Spring Cleaning

The weather the past few weeks has been completely idyllic.  It's kind of unbelievable for May around here.  It won't last, because it never does, but MAN has this Spring been fun so far.

Last weekend the Boy and I had a "beach" day in the park.  Meaning, we went to the park across the street, bared our pasty white Portland skin in our swimsuits, sat on a blanket, drank iced tea, read books, and pretended we were at the beach.

I was totally convinced.  The sun was warm that day, but the air was crispy and the sound of the wind blowing through the tall trees sounded exactly like a roaring ocean.  Didn't need you anyway, Oregon coast . . . 

This morning I got up and kept trying to talk myself into going outside and doing things in other places, but I actually felt like being at home.  I actually felt prepared to tackle everything I haven't been doing -- but have needed to do -- for months.  You know the stuff: sorting mail, doing dishes, shredding stuff, cleaning the floors, sorting throwaway clothing into "Goodwill" and "try to sell to snobs at Buffalo," cleaning the mold out of the shower, blah blah blah . . . 

With each to-do I completed, I felt lighter and more at ease.  I had this huge round chair that nobody sat in that took up a lot of space in this little apartment.  It just collected piles of clothing and pillows.  I was finally like "You know what?  I am so done with this stupid chair" and I made a sign that said "FREE! In good shape, needs love <3" and put it on the sidewalk.  It was gone within a few hours, and I feel SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT LIFE.  It's weird -- getting rid of things that I no longer use actually makes me feel different physically.  Like I can breathe again.

I started cleaning stuff out because the Boy is [kind of] [technically] moving in.  We started looking for a new place months ago, but his lease wasn't up until the end of May.  The plan has been if we couldn't find a place by the time his lease was up, then he'd just move in here and we'd work it out.  He basically lives here anyway, so it won't be much different.  But it means getting rid of stuff I don't need anymore, because apparently I'm really good at keeping, collecting, and stashing anything and everything.  It's not as bad as those weirdos on that hoarders show, but I certainly get stuck in the "but what if I need it later?" thought spiral.  This is the problem: if I keep something because I might need it later, then I will never need it later.  If I get rid of something because I know I will never need it later, then I most certainly do need it later and it MAKES ME SO PISSED.  Do you see how this can be a problem?  Time and time again it proves to be true.

Stupid universe.

Speaking of apartment hunting, have I told you it is turning into my worst nightmare?  I've been actively looking for a place since January -- literally, since January.  We've looked at two places, the only ones that were even remotely worthwhile and proved to not be scams.  We didn't get one of them, didn't apply for the other because it was kind of atrocious, and turned down an offer from my boss who rents a property because it's just way out of our price range. I don't remember finding housing being this difficult.  Like, ever.  

Am I being too picky?  I hope not.  This is the way I see it: I'm not going to move unless a lot of things are better than our current situation, ie: closer to jobs, more square footage, at least a little bit cute and/or funky, some decent light, a normal sized kitchen.  It will be a waste of time and money to move just because, to soon realize our situation is not much better than before.

So if you know of anyone who has a place, is leaving a place, knows somebody who knows somebody who has a place, or even someone who has a large garage or perhaps an unusually luxurious cardboard box, let me know.

All of this means I need to make some amount of peace with my current apartment.  I have spent a lot of time being mad at her, but overall she's been good to me.  I can't deny that.  So I must figure out a way to make it work for the time being.

That's what today was about.

And *this* sweet little setup lit my freakin' fire -- I find I don't usually like having my own paintings hanging up in my house, but when I did this I just about crapped.

Not only does it make the room look waaaay bigger (how?!) but these paintings make me SO FREAKIN' HAPPY.  The photos really don't do them justice, especially the one of Lo, but hanging them up like this sparked something inside me and I just feel delirious with excitement.  It's probably in part due to this vein of work I'm in right now.  These paintings express something I have been trying to express for years, and have never been able to.  I don't know what's different.  I don't know what shifted.  But something was ready to start producing paintings with this feel and I'm stoked.

I've also been daydreaming about having a place with a room to call my studio, instead of a corner.  

