Okay, the tour:
The house we live in -- which we share with one girl in an apartment upstairs, and a vacated apartment downstairs -- has no doorknob. It recently broke, refusing to turn, and the landlord's solution was to remove it completely. Now there's a hole where it used to be, about the size of a baseball. This does not fill us with fear.
This door takes you to a stairwell, which takes you to the second-storey door to our apartment, which, if you're me, takes you directly to the couch in our living room. We found it on a sidewalk. Most of the furniture in our apartment, in fact, came from sidewalks. Somebody should do a study on this, but we spend too much time sitting on that furniture to get involved in such a delicate venture. There's a lot of not-doing to be done.
Now, you may be under the impression that this means we're lazy, but you couldn't be more wrong, fake rhetorical person. My three roommates -- Jon (my best friend since high school), Travis (one of the few good friends I acquired during my dorm days), and Aaron (another good friend who just happened to grow up with Travis) -- all work at a local pizza place and go to school. I work in a warehouse and go to school as well. These activities take up the majority of our time, and they're all done out of the apartment. When we're back at home, sitting is the name of the game, and it is a game that we play very well and with great aplomb.
The next room, a smaller second living room attached to the kitchen, is where you'll usually find our other roommate, Dave. Dave doesn't pay rent, spends a good 23 hours a day sitting, and pees on our things. He is a cat, but these are still starting to become Problems. It's only fair that he pull some of the weight, but he has somehow tricked us into feeding him, cleaning up after him, and petting him while we're stoned. Suffice to say, he's the smartest of the lot of us.
Our kitchen was the real selling point for the apartment. We've got a double basin sink, an electric stove, a big refrigerator, and an island counter. There's also a dishwasher, but we don't use that for fear of spending too much on water and losing our highly advanced motor skills. Unfortunately, the kitchen as a whole is just too much power for us to wield, and it is always covered with dishes, food, and half-finished cans of Pabst. It is a war zone mixed with a supermarket explosion, dipped in Pig Pen from peanuts. The food, however, is stashed away in our dozens of cabinets, where it stays relatively clean.
Beyond the kitchen are the rooms: Aaron, Travis, Jon, bathroom, and me. They're all about the same size, the only difference being that Jon's room is carpeted where Aaron, Travis, and I have hardwood floors. This was Jon's one condition, granted because he did most of the legwork in securing us the apartment.
My room is my home. The rest of the guys spend most of their time in the living room and the kitchen and only really go to their rooms to sleep. They are Social People, who like interacting with others rather than being hidden away in a corner. Also, Aaron doesn't have a bed, so his room on the whole is kind of depressing. Me, I like to have time and space to myself, and I have a very comfortable mattress on a box-spring and rolling rack. Every room I've had since I lived with my parents is covered with junk. The walls are my autobiography. Printed pictures, posters, movie stubs, funny fliers, and amusing scraps of whatever get tacked, taped, and otherwise stuck to every surface. I'm still working on the room in the apartment because we've only been there a couple of months, but already I have a big poster for Sean Penn's film adaptation of Into the Wild and a printout of the cover for Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man. There's also some psychedelic artwork and a photo looking over my city of Portland, Maine, from the top of a parking garage.
Parking garages, strangely enough, were the home of the four of us last year. Travis and I lived in Portland Hall, the only dormitory in Portland; Jon lived in a run-down building on Cumberland Ave.; and Aaron lived on St. John with a couple of roommates who he never really hung out with. Despite the distances between us, we all hung out nearly every day, drinking beer and finding stuff to do. We invariably made our way to the top of the garage on the Eastland Park Hotel, where we could look over the back bay; the garage at Monument Square, where we could look over the Old Port and see to South Portland; the garage at the Customs House, where Casco Bay and the Maine State Pier were practically beneath us; or the garage at the bus station, right in the heart of the city. Walking around in the streets -- which, by the way, is the only way we had to get around -- seemed claustrophobic compared to the roofs of these parking structures. Up above it all, we could look out on the significance and insignificance of everything and realize, if just for a few minutes, how small we all are.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Home: Jane's Take (8/14/2007)
I have always been fascinated by the idea of home. Still, I always used to think of it in terms of where I slept, where I kept my stuff. After awhile, especially after living in Champaign-Urbana for four years–three of which, I was enrolled as a student at UIUC. After working at the college bookstore for a year, I concluded, or just solidified my conclusion that home is a group of people, not so much a space.
Still, each place is memorable in its own right, even if I spent most of my time surrounded by four white walls. There were some variations. My childhood home in Jerome had a gray mottled ceiling fan which terrified me since I could make out demonic faces in the Rorschach-like blobs of gray and black. What can I say? I was a strange little girl.
