardly any wear. The plush mattress/box springs was $250 extra.
I hadn't come in there for a bed. My own full-size bed with a metal frame (no headboard) was still serviceable (after placing a thick bed pad on it and rotating it so the various springs poking out weren't directly poking me). But I'd been waking up back- and neck-achy for the past couple of months--personal stress, work stress, hitting middle age, bad bed? All, probably. But I suddenly blamed the bed. And I suddenly equated being a middle-aged adult with having a bed with a headboard, and a footboard, and, moreover, with thick mattresses. Plus I needed somewhere to put my underwear and socks. And something else to place my perfume and jewel-box on. This set gave me the whole she-bang. It wasn't a hodge-podge. It looked like something that would last me for the rest of my life, which, at nearly 50, I wanted: MY bedroom furniture. To grow old with.
I bought the set. A hundred dollars knocked off the price helped, but STILL... It was a MAJOR purchase. The most major purchase of my life. (My computer cost nearly $1000. And I've never bought a car on my own. So this bedroom set is really THE most major purchase of my life.)
I also ended up picking up a small desk and accompanying chair, plus an ottoman, for the study. (All three of those, though, only totaled about $200.) This makes the bedroom and the study done. What did NOT get done at all, however, was the living room! With only a TV and no place to sit, it's completely unusable for the time being. I can't quite bring myself to spring for a couch, etc. (and the big-screen TV I wanted), right now, though. Too much, too soon, I feel. I feel like I need to, in the coming weeks, simply spend time in my bedroom, appreciating both the cushy bed and the ability to sort out my undies. No sensory overload! ;p
Below: Not quite the Broyhill style that I bought today, but similar.
Friday, February 06, 2015
Thursday, February 05, 2015
In The Dark - Freddy Martin Orchestra (1935)
One thing that's interesting to me about listening to music from the '30s is getting a sociological feel for how people romanced/related to each other then. (Most people aren't profound poets and can't express their deepest feelings; so they often let pop culture do it for them. There's shallowness in mass culture, sure, but... there's also, in the best of it, a truth that gets expressed amid all of the glossing over.) This is a sexually sweet song by today's standards, but a sexually provocative song for 1935. It's a popular song because it's catchy and talks about a favorite activity of young people at the time, going to dance clubs (in that, nothing has changed!)... but it's also emotionally honest and intimate. I relate to that, as well. Most of my best memories from my own clubbing days (up until 2000) were of the moments when I connected with an individual amidst all of the chaos (though many such "connections" also somehow involved cocaine and/or a penis---but hey, who's to say that the crooner in this song, or at least the songwriter, wasn't also recollecting a night in a club when he gave a young flapper some then-newly-hip coke and pressed his dick against her...only to clean it up later for public consumption).
Charlie Barnet - Make Believe Ballroom
I've been listening nonstop to this 4-CD set for the past few nights--101 songs from 1929 through 1940. "Make-Believe Ballroom" is my current favorite. "Tho' you've only a small room / make it your ballroom" is my favorite line; I also like the clever "dancipation" and how the song incorporates the then-trendy new invention of the radio...plus it makes poor and/or young people trapped in small spaces feel happy despite their meager surroundings! "If you've got a radio, you're OK--the world is available to you." I've often felt the same way. Back in the '80s when I used to listen to late-night stations for some/any emotional sustenance, and today, when the Internet provides the same small, fleeting comfort.
Let's dance, in a mansion or hall room
Here's your make-believe ballroom, let's danceRomance at the tip of your fingers
While the melody lingers, let's dance, dance, dance
Start in swayin', while the band is playin'
Music is worth your while
Let this station give you dancipation
Simply turn the dial
And keep on dancin' tho' you've only a small room
Make it your ballroom, let's dance...
Sunday, February 01, 2015
On one of my last bus rides...
...on the 21/22, connecting me to my old Eastside neighborhood, a 30-ish woman got on, accompanied by a trolling hipster (on crutches--symbolism). This same woman, I'd seen for the past couple of years in the mornings, usually accompanied by her toddler son, Jude. (Jude is a determined little charmer, always marching on the bus and claiming his seat, sometimes smiling broadly, sometimes giving people a "what you talkin' bout Willis" look.) I wondered about them. The mother looked like she was married to an academic; she didn't seem overly pretentious herself, only borderline so, but she looked pretty and intelligent, like someone an academic man might choose. One day on campus I saw Jude not with his mother, but with a man in his early 30s, wearing a typical "summertime academic" outfit: A long-sleeved see-through Philippino shirt with a white T-shirt underneath, khaki pants, hiking boots, and an academically approved jaunty straw hat. As soon as I saw him, I thought: "Perfect." He looked like a bit of a pretentious ass (I find that people who dress for the occasion -- like "summer in Austin" -- are almost always pretentious asses). After a few months, I saw the three together on the bus: The couple sat side-by-side, never saying a word to each other. "What a dick," I thought.
Last week on the bus, the woman got on, sans Jude, in the middle of a conversation with the trolling hipster/crutches guy. Because of him, I learned her age (29); where she worked (at a learning center on campus); her college major (Biology); what her husband does (it's her ex-husband; she's divorced; they have 2 kids, ages 9 and 3 --- the latter is Jude, I suppose).
The guy on crutches was actually physically attractive, but his overt New Humanitarian hipsterism made him sound like an idiot. For instance, when the woman mentioned that her college major had been Biology, the guy began a spiel about how, like, even though he was currently an unemployed English major, he'd always, like, been interested in Biology, because it was, like, LIFE. In all my years, I've overheard dozens of girls going for this kind of line, and was kind of waiting for her to, also. To her credit, she did not. (Jesus, she had one kid when she was 20, and her husband has recently forced her to raise a 3-year-old by herself. Perhaps the Reality Gene has kicked in early with this lady.)
Last week on the bus, the woman got on, sans Jude, in the middle of a conversation with the trolling hipster/crutches guy. Because of him, I learned her age (29); where she worked (at a learning center on campus); her college major (Biology); what her husband does (it's her ex-husband; she's divorced; they have 2 kids, ages 9 and 3 --- the latter is Jude, I suppose).
The guy on crutches was actually physically attractive, but his overt New Humanitarian hipsterism made him sound like an idiot. For instance, when the woman mentioned that her college major had been Biology, the guy began a spiel about how, like, even though he was currently an unemployed English major, he'd always, like, been interested in Biology, because it was, like, LIFE. In all my years, I've overheard dozens of girls going for this kind of line, and was kind of waiting for her to, also. To her credit, she did not. (Jesus, she had one kid when she was 20, and her husband has recently forced her to raise a 3-year-old by herself. Perhaps the Reality Gene has kicked in early with this lady.)
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Did I mention earlier...
...that moving is for the Young?
Or at least for someone who has someone with them!
Moving in my 20s involved a few friends with a pickup, one small couch, a small bed, one bookshelf... Plus, "Oh, how my life will be different in my new place!"
This time, I've hired movers, I've rented a car for 3 days, my brother is helping me do some small stuff on one day... Plus, "My life's going to be pretty much the same in my new place, except the commute to work will be shorter and there are a few more shops within walking distance..."
I've done it so much at this point, there's no sense of adventure about it at all. It's just a grind.
Back in December, I thought my January would be full of excitement about planning for the new place upcoming at the end of the month. Nah. This whole month has been merely full of mental chores: hiring movers, contacting all utilities, figuring out when to pick up/drop off keys, etc. And physical chores, like packing up the more-than-50 boxes of books, CDs, and just plain crap I've accumulated.
I'm tired and unexcited.
Or at least for someone who has someone with them!
Moving in my 20s involved a few friends with a pickup, one small couch, a small bed, one bookshelf... Plus, "Oh, how my life will be different in my new place!"
This time, I've hired movers, I've rented a car for 3 days, my brother is helping me do some small stuff on one day... Plus, "My life's going to be pretty much the same in my new place, except the commute to work will be shorter and there are a few more shops within walking distance..."
I've done it so much at this point, there's no sense of adventure about it at all. It's just a grind.
Back in December, I thought my January would be full of excitement about planning for the new place upcoming at the end of the month. Nah. This whole month has been merely full of mental chores: hiring movers, contacting all utilities, figuring out when to pick up/drop off keys, etc. And physical chores, like packing up the more-than-50 boxes of books, CDs, and just plain crap I've accumulated.