Me:  I'm going to rearrange the apartment and turn half of it into my studio.  Okay?

Will:  Awesome!

(I love that goofy bitch.)

I'm thinking, Why not?  Why not turn my whole dumb apartment into a big fantastic art-making lair?  Didn't do it yet today, but . . . . . . . . . . it's on my pre-To-Do To-Do.

Puttering around in my apartment today was exactly what I needed.  I feel more quiet today, and in cleaning and rearranging I did end up finding some peace with the place.  A few minor tweaks made a world of difference, and I soaked up the light and patterns and colors I'd stopped seeing after a while.

Art spaces are just messy.  No way around it.

I will never stop loving you . . . <3

I brewed some more coffee at 5pm and soaked up my handiwork.  Life's pretty good . . . I GUESS . . . 

;-)

My Apartment in a Nutshell:

My bedroom-slash-living room doubles as my music room-slash-dining room, and though it has a small office in the corner, the studio-slash-library-slash-other office is really where all the action happens because it's the actual dining room, which is next to the kitchen-slash-socializing space, which doubles as a creative workstation.

The bathroom is pretty much always a bathroom.

A Brief Meltdown

Parkside
6:51pm

I woke up in a panic face-down on the massage table.  I was sweating profusely and I couldn't breathe very well.  She had already worked her way to my head, behind my ears and onto my skull and I couldn't recall anything before the lower back and ribcage pursuits.

Where my forehead rest on the face cradle, sharp deep pains penetrated my head.  My stomach lurched and I thought Oh god I am going to pass out.

How can you pass out if you were just asleep?

Something was wrong.  I felt intensely ill, hot and uncomfortable, like I'd just puke right there on her feet.  She is such a great person, though, that she'd make it seem like it wasn't at all unusual.  Though I would never ever show my face in there again.  And I'd have to buy her new shoes.

I stayed this way for many minutes, quietly panicking, having a silent freak-out in the still, dim room.  I tried to control my breathing to see if I could make it subside.

I couldn't.  It only grew more intense.

I didn't know how much time had passed.  Was it almost over anyway?  Had it just begun?

Thinking back now, it's actually a little ridiculous how long I waited before I said something.  I am much too polite.

"Um, Missy?  I feel a little faint."

Turns out it was almost over anyway.  And, as I expected, she was awesome and understanding and didn't contribute in any way to my feeling embarrassed.  Because I did feel embarrassed.  I know it's not really a situation to feel embarrassed - afterall, I couldn't help it - but I did anyway.  Must be that very shy part of me.

I rolled over under the sheet onto my back and tried to regain my breath, sweat dripping from my upper lip.  I calmed and steadied my head, my stomach, and stayed there for a few minutes. 

Had I just overheated?  Was I having a hot flash?  It was a warm day, and I did have some heat on my muscles, but I didn't think it was that extreme.

Even after I no longer felt I'd faint, a strangeness remained.  I felt like I'd gone to sleep and awoke in a different time and place.  Like I slept for a hundred years, the whole world changed around me while I slept, and I awoke not knowing where I was or why I was.  Like my life is a dream and I woke up into real life.  On my walk home, the air stirred in the big new leaves on the trees, and something stirred inside me, too.  Something mystical was happening.  It felt like I was floating.

Was it because right then, at that moment, not one muscle in my entire body was aching?  Is that why I felt so strange?  Like my body wasn't mine, and I was feeling the earth and sky through some other means?  Because at any given moment on any given day, I experience some amount of pain or discomfort, and to not feel that was completely foreign?

The strangeness continued the rest of the evening.  I made a salad but I was scattered and disorganized.  I told the Boy a story and got some of the words wrong.  Like, way wrong.  Clouded and mystified and odd.

I woke up alive today, so I'll take that as a good sign.  I can check seizure, stroke, and aneurism off the list.

Day: Saturday. Mood: Quiet

Stumptown
7:40am
I want to run again.  A lady is talking to a man about a 10k and my guts wrenched for a second.  I want that feeling of freedom, of weightlessness, of not caring and feeling my breath move in and out of stretching lungs.
My gym workouts are okay.  The stairs are good and challenging enough.  But it's not the same.  I can't walk out into my neighborhood, breathe deep the chilly air and step out onto a stairmaster. 