The room I slept in from fifth grade onward in Springfield used to be an old lady's office. I could swear that the old lady's ghost still turned up in the house just out of the corner of my eye as I practiced the piano at night. Instead of the shelves being lined with her mystery novel, the shelves were (and are still) filled with various stuffed animals and dolls I had collected, covered in dust from neglect.
My first dorm room was covered in movie posters by my roommate, Sarah. I didn't really start caring until the second semester when I attached the same loathing to all of her things as I did to her nasty personal habits like leaving her used Kleenexes all over the place (one of which had inexplicably wound up in a shoe inside of my closet).
My sophomore year dorm room was split more or less down the middle between me and my friend Liz from high school, who had often been sympathetic to my plight the year earlier. On my side, I put up printed-off internet pictures of James Dean, Spike Spiegel from "Cowboy Bebop" and Gogo from "Kill Bill." On the wall above my bed, I switched posters from "The Lost Boys" to "Say Anything" and at some point my "experimental" phase of having a rather gratuitous poster of Jessica Alba from "Sin City."
My first apartment was with a mutual friend of my sophomore year roommate, who actually helped me move into my current place on Hawthorne when she came visiting from her internship in Corvallis. Having a room to myself made having male guests over a lot more convenient, even if still mildly awkward the next morning.
On those walls, the same "Say Anything" poster (even now I'm a hopeless romantic, even without the poster) and an 8x11 ad for the Red Herring, a local vegetarian restaurant run out of the Universalist Unitarian church's basement. I sort of reverted to my Spartan method of interior design.
My last year in Chambana was mostly spent at the campus bookstore, but my room was a bit more cozy. To cover the tack marks and scratches our leasing company failed to repair, I put up a hand-woven, tapis-style cloth my mom had gotten in the Philippines when she had gone back for (one of myriad) cousins' wedding. It was made for a king-size bed, but adorned my wall nicely.
Now I use that "wall-hanging" as a blanket on top of an inflate-a-bed (update: it's covering my futon now, which I got for about $120, originally $100, but I insisted on giving the guy $20 for delivering it and helping get it up the stairs to my apartment). As a temporary arrangement, it beats Mike's papa-san chair+bean bag improvisation. Still, he has a bed now and I still haven't found a futon in my price range (once again, I found it).
My first place in Portland, my current place is a studio on Hawthorne. The building is called "The Lynnwood" and dates back to the 1920's. My room has the original cabinets, which still sticks slightly and don't close all the way due to recently being painted over. There is also an antique phone I can use to buzz in visitors.
The tile of the kitchenette stops after a step to meet a nice creaky hardwood floor which I don't think I'll bother covering with a rug since after I put the futon in, there wasn't a lot of space between it and the fridge or the radiator (about two steps). Two walls have great windows that let in light and air, which is awesome due to the lack of A/C (although I haven't noticed due to the amazing weather) and the fact that I sometimes burn my cooking and cook spicy things or fish a lot...That is, when I even bother cooking.
I plan on setting up a coffee table or something where my inflate-a-bed once sat in the middle (now relegated to the closet between the main room and the bathroom) along with some nice pillows for sitting Japanese style in case I should ever have company for dinner (not to mention buying more plates/cups for serving). One thing I loved about the Red Herring was how nothing matched. It always seemed more like home than how most suburbanites attempt to "create" a home with overpriced designer, color-coordinated flatware and dishes.
Once I get a futon, I'll probably stick it in the "closet" between the main room and the bathroom (update, yeah, that totally didn't happen since it didn't fit and I had to put my clothes somewhere). I'm relieved that the bathroom has a bathtub. I've missed taking proper bubble baths (update: I've taken one, and it was lovely). In the "closet," I've set up some plastic drawers to store my "everyday" wear (which has turned into my weekend wear after I got a job). I still haven't figured out what to do with my "professional/nice" clothes arrive (update: yeah, still haven't figured it out, and so they remain folded :cringe: on top of the plastic thing).
Still, I think I'll only worry about details like furnishings only after I find a job and can thus afford to buy things. Jenna was mildly saddened by my Spartan outlook on interior decorating/life in general, since she wants to make money, have nice things and settle down someplace. Me, well, I'm still very much up in the air. She admitted my place does have potential, so her dismay was most likely from my lack of interest in doing more with the space.
I can't help but laugh at the free "Urban Living Guide" to Portland. It recommended all manner of clothing boutiques, spas, furniture stores, and restaurants I could never hope to afford. I'm so glad I live on Hawthorne as opposed to the Pearl District (which has condos about the same size as or just slightly larger than my studio, but for probably about twice what I'm paying for now).