I'm tired and unexcited.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Happy Birthday
My father is 75 years old today. That's not really conceivable to me. Last time I was around him regularly, he was a mean guy in his 40s whom I hated. But, how do you hate a 75-year-old, especially one who no longer has any power over you? That's kind of like the Russians insisting on continuing to punish Rudolf Hess 40 years after the fact.
Oh, but the Hess reference is being overly dramatic.
When I was little, I liked the way my dad's sweaty after-work T-shirts smelled. (My mother has since told me that I liked to sleep with them.)
When I was little and had been put to bed, I'd almost always call out later to my parents for a drink of water. If I had NOT wet the bed by that time, I'd call for my mother. If I HAD wet the bed, I'd call for my father, because he was always nicer about it.
I liked going swimming with my dad. I remember riding on his back as he dove.
I liked the two or three times we went to a bowling alley and played pinball.
I liked staying up late watching movies with my dad. We barely spoke, just watched, but it was peaceful.
When "Gone With the Wind" aired for the first time on television in 1976, my dad grumped about how he, and thus all of us, were not going to watch it. He finally "let" me and my mom watch it on the big color TV in the living room, and went off to watch football on the small black-and-white TV in my bedroom. During a commercial, I went to visit him in the back room: He had on "Gone With the Wind."
When Elvis died in August 1977, I remember my dad going off into the back bedroom to be by himself because he was sad. At 12, I was just starting to understand, and respect, sadness.
I was grateful on the eve of my high-school graduation when my dad told my mom to let me go out after.
Some time in the mid-80s, I, in a fit of college-girl romanticism, gave my dad a collection of Anne Sexton poems because I felt that he'd like them. He actually seemed to. I remember that there was a poem about Sexton's father being a travelling salesman that my father commented on and liked --- his own father had been a travelling salesman.
Moving
I've been in this one-room (400-sq-ft) place for 4 years and 8 months now. That makes it the 3rd-longest time I've ever lived anywhere.
(1) Azle, Texas. August 1977 - August 1983 (ages 12-18)
(2) Austin, Poquito Street. June 2000 - February 2007 (ages 34 - 41)
(3) Austin, Manor Road. July 2010 - January 2015 (ages 45 - 49)
How fucking sad is it that the third-longest time I've ever lived anywhere has been in a one-room apartment---and as a woman in my mid-late 40s!
Jesus.
(1) Azle, Texas. August 1977 - August 1983 (ages 12-18)
(2) Austin, Poquito Street. June 2000 - February 2007 (ages 34 - 41)
(3) Austin, Manor Road. July 2010 - January 2015 (ages 45 - 49)
How fucking sad is it that the third-longest time I've ever lived anywhere has been in a one-room apartment---and as a woman in my mid-late 40s!
Jesus.
Joan Crawford in "Rain," 1932
Only 3 performances by actresses have given me goosebumps:
(1) Vivien Leigh in "Gone With the Wind"
(2) Jessica Lange in "Frances"
(3) Joan Crawford in "Rain"
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Stymied
This is completely a "First World Problem."
At the end of the month, I'll be moving from a one-room apartment into a 2-bedroom apartment -- with only an 18-inch TV from 1992 that I bought on Craig's List for $20 when I came back to Austin 5 years ago.
The little '92 TV is going into my new bedroom, and today I attempted to buy a flat-screen TV at Best Buy to go into my new living room, wanting to get it before the cable people came to my new place.
I didn't know exactly how big of a TV I was going to get, but I'd heard that they were heavy, and so I called my brother and left a message at about 9:30am: "Hey, I'm buying a TV today, but can you give me a ride home? I think it's going to be heavy." (He lives about 2 miles away from me; the Best Buy is also about 2 miles away.) By the time I got to the store around 11am, I called him again, telling him I didn't think I'd even be able to get the TV home in a cab, could he come help? There was never any response from him.
Once I got to the TV section of the store, a clerk immediately asked me if I needed help. "No, just browsing, thanks." I wandered around the TV aisles for 20 minutes or so by myself, finally figuring out what I wanted to get, but still having questions. I then approached one guy, but he said he was busy "translating." (I told him HE didn't have to help me, but could he call someone to do so.) I then approached Guy Two to help me: He also said he'd call someone. I went back over to my TV aisle, stood there for another 5 minutes on my own. Finally got sick of waiting and stormed up to Customer Service at the front of the store. Told the lady there my Sad Story: "I'm TRYING to buy a TV and no one will help me!" She got on her modern-day equivalent of walkie-talkie and said that someone was on their way to that department... I went back over there. Stood on the same TV aisle for another few minutes. With no attention, stormed my way out of the store, passing 3 guys standing around yacking in the TV department and giving them a nasty look. One guy called out as I passed, "Do you need help, ma'am?" Me: "I've been LOOKING FOR HELP for 20 minutes!" When I got to the front doors, the customer-service guy stationed there said brightly, "Hope you found everything OK!" Me: "I did NOT find everything OK! Nobody would help me!" The young guy made a non-ironic frowny-face and said he was sorry.
Goddamn! Here I was wanting to buy a 40-inch flatscreen and completely unable to do so! The most fucking bizarre and depressing thing!
At the end of the month, I'll be moving from a one-room apartment into a 2-bedroom apartment -- with only an 18-inch TV from 1992 that I bought on Craig's List for $20 when I came back to Austin 5 years ago.
The little '92 TV is going into my new bedroom, and today I attempted to buy a flat-screen TV at Best Buy to go into my new living room, wanting to get it before the cable people came to my new place.
I didn't know exactly how big of a TV I was going to get, but I'd heard that they were heavy, and so I called my brother and left a message at about 9:30am: "Hey, I'm buying a TV today, but can you give me a ride home? I think it's going to be heavy." (He lives about 2 miles away from me; the Best Buy is also about 2 miles away.) By the time I got to the store around 11am, I called him again, telling him I didn't think I'd even be able to get the TV home in a cab, could he come help? There was never any response from him.
Once I got to the TV section of the store, a clerk immediately asked me if I needed help. "No, just browsing, thanks." I wandered around the TV aisles for 20 minutes or so by myself, finally figuring out what I wanted to get, but still having questions. I then approached one guy, but he said he was busy "translating." (I told him HE didn't have to help me, but could he call someone to do so.) I then approached Guy Two to help me: He also said he'd call someone. I went back over to my TV aisle, stood there for another 5 minutes on my own. Finally got sick of waiting and stormed up to Customer Service at the front of the store. Told the lady there my Sad Story: "I'm TRYING to buy a TV and no one will help me!" She got on her modern-day equivalent of walkie-talkie and said that someone was on their way to that department... I went back over there. Stood on the same TV aisle for another few minutes. With no attention, stormed my way out of the store, passing 3 guys standing around yacking in the TV department and giving them a nasty look. One guy called out as I passed, "Do you need help, ma'am?" Me: "I've been LOOKING FOR HELP for 20 minutes!" When I got to the front doors, the customer-service guy stationed there said brightly, "Hope you found everything OK!" Me: "I did NOT find everything OK! Nobody would help me!" The young guy made a non-ironic frowny-face and said he was sorry.
Goddamn! Here I was wanting to buy a 40-inch flatscreen and completely unable to do so! The most fucking bizarre and depressing thing!
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Appointments Made (Cleanup Time)
Pick-up time for new key--check.
Pick-up/drop-off time for 3-day rental car--check.
Brother helping me move little crap--check.
Movers--check.
Cable company--NOT YET.
Clean-up time/hand over keys from old place--check.
I'm stressed out about the upcoming move, but as I continue to make arrangements (and take home moving boxes from work and my corner beer store), I am relaxing slightly, knowing there are various "Systems" in place (e.g., solidifying a time for picking up my new key is part of a "System"). The more appointments I solidify, the more I relax and start to actually enjoy the PROSPECT of my new, much bigger place in a new, much better location for me.
Only 11 days left of my 3-hour-a-day bus travails. For the past few days, during the last hour of my bus trip, I've been projecting myself into a future a month from now: "I'm not on this bus right now. I got off this bus an hour ago." Similar to the mind-trip I've tried to engage myself in for the past 4 years in this 380-sq-ft apartment: "Pretend like this is just a really cool bedroom" or "Pretend like this is just a really cool treehouse."
It wasn't ever a BAD place; it was just way too small for someone at my point in life.
Pick-up/drop-off time for 3-day rental car--check.
Brother helping me move little crap--check.
Movers--check.
Cable company--NOT YET.
Clean-up time/hand over keys from old place--check.