8:30am
Children are mesmerized by me.  I don't appear to be doing anything differently, but the last two days I have suddenly become very compelling to these new little minds.  I don't think I'm doing anything differently.  They must sense something about me.  They must sense that I'm almost 27 and without children.
I am quite okay with this, but biologically the universe is like Tick tick tick tick tick . . .
Thanks for the reminder, Universe.


8:45am
Dear Laura Walker,
I'm afraid you are severely undercharging for your artwork.  It pains me a little.
Love,
Newly Devoted Fan


8:55am
I think too hard too much.  Sometimes answers come not by thinking so hard to find them, but by relaxing the mind and letting go to let the answers arrive naturally.  Like that sand metaphor: If you squeeze too tightly a handful of sand, it spills away.  But if you hold it gently in a cupped hand, you can carry and bolster it.
I'm thinking sitting in a public space and drawing and writing is good for this kind of thing.
Relaxing my thoughts and absorbing the soothing sounds of low chatter and coffee clamor.

Why don't I do this anymore?
 ...
It feels like it's been a long time since I've sat and reflected and written down my thoughts.  It feels a little unfamiliar.
I think there's some fear.  Not wanting to confront some things, maybe.  Not wanting to address frustrations in my life and delve into thought paths that are all too familiar and, sometimes, dark.
Lately I feel like things aren't going the way I want them to.  I don't know if it's me or if it's everybody else.

It's easy to think it's everybody else.
...
I

Momma Says: Who IS this man?! I, Too, Have No Idea

Within six months, my brother went from

living alone in a shoebox struggling for work, wondering what to do with himself between sporadic stints at an ailing business, going so far as to solicit himself to complete strangers, including knocking on doors to sell himself to prostitution (okay that last part is a lie), to

getting spontaneously engaged, married 37 days later, interviewing for and scoring a new job in six days, working 115-hour weeks, barely having enough time to sleep let alone eat, wondering how his life has changed simultaneously so awesomely and so rapidly, and then, the piece de resistance: getting a HOUSE so he can FINALLY move his family here after MONTHS of working his patootie off.  (NONE of this part is a lie.)

But, you must know this is not just any house.  This house has a (really big) yard.  And a garage.  And an island in the kitchen, the size of a real island.  And a chicken coop.  And chickens!  Well, not yet, but there will be.  This house is a grown up house.  This can only mean my brother is a grown up.

Or, he is an alien inhabiting my brother's body and masquerading as a very convincing grown up.

Either way, there is still a house involved where I get to go on Saturday mornings and drink coffee, eat breakfast, and shoot the proverbial shizite.

So the house is basically the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, aside from a few other things: Fort Youngstown (of course), my freshly-birthed nephew, and Jesus coming down from the clouds on a particularly mystical summer day last year.  Well, it felt like Jesus, but it could've been someone else I suppose.

Brother and I went out to la Casa de Byrom on Saturday where he signed papers and picked up the keys.  Then the two of us, unable to peel our jaws from the floor or wipe the look of pure childlike elation from our faces, spent the afternoon running between all the rooms, figuring out precisely how many jokes we could make about his "big deck," drinking coffee, planning a wedding party, and taking photos of every conceivable crook and nanny.

Thus, what follows: a [virtual] tour of the [gigantic] abode.

Front door

WOMP.  Living room/entry way

Kitchen

(Brother really liked the kitchen.)

Dining room, to the deck

"So, how big is your deck?"

"Big decks are the only kind of decks."

"A friend of mine has a small deck, but it just doesn't get the job done."

(He really liked the deck, too.)

Come to think of it, he really liked

the master bedroom

the huge living area with fancy heater fireplace

the dining room with french doors

and the hallway.

Brother also especially adored

the Grey Room

the Yellow Room

the two-car garage

and the backyard.

Needless to say, the jacuzzi tub

Dish washer

Stackable laundry

 

and chicken coop are all just icing on the cake.  

The enormous, enormous cake.

HOORAH!