Besides, it's not so much about where I live, but where I can get to from here. Downtown is a ten-minute bus ride over Hawthorne Bridge. I can take nice strolls in Ladd's Addition right behind my building (update: I do often, and it almost makes me wish I could afford a house in this "Bermuda Triangle of urban planning." If I hop on the bus at the stop on the corner, I can go as far as Mt. Tabor Park or get off in the main Hawthorne shopping drag where there are some restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, window-shopping places, vintage clothing stores and a Powell's Bookstore. The coffeehouses are nice for people-watching and writing when I don't feel like being cooped up in my apartment.
Right now I'm at a nice European grocery store called "Taste of Europe," run by a nice old Bosnian (?) man. I'm sitting outside with the remnants of a Flake chocolate bar (the NY Times was right, the British do know their sweets) and a white chocolate mocha (which isn't sickeningly sweet like Starbuck's, the nice man knows that a good coffee drink should taste like it actually has good coffee in it). I am alone, but the act of randomly scribbling in a notebook makes me feel more comfortable, more at home, I guess.
If I walk a couple more blocks, there's a movie theater (closer than the Bagdad, although they probably don't serve beer and pizza), a bike shop and a cafe across the street from a cafe/bakery. Next to that (the Grand Central Baking Co.) is a tented produce market with the biggest peaches I've ever seen. Everything there is ridiculously gorgeous and doesn't look like it's been on a truck for days (unlike sad Illinois supermarket produce). It almost reminds me of Christina Rosetti's "Goblin's Market." I'm only pretentious enough to reference it, you'll have to google it on your own.
A bit further down is a Safeway where I can buy non-produce things (or produce if I'm feeling cheap) and surprisingly carries three kinds of sake and plum wine. Still, I'm more of a social drinker, so I'll probably be at the Barley Mill Pub across from my building where me and the other tenants steal internet (from across the street in the lobby or right on the sidewalk, no less).
According to Ali, my neighbor who lives downstairs in apartment C with her girlfriend Ana (?), with the "Declare Yourself" sign posted on the door, the wireless signal is lost if a car parks in front of our building. She was sitting outside with her apple notebook when I met her. I guess I can be glad of faulty wireless if I can be sociable because of it. I check my email on my laptop every morning in the lobby, but since my battery is terrible, I can't go too far from an outlet (like going outside). I hope I can get it to work with the Ruckus wireless modem I ordered, otherwise my "convenient" internships won't be so convenient anymore. (Update: it works, hooray for internet privacy...but boo to being antisocial.)
Right now, the family sitting behind me at the European place is eating something that smells amazing. I think the owner wasn't exaggerating when he told the little girl that it will be "The best food you've ever tasted." (Update: I ate dinner there once, a bit pricey, but he wasn't kidding. The lamb/beef patties were juicy and flavored well so as not to be overwhelmed by the herbs, but very complimented, sort of like if someone nods a hello to you on the street as opposed to tackle-hugging you).
I'm talking to Dad on the phone now, so I feel a bit more at home (especially considering he calls me multiple times a day). He calls about every night, so I think I'll humor him until I have things sorted out so he won't worry so much. (Update: yeah, I'm a bad daughter, I've hit the "ignore call" button more times than I'm willing to admit).
Everywhere I go, I see a good mix of people, but a lot of people my age. Most of them are attractive and dress in that sort of scruffy/bohemian-trendy way. I love that I see almost as many bicyclists as cars sometimes. It's a lot like Urbana here. I've even noticed the same Hot Lips pizza delivery mini-car drive by a few times. They like to use organic produce and donate some of their profits to help build houses for the homeless.
Once again, I seem to have completely strayed from the original writing prompt. I guess no matter where I go, some things won't change. Either that, or it just reflects on my surroundings. There's always something going on here. This weekend will be the Hawthorne Festival to celebrate the completion of construction.
Who knows? I may actually be social. (Update: I wasn't, not really).
But anyway, home really is a group of people. I haven't exactly fallen in with any group in particular here, but I figure it's just my first week here. (Update: I've been here three weeks, and I still haven't insinuated myself in any social group yet).
For now, I think I'll quit hogging valuable real estate, hand in my used cup and go "home" for the night. The conversation with Pop put me in a bit of a mood. Maybe Ben's right and I really am just running away from myself. Either way, that doesn't change the fact that Springfield stopped being home for me years ago and it was only a matter of time before I wore out my welcome in Chambana.