I'm stressed out about the upcoming move, but as I continue to make arrangements (and take home moving boxes from work and my corner beer store), I am relaxing slightly, knowing there are various "Systems" in place (e.g., solidifying a time for picking up my new key is part of a "System"). The more appointments I solidify, the more I relax and start to actually enjoy the PROSPECT of my new, much bigger place in a new, much better location for me.
Only 11 days left of my 3-hour-a-day bus travails. For the past few days, during the last hour of my bus trip, I've been projecting myself into a future a month from now: "I'm not on this bus right now. I got off this bus an hour ago." Similar to the mind-trip I've tried to engage myself in for the past 4 years in this 380-sq-ft apartment: "Pretend like this is just a really cool bedroom" or "Pretend like this is just a really cool treehouse."
It wasn't ever a BAD place; it was just way too small for someone at my point in life.
Not Friendly When Eating at Work
I'm not, just not. If this characteristic has not yet changed from the age of 16 to the age of nearly 50, it ain't ever going to change. Not proud of it, but... the anti-social response is apparently deeply ingrained.
At 16, I worked at the Azle K-Mart and was sitting alone having hot dogs or something at the store cafeteria on my Saturday lunch break. A girl that I knew vaguely from school also worked there and was sitting with friends across the aisle. She beckoned me over to join them... Now, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the company and friendly gesture and jump up to join them... I, on the other hand, shook my head "no, thanks." VERY awkward.
At a new job in the early 2000s (in my early 30s), I was sitting by myself at a long table in the work cafeteria. After I was over halfway finished with my meal, a whole group from my department started filing in and seating themselves at the end of the same table. There were still several chairs between us, but there they were, and there I was. A boss spotted me and called me over. Now, being new to the group, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the invitation and chance to bond with fellow group members... Nah. I, on the other hand, shook my head and said, "I'm nearly done anyway," then scarfed the rest of my food and took off. VERY awkward.
The age-16 K-Mart incident had stayed in my memory all that time, me later cursing myself for acting terribly. Yet when the same type of situation arose 15-or-so years later, I behaved in exactly the same way, despite my awareness of how badly I'd behaved in the first case. I couldn't help myself. I could not bring myself to be civil!
Today at my work cafeteria, it wasn't anyone from MY group that requested to sit with me. But there were outside conference members filling up the cafeteria, and seating was short. I was eating at a table for 4 (where I usually eat by myself), and a 30-ish dyke-y woman plopped down right in front of me and asked to sit down. I said sure. (Already annoyed at a stranger sitting right in front of me; I thought there was an unwritten/common-sensical rule to sit catty-corner/diagonally when strangers are sharing a 4-seat table!) So there we were, eating away, me trying to ignore her. She says, looking at my taco salad: "Vegetables. I ate those yesterday, so I can eat what I want today." I had not being paying ANY attention to what food she had sat down with, but when she brought it up, I looked and saw her two slices of pizza and chocolate desert. Fine. Who cares. I smiled politely and continued munching. She wouldn't quit:
"Are you here with the conference?"
Me: "No, I work here."
"What do you do here?"
"Editing."
"What do you edit?"
At this point I semi-snapped, and glared, "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be short or rude..."
"Oh! I should leave you alone!"
"I'm not trying to be rude, but I just need to THINK right now."
So for the next few minutes that it took for me to finish my salad, I then had to make an effort to look "contemplative" while doing so.
When I finally stood up to leave, my table-mate said cheerily, "Have a good one!" I did manage a "You, too."
But then I felt horrible afterward. Could I not have made some polite conversation? But I HATE polite conversation. But wouldn't polite conversation have been better than the awkwardness that ensued after my rejection of ANY conversation? I guess not, deep down in my soul.
I left the table feeling like shit for being rude, with a side-psychological-note of "What if she thought I was just rejecting her conversationally because she was so obviously a dyke? I'm gay, too! It was just very weird to me that you sat right in front of me and tried to force me to talk to you!"
At 16, I worked at the Azle K-Mart and was sitting alone having hot dogs or something at the store cafeteria on my Saturday lunch break. A girl that I knew vaguely from school also worked there and was sitting with friends across the aisle. She beckoned me over to join them... Now, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the company and friendly gesture and jump up to join them... I, on the other hand, shook my head "no, thanks." VERY awkward.
At a new job in the early 2000s (in my early 30s), I was sitting by myself at a long table in the work cafeteria. After I was over halfway finished with my meal, a whole group from my department started filing in and seating themselves at the end of the same table. There were still several chairs between us, but there they were, and there I was. A boss spotted me and called me over. Now, being new to the group, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the invitation and chance to bond with fellow group members... Nah. I, on the other hand, shook my head and said, "I'm nearly done anyway," then scarfed the rest of my food and took off. VERY awkward.
The age-16 K-Mart incident had stayed in my memory all that time, me later cursing myself for acting terribly. Yet when the same type of situation arose 15-or-so years later, I behaved in exactly the same way, despite my awareness of how badly I'd behaved in the first case. I couldn't help myself. I could not bring myself to be civil!
Today at my work cafeteria, it wasn't anyone from MY group that requested to sit with me. But there were outside conference members filling up the cafeteria, and seating was short. I was eating at a table for 4 (where I usually eat by myself), and a 30-ish dyke-y woman plopped down right in front of me and asked to sit down. I said sure. (Already annoyed at a stranger sitting right in front of me; I thought there was an unwritten/common-sensical rule to sit catty-corner/diagonally when strangers are sharing a 4-seat table!) So there we were, eating away, me trying to ignore her. She says, looking at my taco salad: "Vegetables. I ate those yesterday, so I can eat what I want today." I had not being paying ANY attention to what food she had sat down with, but when she brought it up, I looked and saw her two slices of pizza and chocolate desert. Fine. Who cares. I smiled politely and continued munching. She wouldn't quit:
"Are you here with the conference?"
Me: "No, I work here."
"What do you do here?"
"Editing."
"What do you edit?"
At this point I semi-snapped, and glared, "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be short or rude..."
"Oh! I should leave you alone!"
"I'm not trying to be rude, but I just need to THINK right now."
So for the next few minutes that it took for me to finish my salad, I then had to make an effort to look "contemplative" while doing so.
When I finally stood up to leave, my table-mate said cheerily, "Have a good one!" I did manage a "You, too."
But then I felt horrible afterward. Could I not have made some polite conversation? But I HATE polite conversation. But wouldn't polite conversation have been better than the awkwardness that ensued after my rejection of ANY conversation? I guess not, deep down in my soul.
I left the table feeling like shit for being rude, with a side-psychological-note of "What if she thought I was just rejecting her conversationally because she was so obviously a dyke? I'm gay, too! It was just very weird to me that you sat right in front of me and tried to force me to talk to you!"
Sunday, January 11, 2015
The New York Groove
Many years since I was here
On the street I was passin' my time away
To the left and to the right, buildings towering to the sky
It's outta sight, in the dead of night
On the street I was passin' my time away
To the left and to the right, buildings towering to the sky
It's outta sight, in the dead of night
Here I am, again in this city
With a fistful of dollars
And baby, you'd better believe...
With a fistful of dollars
And baby, you'd better believe...
I'm back, back in the New York groove
In the back of my Cadillac
A wicked lady, sittin' by my side, sayin', "Where are we?"
Stop at Third and Forty-three, exit to the night
It's gonna be ecstacy, this place was meant for me
A wicked lady, sittin' by my side, sayin', "Where are we?"
Stop at Third and Forty-three, exit to the night
It's gonna be ecstacy, this place was meant for me
I feel so good tonight
Who cares about tomorrow
So baby, you'd better believe...
Who cares about tomorrow
So baby, you'd better believe...
I'm back, back in the New York groove
Going Down on Love (John Lennon, 1974)
Somebody please, please help me
You know I'm drowning in a sea of hatred...
You know I'm drowning in a sea of hatred...
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Moving Is For the Young
I'm not moving until the end of this month but have been stressed about the whole impending process since Christmas vacation. Though I currently live in only a 380-sq-ft apartment, I've lived in it for the past 4-1/2 years and have built up a TON of stuff...
I arrived at this place in 2010 with the following cast-offs from my mom: a good 3 x 3 wooden kitchen table and two chairs, a computer table on wheels, a 3-drawer supply table on wheels, a night-side table, a foam chair that folded out into my bed for a couple of weeks, a 1990 microwave oven. Plus maybe 4 boxes of personal papers, 4 boxes of books, a few boxes of dishes and random personal items. And a 1990s TV that I bought from craigslist for $20. My mom and I moved all of this ourselves in one morning, except for the kitchen table, which my brother did for us.
