When I went to get a lock yesterday at Bikes on Wheels I saw the coolest white Japanese folding bike. It had a cute basket on front, which was lined with a fuchsia bag. The tag identified it as vintage and super rare. I drooled a little on the blister, from my new flip-flops, when my fingers met the handle bars.
What task do you hate doing more than anything in your apartment or house? I’m curious, since the Sisyphean nature of cleaning never fails to get me in a funk.
Mostly I hate all aspects of laundry. Next vacuuming. And finally ironing. With my iPod on I can usually force myself to clean, but today nothing I do seems enough to get me motivated.
And my filth may well be coming to an end. L.’s organizer is coming over tomorrow night for two hours to help me conquer the clutter. Yes, it’s true. I’m simply overwhelmed with it all. Focus is one component of the problem. It’s all carrots and no sticks these days, so far as my self-discipline is concerned.
I need a dominatrix. I need a wife. I need to go to the apothecary (i.e., Guerlian Boutique for L’Heure Bleue). I need to see Far from Her, Darling, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. I especially need to see Shampoo. Who the fuck am I kidding? I need Julie Christie skipping joyously in Billy Liar (circa 1963) and I need her now!!!
The Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1906) by Ambrose Bierce
When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
Disease for the apothecary’s health,
Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
“My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name.”
Since L. is her organizer’s most difficult client, I’m eager to come in a close second. It’s always good to aim high, right?
L. explained her third decade of life to me like this: there’s this candy in a dish. It won’t be there forever. You want to eat it, but if you do you might never again find someone who utterly and completely loves and adores you.
So it’s official, I’m flying out to Tucson and spending the first week in June there to find an apartment. Expedia came through with a roundtrip airline ticket for only $235. The main drawbacks are that the return flight is a red-eye and I’m flying out of and returning to Buffalo, rather than Toronto. I’ve also rented a car for the week I’m there. The total damage for the car is only around $100.
The only question mark now is whether or not I should keep the $66 a night reservation I made at the Historic Hotel Congress or book something at the Roadrunner Hostel instead. The fact that Hotel Congress doesn’t have air-conditioning certainly has me a bit concerned. Though I’m eager to learn how well their evaporative cooling system, otherwise known as a swamp cooler, works I am also slightly concerned my laptop may melt. If not my laptop, then me.
“I’m melting, I’m melting. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world!” Might Tucson’s dry and intense heat reduce me to sleepless nights of twisting and writhing in the nostalgic sheets of an antique iron bed? That remains to be seen, My Pretties.
Wish me luck finding an apartment. Any leads will be much appreciated. The one bedroom Barrio duplex, at Simpson and Convent, I had my eyes on rented last night. It looks like it’s a landlord’s market.
On Saturday I went to Nicolas’ birthday bash at Downsview Dells Park. I took lots of photos in-between having a blast playing with the kids. My specialty was upside-down hammock flips. Yes, I did have a line-up. S. organized an amazing party.
Friday night R. and I went to Fly for dancing with Edi, Becky, Frank, and J. There was disco and there was retro. The gayeties of the evening are all the convincing I need that Stayin’ Alive requires fun, friends, and dancing.
This afternoon R. and I enjoyed scavenging with C. for moving boxes. Saturday evening C. discovered that an upscale athletic store is moving to a new location on Yonge Street. As employees unpacked merchandise in the new store, we loaded our station wagons with their empties. The number of boxes we scored collectively was at least 100. However, C. says the last time she moved she had 100 boxes in books alone. R. and I won’t need anywhere near as many boxes as C. does.
Let the packing begin, because Tucson here we come with hopes for friends as good as those we’ve made in Toronto.
“At one point when all these worlds and people that are inside me, and each other, not just me cause I’m not the only one—that’s got multiple personalities—you know, but when all these worlds collide and a jumbo cataclysm happens…watch out cause it’s gonna be quite an afternoon.” —Robbie Williams & The Pet Shop Boys, She’s Madonna
I’m listening to MP3s of every Bjork album ever made, which Slava brought me back from Ukraine several summers ago. I have shoes on, have eaten breakfast, showered, and fed Pip and Ptichka. I’m growing tired of looking at condos, etc. online because it’s impossible to get a feel for neighborhoods or even individual buildings that way. I don’t think R. and I are going to be able to purchase or even rent property without seeing it in person first. This is a real challenge because we’re so far from Tucson.
I went out for dinner with C. on Sunday and she reminded me that graduate school is a job. Since she’s worked as a technical writer before, she reminded me that many writing projects I will work on won’t necessarily be interesting or enjoyable for me. Her pragmatic advice is simply to get things done and to not get too comfortable. Nothing like a damn healthy dose of realism to counter the romantic notion that I can reasonably expect my life in an English graduate program to be like a scene from Dead Poets Society. I didn’t ever really think it could be, but still it’s best to inoculate me against any last drop of wide-eyed optimism that might remain.
So far as the title of the post, though I don’t want to go into it very far, the boxes others put me into never cease to amaze me. What is one to do when she is being read so radically differently in different contexts? I think it’s the perception of my utter malleability that’s the most disturbing. If I begin rehearsing the various labels being used to describe my scholarly interests, I’m certain the discussion could take a turn I’m not interested in it taking. To quote from Alice in Wonderland: “Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else.”
In more positive news, I submitted what I believe to be a strong CCCC proposal on Friday night. Also, Laura and I are working on an article on postmodern rhetoric and narrative as exemplified in Lisa Moore’s Alligator. I finished Ivan Coyote’s Bow Grip, which she signed and wrote “To J. - What’s your story?” In partial answer to her question, I’m feeling sorta like Joey in the conclusion. Though at 40 he’s not particularly young, he’s still figuring out who he wants to be when he grows up. At first I really didn’t like that the novel ended with Joey questioning who he wants to be when he grows up—I was hoping he’d get something going with Hector—but now I’m thinking what the novel really did for me is raise questions that I don’t know how to answer.