Still, each place is memorable in its own right, even if I spent most of my time surrounded by four white walls. There were some variations. My childhood home in Jerome had a gray mottled ceiling fan which terrified me since I could make out demonic faces in the Rorschach-like blobs of gray and black. What can I say? I was a strange little girl.
The room I slept in from fifth grade onward in Springfield used to be an old lady's office. I could swear that the old lady's ghost still turned up in the house just out of the corner of my eye as I practiced the piano at night. Instead of the shelves being lined with her mystery novel, the shelves were (and are still) filled with various stuffed animals and dolls I had collected, covered in dust from neglect.
My first dorm room was covered in movie posters by my roommate, Sarah. I didn't really start caring until the second semester when I attached the same loathing to all of her things as I did to her nasty personal habits like leaving her used Kleenexes all over the place (one of which had inexplicably wound up in a shoe inside of my closet).
My sophomore year dorm room was split more or less down the middle between me and my friend Liz from high school, who had often been sympathetic to my plight the year earlier. On my side, I put up printed-off internet pictures of James Dean, Spike Spiegel from "Cowboy Bebop" and Gogo from "Kill Bill." On the wall above my bed, I switched posters from "The Lost Boys" to "Say Anything" and at some point my "experimental" phase of having a rather gratuitous poster of Jessica Alba from "Sin City."
My first apartment was with a mutual friend of my sophomore year roommate, who actually helped me move into my current place on Hawthorne when she came visiting from her internship in Corvallis. Having a room to myself made having male guests over a lot more convenient, even if still mildly awkward the next morning.
On those walls, the same "Say Anything" poster (even now I'm a hopeless romantic, even without the poster) and an 8x11 ad for the Red Herring, a local vegetarian restaurant run out of the Universalist Unitarian church's basement. I sort of reverted to my Spartan method of interior design.
My last year in Chambana was mostly spent at the campus bookstore, but my room was a bit more cozy. To cover the tack marks and scratches our leasing company failed to repair, I put up a hand-woven, tapis-style cloth my mom had gotten in the Philippines when she had gone back for (one of myriad) cousins' wedding. It was made for a king-size bed, but adorned my wall nicely.
Now I use that "wall-hanging" as a blanket on top of an inflate-a-bed (update: it's covering my futon now, which I got for about $120, originally $100, but I insisted on giving the guy $20 for delivering it and helping get it up the stairs to my apartment). As a temporary arrangement, it beats Mike's papa-san chair+bean bag improvisation. Still, he has a bed now and I still haven't found a futon in my price range (once again, I found it).
My first place in Portland, my current place is a studio on Hawthorne. The building is called "The Lynnwood" and dates back to the 1920's. My room has the original cabinets, which still sticks slightly and don't close all the way due to recently being painted over. There is also an antique phone I can use to buzz in visitors.
The tile of the kitchenette stops after a step to meet a nice creaky hardwood floor which I don't think I'll bother covering with a rug since after I put the futon in, there wasn't a lot of space between it and the fridge or the radiator (about two steps). Two walls have great windows that let in light and air, which is awesome due to the lack of A/C (although I haven't noticed due to the amazing weather) and the fact that I sometimes burn my cooking and cook spicy things or fish a lot...That is, when I even bother cooking.
I plan on setting up a coffee table or something where my inflate-a-bed once sat in the middle (now relegated to the closet between the main room and the bathroom) along with some nice pillows for sitting Japanese style in case I should ever have company for dinner (not to mention buying more plates/cups for serving). One thing I loved about the Red Herring was how nothing matched. It always seemed more like home than how most suburbanites attempt to "create" a home with overpriced designer, color-coordinated flatware and dishes.
Once I get a futon, I'll probably stick it in the "closet" between the main room and the bathroom (update, yeah, that totally didn't happen since it didn't fit and I had to put my clothes somewhere). I'm relieved that the bathroom has a bathtub. I've missed taking proper bubble baths (update: I've taken one, and it was lovely). In the "closet," I've set up some plastic drawers to store my "everyday" wear (which has turned into my weekend wear after I got a job). I still haven't figured out what to do with my "professional/nice" clothes arrive (update: yeah, still haven't figured it out, and so they remain folded :cringe: on top of the plastic thing).
Still, I think I'll only worry about details like furnishings only after I find a job and can thus afford to buy things. Jenna was mildly saddened by my Spartan outlook on interior decorating/life in general, since she wants to make money, have nice things and settle down someplace. Me, well, I'm still very much up in the air. She admitted my place does have potential, so her dismay was most likely from my lack of interest in doing more with the space.