Since then, here's what I've accumulated:
While packing this evening, I flashed back to the days of college and the decade after, when I used to move practically every year, with just a carload of friends and a pickup to help! Moving and helping people move was kind of a constant up until I was about 35! And there was still a bit of excitement about the whole process: "What will my 'next' place/life be like??" Now, approaching 50, though, and having been there many times before, said "process" is already, in its early stages, quite tedious and a bit depressing, despite the accompanying anticipation of a much larger place in a neighborhood I'm looking forward to being in. I was hoping the "anticipation" would have been a lot greater than it currently is.
I arrived at this place in 2010 with the following cast-offs from my mom: a good 3 x 3 wooden kitchen table and two chairs, a computer table on wheels, a 3-drawer supply table on wheels, a night-side table, a foam chair that folded out into my bed for a couple of weeks, a 1990 microwave oven. Plus maybe 4 boxes of personal papers, 4 boxes of books, a few boxes of dishes and random personal items. And a 1990s TV that I bought from craigslist for $20. My mom and I moved all of this ourselves in one morning, except for the kitchen table, which my brother did for us.
Since then, here's what I've accumulated:
- bed/box-springs/metal frame (ordered new online, delivered)
- three 6-ft bookcases (2 from a used furniture store that my brother delivered, 1 found by my apt. dumpster)
- a 5-ft bookcase (craigslist person who delivered)
- small bookcase (used furniture store, brother delivered)
- nice Crate-and-Barrel chair (used furniture store, brother delivered)
- small round wooden table with eaves (alley behind my apt. building)
- light chair (by my apt. dumpster)
- etagere (from an apt. neighbor selling off her stuff)
- wooden DVD case (craigslist person who delivered)
- 500-CD holder (by my apt. dumpster)
- over 500 books
- over 400 CDs
While packing this evening, I flashed back to the days of college and the decade after, when I used to move practically every year, with just a carload of friends and a pickup to help! Moving and helping people move was kind of a constant up until I was about 35! And there was still a bit of excitement about the whole process: "What will my 'next' place/life be like??" Now, approaching 50, though, and having been there many times before, said "process" is already, in its early stages, quite tedious and a bit depressing, despite the accompanying anticipation of a much larger place in a neighborhood I'm looking forward to being in. I was hoping the "anticipation" would have been a lot greater than it currently is.
Crazeee
I'll be hitting 50 this year and, frankly, "crazy" ain't so charming any more, like it was in my 20s.
An example:
Early in November, Sandra indicated that a friend of hers had a cabin available in the Hill Country, and why didn't we got out there? Me: OK!
Weeks went by. No cabin materialized. Finally, near Christmas, I gave a hint: "Hey, I'm about to have 16 days off! Let's do something!" No response to that.
When I last spoke to Sandra a couple of days ago, two days before my vacation was about to end, she said: "You could come out here, but I can't invite you because I don't have a car, and we couldn't go anywhere."
Me: "Hey, my vacation's over now."
What an idiot. My disdain for her, but for me, too, for my hopes.
An example:
Early in November, Sandra indicated that a friend of hers had a cabin available in the Hill Country, and why didn't we got out there? Me: OK!
Weeks went by. No cabin materialized. Finally, near Christmas, I gave a hint: "Hey, I'm about to have 16 days off! Let's do something!" No response to that.
When I last spoke to Sandra a couple of days ago, two days before my vacation was about to end, she said: "You could come out here, but I can't invite you because I don't have a car, and we couldn't go anywhere."
Me: "Hey, my vacation's over now."
What an idiot. My disdain for her, but for me, too, for my hopes.
Sunday, January 04, 2015
How on earth will I make my way??
After telling my mother to fuck off on New Year's Day, one of my first thoughts the next day was: "Oh shit... I'm moving at the end of the month, and she had saved all of her moving boxes from 2010 for me... Where in the world am I going to get boxes for all of my books?"
Then I realized: My corner beer store gets in new boxes every day. Just took home 10 of them this evening. I'll have enough by the end of the month.
Another thing I'd been worrying about re moving: I'd anticipated needing a car at the end of the month, before the movers of the big things; was worrying about who to ask, my brother or my mother? My brother wouldn't be available; my mother would be available, but would bitch every single step of the way, making me so nervous that I'd probably actually HAVE a wreck.
Then I realized: There're such places like "Rent-a-Wreck" and other rental places that I can afford. I can rent a fucking car for 3 days to haul my clothes and personal belongings. Just because I haven't driven a car since 2007 (for the past 8 years, since I sold off my car when I moved to NYC until now), doesn't mean I can't drive a fucking car! I've been driving since I was 16, and I drove up until I left for New York in 2007. I can certainly figure out how to drive in 2015.
Then I realized: My corner beer store gets in new boxes every day. Just took home 10 of them this evening. I'll have enough by the end of the month.
Another thing I'd been worrying about re moving: I'd anticipated needing a car at the end of the month, before the movers of the big things; was worrying about who to ask, my brother or my mother? My brother wouldn't be available; my mother would be available, but would bitch every single step of the way, making me so nervous that I'd probably actually HAVE a wreck.
Then I realized: There're such places like "Rent-a-Wreck" and other rental places that I can afford. I can rent a fucking car for 3 days to haul my clothes and personal belongings. Just because I haven't driven a car since 2007 (for the past 8 years, since I sold off my car when I moved to NYC until now), doesn't mean I can't drive a fucking car! I've been driving since I was 16, and I drove up until I left for New York in 2007. I can certainly figure out how to drive in 2015.
Happy New Year, 2015
I broke in New Year's Day cursing my mother and Sandra via e-mail. Woke up the next day with a hangover, feeling guilty and shitty for being rude, and being mad at myself for bringing in the New Year with Bad Vibes.
However... were my messages to my mother and to Sandra bad vibes for the New Year, or simply a cleansing of bad shit from the Old Year, and from many old years?
After my initial guilt, I'm now pretty sure that it was out with the old and shitty.
However... were my messages to my mother and to Sandra bad vibes for the New Year, or simply a cleansing of bad shit from the Old Year, and from many old years?
After my initial guilt, I'm now pretty sure that it was out with the old and shitty.
Thursday, January 01, 2015
Winter's Mysticism
Up all New Year's Eve and now into New Year's Day, having napped extensively yesterday afternoon. About 6 this morning, the predicted freezing rain started falling --- I briefly opened my blinds AND window to get a whiff of the bracing head-clearing-ness. I like winter. I miss the season of snow and ice from when I lived up north. The phrase "winter's mysticism" came to mind, because the snow and ice ARE mystical to me.
When I did an online search for the phrase "winter's mysticism," Shakespeare's Sonnet 6 came up first:
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair,
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
Several online interpretations of the sonnet determined that Shakespeare was urging either a young woman or a young man to literally procreate! Myself, I saw it as Shakespeare urging the importance of having a deep well of resources, a core of spring, to draw on that outer circumstances could not affect. And not feeling guilty about drawing upon such.
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury...
And the "That's for thyself to breed another thee": Your interpretation of your world! And thus your passing along of the core of yourself.
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
What you pass along in your art ensures that you will live for posterity.
When I did an online search for the phrase "winter's mysticism," Shakespeare's Sonnet 6 came up first:
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair,
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
Several online interpretations of the sonnet determined that Shakespeare was urging either a young woman or a young man to literally procreate! Myself, I saw it as Shakespeare urging the importance of having a deep well of resources, a core of spring, to draw on that outer circumstances could not affect. And not feeling guilty about drawing upon such.
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury...
And the "That's for thyself to breed another thee": Your interpretation of your world! And thus your passing along of the core of yourself.
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
What you pass along in your art ensures that you will live for posterity.
Leningrad Cowboys & the Russian Red Army Choir
First song from the "Total Balaika Show" concert in Helsinki, 1993. Watching this on TCM right now while waiting for the Joan/Bette marathon to start... It's blowing my mind in a good way!
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Monday, December 29, 2014
What do I smell like?
“George told me once that I smelt like home. I got all paranoid, you know, thinking I smelt of fish and chip shops or dirty bars or something. But he said no, I just always smelt of home.” — Paul McCartney
My own problem is, I don't smell like anything. Although I was born in Texas, and have lived the vast majority of my life in Texas, down-home people seem to mistrust me. I remember one time, I had to ask to borrow my duplex-neighbor's phone to call our mutual landlord to get me checked out of my place. (The landlord's representative had missed the appointment; I was calling to see where they were. I was angry and short on the phone, which my neighbor overheard, since I was in his home --- he then asked me, "Where are you FROM?" I replied, "AZLE, TEXAS," and he shut up.)
When I chose to go to grad school in San Francisco in '94, I learned that San Franciscans were provincial on a level I hadn't even imagined. Worse than the smallest town in Texas. In small-town Texas, people have their opinions... yet they will listen to yours. In San Francisco, I was labeled as a "Nazi" because I told my thesis advisor that my mother was German (in my advisor's mind, all Germans must be Nazis); my poetry was initially dismissed because I'd said I'd spent the past summer reading Norman Mailer (that professor later warmed up to me when I presented gay-oriented poems). When I visited record stores, I saw a cut-out of George Strait with "CRACKER" written in black marker across his forehead. When I worked at a movie theater selling popcorn, a woman at the counter asked me about my "accent" -- when I told her I was from Texas, she said, as if she were sharing a secret with me, "Texas has too many Mexicans!"
Oh, speaking of "smells": When I was working as an office assistant while in grad school in San Francisco and delivering mail across campus, I couldn't enter one particular office because I wore deodorant. One office lady there had complained to the government that she was sensitive to any perfume, shampoo, deodorant, etc. And so was granted special dispensation to have all odorous individuals banned from her presence. I left the mail on the outer doorstep.
I can't STAND San Franciscans to this day.
I envy Paul McCartney. I kind of wish I "smelt like home." In a good way.
My own problem is, I don't smell like anything. Although I was born in Texas, and have lived the vast majority of my life in Texas, down-home people seem to mistrust me. I remember one time, I had to ask to borrow my duplex-neighbor's phone to call our mutual landlord to get me checked out of my place. (The landlord's representative had missed the appointment; I was calling to see where they were. I was angry and short on the phone, which my neighbor overheard, since I was in his home --- he then asked me, "Where are you FROM?" I replied, "AZLE, TEXAS," and he shut up.)
When I chose to go to grad school in San Francisco in '94, I learned that San Franciscans were provincial on a level I hadn't even imagined. Worse than the smallest town in Texas. In small-town Texas, people have their opinions... yet they will listen to yours. In San Francisco, I was labeled as a "Nazi" because I told my thesis advisor that my mother was German (in my advisor's mind, all Germans must be Nazis); my poetry was initially dismissed because I'd said I'd spent the past summer reading Norman Mailer (that professor later warmed up to me when I presented gay-oriented poems). When I visited record stores, I saw a cut-out of George Strait with "CRACKER" written in black marker across his forehead. When I worked at a movie theater selling popcorn, a woman at the counter asked me about my "accent" -- when I told her I was from Texas, she said, as if she were sharing a secret with me, "Texas has too many Mexicans!"
Oh, speaking of "smells": When I was working as an office assistant while in grad school in San Francisco and delivering mail across campus, I couldn't enter one particular office because I wore deodorant. One office lady there had complained to the government that she was sensitive to any perfume, shampoo, deodorant, etc. And so was granted special dispensation to have all odorous individuals banned from her presence. I left the mail on the outer doorstep.
I can't STAND San Franciscans to this day.
I envy Paul McCartney. I kind of wish I "smelt like home." In a good way.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Me and My Dad, 1965
Over Christmas, my mom pointed out to me that my dad was about to turn 75 in January. Yes, I know exactly the day of the month of January that he was born (as a woman, I know every family member's birthdates), but I had not stopped to think... 75. 75 is old. 75 is pretty much past the threshold of "oh, you were mean to me when I was young, you weren't a nice father." At 75, you're not even a father any more, you're a survivor of the world, of which your kids, if you had them, were only a very, very small window.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Tra-la-la, 16 days off! (Dec. 20 thru Jan. 4)
I'd kinda, sorta "vowed" to make the days useful, and am mainly successful so far.
Day 1, Saturday the 20th: Finished off my Christmas shopping. USEFUL.
Day 2, Sunday the 21st: Lay in bed all day with a hangover, watching football. (Yay, Cowboys!) NOT USEFUL (well, except for the genuine joy and feeling that all was right with the world at the Cowboys' victory over the always nasty Philadelphia Eagles).
Day 3, Monday the 22nd: Walked around downtown Austin for the first time in years, renewed my expired library membership, and saw a movie at a theater for the first time in years. USEFUL. (Last movie I saw, also at the Violet Crown, was "The Artist," in 2011. The one I saw today was "Whiplash.")
Day 4, Tuesday the 23rd: Walked a few blocks hoping to deliver my "Secret Santa" gift of Christmas chocolates to "Mr. G," whose corner barbershop is where I wait for my bus and who chats with me and who gave me a Christmas apple last week. It was about 9:30 in the morning, so I thought I could just sneak the gift onto his front doorstep, but... there he was, just getting out of his car! I had to confess what I was doing there! He gave me a big hug and we wished "Merry Christmas." Mildly awkward but good vibes. Also did laundry. Also made 2 trips to the corner grocery, where I stocked up on sale-priced Cokes and (regular-priced) beer to last me for the next few days while I negotiate in and out of family Christmas gatherings. USEFUL.
Day 5, Wednesday the 24th: Wrapped presents, attended a pleasant Christmas Eve at my mother's, along with brother and his wife's family. Everyone on best behavior. USEFUL.
Day 6, Thursday the 25th: Washed all dishes. Christmas dinner at brother's house. USEFUL.
Day 7, Friday the 26th: Grocery shopping. SEMI-USEFUL.
Day 8, Saturday the 27th: Hangover in bed all day. NOT AT ALL USEFUL. :(
Day 9, Sunday the 28th: Yay, Cowboys! And Yay for me for getting off my ass and, in anticipation of my move a month from now, cleaning out my closet, getting rid of detritus like my old computer tower, my old collection of Joan Crawford VHS tapes. Also cleaned part of my kitchen, so I don't have to do all of the cleaning at once upon my moveout. VERY USEFUL.
Day 10, Monday the 29th: Hangover in bed all day. NOT USEFUL. :(
Day 11, Tuesday the 30th: Another stroll around downtown after mailing off a package I needed to get out. Wanted to get a slice/salad/drink at a pizza place I used to go to downtown when I worked there, but passed after hearing it was $8.50! (After hearing that price, I remembered: I used to always bring a canned soda from home for lunches, so in the past just paid for the slice/salad.) Took a bus back to campus to my favorite CHEAP pizza place ($6.00 for slice/salad/drink), but it was closed for the school holidays. Waited a half hour for a bus, ended up going to a Whataburger near my apartment then walking a mile home. Blah. After 10 days of not taking buses, remembered how much I despised them. USEFUL for getting out of the house and going to the P.O., but hugely NOT USEFUL for the waste of time trying to find a place to eat!
Day 12, Wednesday the 31st: In bed with a hangover most of the day, but before dark got off my ass, showered, dressed, and went to pick up a good New Year's Eve meal from Hoover's down the street: chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, "cowboy" beans, salad, cornbread. Invigorating walk (over a mile) in brisk 35-degree temperature, with a hearty meal hitting the spot as a reward at the end. Rest of evening, worked on Joan website while listening to New Year's Eve shows in the background. (Always get goosebumps when they pipe in "New York, New York" at Times Square.) Toasted myself at midnight with cheap champagne. SEMI-USEFUL for getting out of the house, and for being fresh for the New Year!
Day 13, Thursday the 1st: After being up all night drinking, around 3pm, told my mother (after she called to say "Happy New Year" and then hung up on my because she said I was drunk) and the woman I loved (who was not responding to me) to fuck off. NOT USEFUL.
Day 14, Friday the 2nd: In bed with a hangover all day. NOT USEFUL.
Day 15, Saturday the 3rd: In bed 'til the evening, then up and showered and working on Joan site later. SEMI-USEFUL.
Day 1, Saturday the 20th: Finished off my Christmas shopping. USEFUL.
Day 2, Sunday the 21st: Lay in bed all day with a hangover, watching football. (Yay, Cowboys!) NOT USEFUL (well, except for the genuine joy and feeling that all was right with the world at the Cowboys' victory over the always nasty Philadelphia Eagles).
Day 3, Monday the 22nd: Walked around downtown Austin for the first time in years, renewed my expired library membership, and saw a movie at a theater for the first time in years. USEFUL. (Last movie I saw, also at the Violet Crown, was "The Artist," in 2011. The one I saw today was "Whiplash.")