I can't help but laugh at the free "Urban Living Guide" to Portland. It recommended all manner of clothing boutiques, spas, furniture stores, and restaurants I could never hope to afford. I'm so glad I live on Hawthorne as opposed to the Pearl District (which has condos about the same size as or just slightly larger than my studio, but for probably about twice what I'm paying for now).
Besides, it's not so much about where I live, but where I can get to from here. Downtown is a ten-minute bus ride over Hawthorne Bridge. I can take nice strolls in Ladd's Addition right behind my building (update: I do often, and it almost makes me wish I could afford a house in this "Bermuda Triangle of urban planning." If I hop on the bus at the stop on the corner, I can go as far as Mt. Tabor Park or get off in the main Hawthorne shopping drag where there are some restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, window-shopping places, vintage clothing stores and a Powell's Bookstore. The coffeehouses are nice for people-watching and writing when I don't feel like being cooped up in my apartment.
Right now I'm at a nice European grocery store called "Taste of Europe," run by a nice old Bosnian (?) man. I'm sitting outside with the remnants of a Flake chocolate bar (the NY Times was right, the British do know their sweets) and a white chocolate mocha (which isn't sickeningly sweet like Starbuck's, the nice man knows that a good coffee drink should taste like it actually has good coffee in it). I am alone, but the act of randomly scribbling in a notebook makes me feel more comfortable, more at home, I guess.
If I walk a couple more blocks, there's a movie theater (closer than the Bagdad, although they probably don't serve beer and pizza), a bike shop and a cafe across the street from a cafe/bakery. Next to that (the Grand Central Baking Co.) is a tented produce market with the biggest peaches I've ever seen. Everything there is ridiculously gorgeous and doesn't look like it's been on a truck for days (unlike sad Illinois supermarket produce). It almost reminds me of Christina Rosetti's "Goblin's Market." I'm only pretentious enough to reference it, you'll have to google it on your own.
A bit further down is a Safeway where I can buy non-produce things (or produce if I'm feeling cheap) and surprisingly carries three kinds of sake and plum wine. Still, I'm more of a social drinker, so I'll probably be at the Barley Mill Pub across from my building where me and the other tenants steal internet (from across the street in the lobby or right on the sidewalk, no less).
According to Ali, my neighbor who lives downstairs in apartment C with her girlfriend Ana (?), with the "Declare Yourself" sign posted on the door, the wireless signal is lost if a car parks in front of our building. She was sitting outside with her apple notebook when I met her. I guess I can be glad of faulty wireless if I can be sociable because of it. I check my email on my laptop every morning in the lobby, but since my battery is terrible, I can't go too far from an outlet (like going outside). I hope I can get it to work with the Ruckus wireless modem I ordered, otherwise my "convenient" internships won't be so convenient anymore. (Update: it works, hooray for internet privacy...but boo to being antisocial.)
Right now, the family sitting behind me at the European place is eating something that smells amazing. I think the owner wasn't exaggerating when he told the little girl that it will be "The best food you've ever tasted." (Update: I ate dinner there once, a bit pricey, but he wasn't kidding. The lamb/beef patties were juicy and flavored well so as not to be overwhelmed by the herbs, but very complimented, sort of like if someone nods a hello to you on the street as opposed to tackle-hugging you).
I'm talking to Dad on the phone now, so I feel a bit more at home (especially considering he calls me multiple times a day). He calls about every night, so I think I'll humor him until I have things sorted out so he won't worry so much. (Update: yeah, I'm a bad daughter, I've hit the "ignore call" button more times than I'm willing to admit).
Everywhere I go, I see a good mix of people, but a lot of people my age. Most of them are attractive and dress in that sort of scruffy/bohemian-trendy way. I love that I see almost as many bicyclists as cars sometimes. It's a lot like Urbana here. I've even noticed the same Hot Lips pizza delivery mini-car drive by a few times. They like to use organic produce and donate some of their profits to help build houses for the homeless.
Once again, I seem to have completely strayed from the original writing prompt. I guess no matter where I go, some things won't change. Either that, or it just reflects on my surroundings. There's always something going on here. This weekend will be the Hawthorne Festival to celebrate the completion of construction.
Who knows? I may actually be social. (Update: I wasn't, not really).
But anyway, home really is a group of people. I haven't exactly fallen in with any group in particular here, but I figure it's just my first week here. (Update: I've been here three weeks, and I still haven't insinuated myself in any social group yet).
For now, I think I'll quit hogging valuable real estate, hand in my used cup and go "home" for the night. The conversation with Pop put me in a bit of a mood. Maybe Ben's right and I really am just running away from myself. Either way, that doesn't change the fact that Springfield stopped being home for me years ago and it was only a matter of time before I wore out my welcome in Chambana.
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