Day 4, Tuesday the 23rd: Walked a few blocks hoping to deliver my "Secret Santa" gift of Christmas chocolates to "Mr. G," whose corner barbershop is where I wait for my bus and who chats with me and who gave me a Christmas apple last week. It was about 9:30 in the morning, so I thought I could just sneak the gift onto his front doorstep, but... there he was, just getting out of his car! I had to confess what I was doing there! He gave me a big hug and we wished "Merry Christmas." Mildly awkward but good vibes. Also did laundry. Also made 2 trips to the corner grocery, where I stocked up on sale-priced Cokes and (regular-priced) beer to last me for the next few days while I negotiate in and out of family Christmas gatherings. USEFUL.
Day 5, Wednesday the 24th: Wrapped presents, attended a pleasant Christmas Eve at my mother's, along with brother and his wife's family. Everyone on best behavior. USEFUL.
Day 6, Thursday the 25th: Washed all dishes. Christmas dinner at brother's house. USEFUL.
Day 7, Friday the 26th: Grocery shopping. SEMI-USEFUL.
Day 8, Saturday the 27th: Hangover in bed all day. NOT AT ALL USEFUL. :(
Day 9, Sunday the 28th: Yay, Cowboys! And Yay for me for getting off my ass and, in anticipation of my move a month from now, cleaning out my closet, getting rid of detritus like my old computer tower, my old collection of Joan Crawford VHS tapes. Also cleaned part of my kitchen, so I don't have to do all of the cleaning at once upon my moveout. VERY USEFUL.
Day 10, Monday the 29th: Hangover in bed all day. NOT USEFUL. :(
Day 11, Tuesday the 30th: Another stroll around downtown after mailing off a package I needed to get out. Wanted to get a slice/salad/drink at a pizza place I used to go to downtown when I worked there, but passed after hearing it was $8.50! (After hearing that price, I remembered: I used to always bring a canned soda from home for lunches, so in the past just paid for the slice/salad.) Took a bus back to campus to my favorite CHEAP pizza place ($6.00 for slice/salad/drink), but it was closed for the school holidays. Waited a half hour for a bus, ended up going to a Whataburger near my apartment then walking a mile home. Blah. After 10 days of not taking buses, remembered how much I despised them. USEFUL for getting out of the house and going to the P.O., but hugely NOT USEFUL for the waste of time trying to find a place to eat!
Day 12, Wednesday the 31st: In bed with a hangover most of the day, but before dark got off my ass, showered, dressed, and went to pick up a good New Year's Eve meal from Hoover's down the street: chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, "cowboy" beans, salad, cornbread. Invigorating walk (over a mile) in brisk 35-degree temperature, with a hearty meal hitting the spot as a reward at the end. Rest of evening, worked on Joan website while listening to New Year's Eve shows in the background. (Always get goosebumps when they pipe in "New York, New York" at Times Square.) Toasted myself at midnight with cheap champagne. SEMI-USEFUL for getting out of the house, and for being fresh for the New Year!
Day 13, Thursday the 1st: After being up all night drinking, around 3pm, told my mother (after she called to say "Happy New Year" and then hung up on my because she said I was drunk) and the woman I loved (who was not responding to me) to fuck off. NOT USEFUL.
Day 14, Friday the 2nd: In bed with a hangover all day. NOT USEFUL.
Day 15, Saturday the 3rd: In bed 'til the evening, then up and showered and working on Joan site later. SEMI-USEFUL.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Misanthrope
I think this morning proved I probably am one, except in theory.
I was already late for work when I got on my morning East-side bus, the first of two on my 15-mile, hour-long trip to work every morning. The driver, one I recognized, is known to me as being extremely slow and pokey. "Slow and pokey" means to me stuff like: When the green light or left-turn arrow is turning orange, you screech to a stop instead of going ahead. The good, efficient, on-time drivers go ahead.
(Austin's still small-time as far as buses and public transportation go. The buses run sufficiently infrequently that you get to know the characteristics of the various drivers and at what time those particular drivers are on the route. Unfortunately, while you may recognize the crappy characteristics, you can't avoid them since you have to be somewhere -- like WORK -- at the precise time these folks are always driving.)
So anyway, I get on the known-slow-guy's bus, already late to work. We turn on a road heading east through the university campus. At the stop coming up, there's a man, obviously a street person, lying half on the sidewalk and half on the road. It was an alarming sight.
The driver pulls up to the stop and opens the bus doors. The man lying there attempts to sit up, then falls back. The driver then lowers the bus gears, as he would do for someone in a wheelchair or with a cane who needs help getting on the bus. The driver then calls out to the man, "Where are you going, Sir? Do you need help getting on the bus?"
The man couldn't answer, just continued to lie there. He was obviously not trying to get on the bus or go anywhere. He obviously needed a 911 call for an ambulance. The bus driver continued trying to talk to him, trying to ascertain his travel plans. After 5 minutes of this idiotic conversation, the driver finally figured out that he should get on the phone to his dispatcher. Great, I thought. Except his conversation with dispatch lasted another 5 minutes. While the guy was lying there. At one point, the driver asked the man lying there, "How old are you, Sir?"
After 10 minutes of the bus just sitting there, after watching/listening to the driver on the phone either being on hold with the dispatcher or asking inane questions of the victim on the ground, I couldn't take any more and went up to the front of the bus: "Do you want me to call 911? Why are we sitting here? This man needs an ambulance."
The driver, still holding his phone to his ear, just looked at me and didn't say anything. I stomped back to my seat. Sat there for another 5 minutes. (Man still on the ground, driver still with phone to ear, no EMTs or police showing up.)
The bus sat there for at least 10 minutes before the ambulance/police finally showed up. When they got there, they asked the driver, "Was he on the bus?" I felt like yelling out, "No, he wasn't on the bus! He was lying in the street, and we just saw him lying there." Simple answer. But no, the driver mumbled and whatever'd and spent another 5 minutes chatting.
During my 4 years of taking Austin buses, I've several times seen alcoholic homeless guys fall face-first either onto or off of buses, or fall flat out on the sidewalk. This guy was obviously one of those cases. In my mind, the correct response should have been to immediately call for EMS help, then wait for them to arrive, then go on about driving the bus once they arrived. Why all of the lowering of the bus ramp, the asking where the obviously-passed-out guy was going and how old he was, the chit-chatting with police?
What should have been a humanitarian 15 minutes turned into a half hour of me feeling nothing but late for work, and like the biggest misanthrope in the world.
I was already late for work when I got on my morning East-side bus, the first of two on my 15-mile, hour-long trip to work every morning. The driver, one I recognized, is known to me as being extremely slow and pokey. "Slow and pokey" means to me stuff like: When the green light or left-turn arrow is turning orange, you screech to a stop instead of going ahead. The good, efficient, on-time drivers go ahead.
(Austin's still small-time as far as buses and public transportation go. The buses run sufficiently infrequently that you get to know the characteristics of the various drivers and at what time those particular drivers are on the route. Unfortunately, while you may recognize the crappy characteristics, you can't avoid them since you have to be somewhere -- like WORK -- at the precise time these folks are always driving.)
So anyway, I get on the known-slow-guy's bus, already late to work. We turn on a road heading east through the university campus. At the stop coming up, there's a man, obviously a street person, lying half on the sidewalk and half on the road. It was an alarming sight.
The driver pulls up to the stop and opens the bus doors. The man lying there attempts to sit up, then falls back. The driver then lowers the bus gears, as he would do for someone in a wheelchair or with a cane who needs help getting on the bus. The driver then calls out to the man, "Where are you going, Sir? Do you need help getting on the bus?"
The man couldn't answer, just continued to lie there. He was obviously not trying to get on the bus or go anywhere. He obviously needed a 911 call for an ambulance. The bus driver continued trying to talk to him, trying to ascertain his travel plans. After 5 minutes of this idiotic conversation, the driver finally figured out that he should get on the phone to his dispatcher. Great, I thought. Except his conversation with dispatch lasted another 5 minutes. While the guy was lying there. At one point, the driver asked the man lying there, "How old are you, Sir?"
After 10 minutes of the bus just sitting there, after watching/listening to the driver on the phone either being on hold with the dispatcher or asking inane questions of the victim on the ground, I couldn't take any more and went up to the front of the bus: "Do you want me to call 911? Why are we sitting here? This man needs an ambulance."
The driver, still holding his phone to his ear, just looked at me and didn't say anything. I stomped back to my seat. Sat there for another 5 minutes. (Man still on the ground, driver still with phone to ear, no EMTs or police showing up.)
The bus sat there for at least 10 minutes before the ambulance/police finally showed up. When they got there, they asked the driver, "Was he on the bus?" I felt like yelling out, "No, he wasn't on the bus! He was lying in the street, and we just saw him lying there." Simple answer. But no, the driver mumbled and whatever'd and spent another 5 minutes chatting.
During my 4 years of taking Austin buses, I've several times seen alcoholic homeless guys fall face-first either onto or off of buses, or fall flat out on the sidewalk. This guy was obviously one of those cases. In my mind, the correct response should have been to immediately call for EMS help, then wait for them to arrive, then go on about driving the bus once they arrived. Why all of the lowering of the bus ramp, the asking where the obviously-passed-out guy was going and how old he was, the chit-chatting with police?
What should have been a humanitarian 15 minutes turned into a half hour of me feeling nothing but late for work, and like the biggest misanthrope in the world.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Foul and Fair
Boy, I was in a foul mood last night, and for much of today (though today was more of a hangover from the mood -- mean reds seguing into the blues).
Moving out of my one-room apt. after over 4 years is supposed to be a GOOD thing, not a terrible one. But, boy, the rental market in Austin is terrible for renters right now. It really is disappointing not to be able to afford my humble dream of a place: a garage apartment or a duplex of at least 600 sq ft within a half-hour of travel to/from work. Those seem to be going for $1200-1500, and I had to face last night that even the low end of that is out of range. $1100, I actually can afford, but all I can get for that is a really nice one-bedroom (and, as I've said here before, I really don't want or need "really nice"---I prefer formica countertops to granite; I don't need a gym in the building or a dishwasher, etc.).
This morning I vowed that I was simply going to stop looking for a place this last week of work before a 2-week vacation---it was making me upset and unfocused at work, since I kept checking Craigslist every hour! But I do have one appointment tomorrow during my lunch hour: An older, funky complex---Old Austin. 2 small bedrooms. 720 sq ft. Top floor. No shared walls, just a neighbor downstairs. Best of all, it's a sublet, so no move-in fee OR deposit. And no dogs allowed---also Old Austin. (I like dogs just fine, but not since they've become an Austin fetish, with every bearded slacker in a plaid shirt walking his "rescue pit." Also not when they're barking or howling constantly next door.) I've seen pictures of the place via Google Maps---one half of the small complex faces its parking lot and the street, while the other half faces a bunch of trees in the neighbor's back yard... I'm praying that the apartment that I'm seeing will face the trees! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE! One of the things that made my current apt. quite palatable was its huge window with beautiful trees outside---"Tree Friends Through Screen." A beautiful view every day. This place is also in a cool neighborhood: a café 2 blocks away, a pizza place a block away, a drug-store on the corner, the supermarket a 5-minute walk away...
Oh yeah, the PRICE... $875!!! With that, I can get nice furniture, a big-screen TV, and... A CAR!
We'll see. I can't get too excited, because the let-down really has been big over the past several weeks, every time I got pumped up about a place then dismayed after seeing it in person.
Apartment woes aside, two nice things did happen to me today in the midst of my malaise: One, the man whose barbershop is at the bus-stop that I wait at in the morning came out and offered me a grapefruit! When I had to be honest and say I didn't really like grapefruits, but thanks anyway, he disappeared back into his shop and returned with...an apple and a "Merry Christmas"! :) He and I have chatted several times over the years. He's actually the "stylist" for former football star Earl Campbell! I need to think of something cute that I can secretly leave on his porch...
The second thing: At my beer store this evening, the Pakistani owner asked me if I was coming from or going to a party! :) (I was just in my work clothes, a sweater and cords.) When I thanked him profusely, he added that I looked very nice AND that he liked the way I walked! When I kind of laughed embarrassedly, he added, "No, really, I sometimes see you walk by the store...." He mimicked a stride, and said, "You don't walk anything like most of the people I see around here." !!! THANK YOU! :)
Moving out of my one-room apt. after over 4 years is supposed to be a GOOD thing, not a terrible one. But, boy, the rental market in Austin is terrible for renters right now. It really is disappointing not to be able to afford my humble dream of a place: a garage apartment or a duplex of at least 600 sq ft within a half-hour of travel to/from work. Those seem to be going for $1200-1500, and I had to face last night that even the low end of that is out of range. $1100, I actually can afford, but all I can get for that is a really nice one-bedroom (and, as I've said here before, I really don't want or need "really nice"---I prefer formica countertops to granite; I don't need a gym in the building or a dishwasher, etc.).
This morning I vowed that I was simply going to stop looking for a place this last week of work before a 2-week vacation---it was making me upset and unfocused at work, since I kept checking Craigslist every hour! But I do have one appointment tomorrow during my lunch hour: An older, funky complex---Old Austin. 2 small bedrooms. 720 sq ft. Top floor. No shared walls, just a neighbor downstairs. Best of all, it's a sublet, so no move-in fee OR deposit. And no dogs allowed---also Old Austin. (I like dogs just fine, but not since they've become an Austin fetish, with every bearded slacker in a plaid shirt walking his "rescue pit." Also not when they're barking or howling constantly next door.) I've seen pictures of the place via Google Maps---one half of the small complex faces its parking lot and the street, while the other half faces a bunch of trees in the neighbor's back yard... I'm praying that the apartment that I'm seeing will face the trees! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE! One of the things that made my current apt. quite palatable was its huge window with beautiful trees outside---"Tree Friends Through Screen." A beautiful view every day. This place is also in a cool neighborhood: a café 2 blocks away, a pizza place a block away, a drug-store on the corner, the supermarket a 5-minute walk away...
Oh yeah, the PRICE... $875!!! With that, I can get nice furniture, a big-screen TV, and... A CAR!
We'll see. I can't get too excited, because the let-down really has been big over the past several weeks, every time I got pumped up about a place then dismayed after seeing it in person.
Apartment woes aside, two nice things did happen to me today in the midst of my malaise: One, the man whose barbershop is at the bus-stop that I wait at in the morning came out and offered me a grapefruit! When I had to be honest and say I didn't really like grapefruits, but thanks anyway, he disappeared back into his shop and returned with...an apple and a "Merry Christmas"! :) He and I have chatted several times over the years. He's actually the "stylist" for former football star Earl Campbell! I need to think of something cute that I can secretly leave on his porch...
The second thing: At my beer store this evening, the Pakistani owner asked me if I was coming from or going to a party! :) (I was just in my work clothes, a sweater and cords.) When I thanked him profusely, he added that I looked very nice AND that he liked the way I walked! When I kind of laughed embarrassedly, he added, "No, really, I sometimes see you walk by the store...." He mimicked a stride, and said, "You don't walk anything like most of the people I see around here." !!! THANK YOU! :)
I hate being here.
Jesus Christ, I hate it.
I like my job. I'm grateful for it, for the financial stability after 4 years of temping after my 2010 return from NYC.
But I left Austin for a reason to begin with.
I hate the "slacker" attitude; I've always hated the slacker attitude. I now hate the new influx of even more idiotic, PC slackers from the West Coast.
I hate that I'm about to pay $1200 for a place that I don't particularly like, in a part of town that I don't particularly want to be in. And I hate the fact that paying this will break my bank. I'll have maybe $200 extra left over at the end of every month. At age 49. With a Master's degree. As an Editor.
There's no point to it.
At least when I was in Weehawken and paying $1550 for rent, I LOVED where I was. Weehawken and New York City were beautiful. I was both scared and mildly outraged by the price I was paying, but I nonetheless thought where I lived was beautiful, and I liked the people I was around.
I don't like the people I'm around now. Give you an example: In NYC, if there's an asshole on a bus or subway car, you can be sure that you probably won't see him again. In Austin, though, the public transportation choices are much fewer. For instance, my bus to work in the morning comes every half-hour. I can catch it at 7:43, or, if I get up way too early, I can catch it at 7:11. The 7:11 is much better people-wise, but to catch that one, I have to get up at 6am. That's hard. So I usually catch the 7:43. And 75% of the time on the 7:43, there are two assholes on it:
Asshole #1 is a young black gang-banger who always gets on at the supermarket and who is ALWAYS on his phone, even at that early hour, cursing at the top of his lungs about THIS SHIT and THAT SHIT, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. My morning begins with his dumb-ass bullshit.
Asshole #2 is a 30-something flabby white academic who will strike up a conversation with ANYONE about both his academic goals and his medical problems. And if a person he recognizes is at the other end of the bus, then he will get up and move in order to have SOME type of idiotic conversation with that person, in his big booming voice. (He's got a hole in his diaphragm; he's applying to Michigan; his parents didn't usually decorate their tree; he's from Tulsa, yet he judges Austin's downtown architecture, et-fucking-cetera.)
I have to listen to both of these fucking idiots nearly every day.
Get a car and avoid them, why don't I? Because I can't afford to both get a car AND a decent place to live in Austin. At a $46K salary. I'm fucking trapped.
I like my job. I'm grateful for it, for the financial stability after 4 years of temping after my 2010 return from NYC.
But I left Austin for a reason to begin with.
I hate the "slacker" attitude; I've always hated the slacker attitude. I now hate the new influx of even more idiotic, PC slackers from the West Coast.
I hate that I'm about to pay $1200 for a place that I don't particularly like, in a part of town that I don't particularly want to be in. And I hate the fact that paying this will break my bank. I'll have maybe $200 extra left over at the end of every month. At age 49. With a Master's degree. As an Editor.
There's no point to it.
At least when I was in Weehawken and paying $1550 for rent, I LOVED where I was. Weehawken and New York City were beautiful. I was both scared and mildly outraged by the price I was paying, but I nonetheless thought where I lived was beautiful, and I liked the people I was around.
I don't like the people I'm around now. Give you an example: In NYC, if there's an asshole on a bus or subway car, you can be sure that you probably won't see him again. In Austin, though, the public transportation choices are much fewer. For instance, my bus to work in the morning comes every half-hour. I can catch it at 7:43, or, if I get up way too early, I can catch it at 7:11. The 7:11 is much better people-wise, but to catch that one, I have to get up at 6am. That's hard. So I usually catch the 7:43. And 75% of the time on the 7:43, there are two assholes on it:
Asshole #1 is a young black gang-banger who always gets on at the supermarket and who is ALWAYS on his phone, even at that early hour, cursing at the top of his lungs about THIS SHIT and THAT SHIT, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. My morning begins with his dumb-ass bullshit.
Asshole #2 is a 30-something flabby white academic who will strike up a conversation with ANYONE about both his academic goals and his medical problems. And if a person he recognizes is at the other end of the bus, then he will get up and move in order to have SOME type of idiotic conversation with that person, in his big booming voice. (He's got a hole in his diaphragm; he's applying to Michigan; his parents didn't usually decorate their tree; he's from Tulsa, yet he judges Austin's downtown architecture, et-fucking-cetera.)
I have to listen to both of these fucking idiots nearly every day.
Get a car and avoid them, why don't I? Because I can't afford to both get a car AND a decent place to live in Austin. At a $46K salary. I'm fucking trapped.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
I've just figured out...
... I was a lot brighter than Ginny, Sandra, Mollie, despite their charms.
The one man I've slept with, the head of a state entity, was smarter than me. (And just as creative, albeit in a different way. You don't get to the top of anything without being smart and creative.)
I wanted Ginny to be new in Austin with me.
I wanted Sandra to talk poetry with me and then seduce me.
I wanted Mollie to fuck my brains out and talk art afterwards.
Most of all of this was from '83 to '89.
The one man I've slept with, the head of a state entity, was smarter than me. (And just as creative, albeit in a different way. You don't get to the top of anything without being smart and creative.)
I wanted Ginny to be new in Austin with me.
I wanted Sandra to talk poetry with me and then seduce me.
I wanted Mollie to fuck my brains out and talk art afterwards.
Most of all of this was from '83 to '89.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Going through my head all day today
This song still gives me goosebumps, as does their performance here (Washington, D.C., 1964) and the reactions from the audience.
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
I'm longing to linger 'til dawn, dear
"Dream a Little Dream of Me," 1957, from "Day by Night" (my favorite Doris Day album).
Sunday, December 07, 2014
1984: When All Was Still Possible (and Bono, Sting, George Michael, and Boy George were still beautiful)
The first and last gasp of my generation; I still get goosebumps listening to/watching this (esp. during Bono's and Boy George's bits)--while still wondering, "Who the hell is Paul Young?"
"Tonight thank god it's them instead of you..."
"Tonight thank god it's them instead of you..."
An Austin Place to Live w' a $1200 Rent Budget
After leaving NYC with my tail between my legs in 2010, unable to find work that paid my $1550-per-month rent and unable to find a cheaper place that wasn't in Queens, I came back to Austin to regroup. After staying with my mother for 3 months (3 months that she made as unpleasant as possible), I was finally, thanks to freelance checks from a publishing company, able to get my own place, back in the 'hood that I lived in before moving to NYC. Only this time in a 400-sq-ft apartment rather than the 800-sq-ft house I lived in from 2000 to 2007 (that I paid $825 monthly for the whole time).
The $545 per month that I paid in 2010 for the Austin apartment has, by 2014, increased to $750. Ads on Craigslist today show it offered at $815.
I now have a perfectly respectable middle-class job as an Editor, making in the 40Ks per year. Monthly gross salary, around $3700. After taxes, retirement system, and the near-$500 taken out of my paycheck to repay student loans (thanks, Dad, for not providing for your child's college despite your constant claims to "superiority"), I have $2400 per month net for everything: rent + all bills.
While living in this now-$750-per-month apartment for 4 years, my overall expenses have been about $1500 per month. Beyond the rent, the expenses have been electric/gas/phone/Internet, groceries, work lunches, beer, cigs, haircuts, etc.
If my ongoing take-home salary is currently $2400 per month, and my expenses (sans rent) are @ $750, then that leaves about $1650 for rent + emergencies/savings/possible car.
I gave my move-out notice at my apartment a week ago. I have to move out by Feb. 2. In the past week, I've done some rudimentary apartment-searching: One-bedroom apartments up north near my work, for @ $850 per month, were small (600-sq-ft or less), grim, and depressing. A garage apartment near campus, in better shape but only 500-sq-ft, was $1200 --- and with a neighbor living below.
I'd thought that once I got a "real" job, that I would then be able to afford a decent place... "Decent" to me meaning mainly that I wouldn't have to share walls, that I'd have more than one room with more than 400-sq feet, that I might have a little outdoor space--say, a balcony or a small yard.
I still have the rest of December, plus all of January, to find a new place. But I'd hoped for something significantly better than what I'd been living in for the past 4 years while I was relying on temp and freelance work. Once I had a real job, I'd hoped for a real place... The market seems to be keeping me in the "student apartment" range. At age 49!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
After re-reading the above, the one question in my mind is: How in the world could someone making over $40K a year have to resort to living in shit-hole student apartments? Where am I supposed to go live--San Angelo, Beaumont? But my editing job's not IN San Angelo or Beaumont...
The $545 per month that I paid in 2010 for the Austin apartment has, by 2014, increased to $750. Ads on Craigslist today show it offered at $815.
I now have a perfectly respectable middle-class job as an Editor, making in the 40Ks per year. Monthly gross salary, around $3700. After taxes, retirement system, and the near-$500 taken out of my paycheck to repay student loans (thanks, Dad, for not providing for your child's college despite your constant claims to "superiority"), I have $2400 per month net for everything: rent + all bills.
While living in this now-$750-per-month apartment for 4 years, my overall expenses have been about $1500 per month. Beyond the rent, the expenses have been electric/gas/phone/Internet, groceries, work lunches, beer, cigs, haircuts, etc.
If my ongoing take-home salary is currently $2400 per month, and my expenses (sans rent) are @ $750, then that leaves about $1650 for rent + emergencies/savings/possible car.
I gave my move-out notice at my apartment a week ago. I have to move out by Feb. 2. In the past week, I've done some rudimentary apartment-searching: One-bedroom apartments up north near my work, for @ $850 per month, were small (600-sq-ft or less), grim, and depressing. A garage apartment near campus, in better shape but only 500-sq-ft, was $1200 --- and with a neighbor living below.
I'd thought that once I got a "real" job, that I would then be able to afford a decent place... "Decent" to me meaning mainly that I wouldn't have to share walls, that I'd have more than one room with more than 400-sq feet, that I might have a little outdoor space--say, a balcony or a small yard.
I still have the rest of December, plus all of January, to find a new place. But I'd hoped for something significantly better than what I'd been living in for the past 4 years while I was relying on temp and freelance work. Once I had a real job, I'd hoped for a real place... The market seems to be keeping me in the "student apartment" range. At age 49!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
After re-reading the above, the one question in my mind is: How in the world could someone making over $40K a year have to resort to living in shit-hole student apartments? Where am I supposed to go live--San Angelo, Beaumont? But my editing job's not IN San Angelo or Beaumont...
Saturday, December 06, 2014
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