see anamomda. see anamomda pass judgement. In retrospect, my mid-90's girlfriend---a technical writer who also work-shopped poetry (duh!)---was brilliant. and oh-so unvain. especially in matters of appearance adornment---or whatever you could've termed my opposite at the time. Whereas I was fond of full make-up (actual cringe-inducing self-quote: "it's all about the lips and eyebrows, baby"), A~ was a chapstick minimalist. A~ swathed her slammin' athlete's body in baggy neutrals. I was a clingy black sweater-and-skirt kinda girl. A~ was smart enough to know what writers know. I didn't have a clue. And so, in tribute to the forward-thinking brilliance of a former friend I haven't talked to in ages, I will now pillage and post excerpts from a few recent lousy e-mails---mostly just accounts of THE MOVE, segueing stiffly into WHAT WE'VE DONE TO IMPROVE THE JOINT. karl's been an unpacking MACHINE. anna's been a trooper. i've been a relative lame-ass: "yow, my ankles are throbbing..my back's killing me...my knees can't take this...i need to stop now...", whine blah whine blah whine blah. on a funny note, anna now says "ow. ow. ow." for me whenever we start our slow clomp from upstairs to down. OCT 16 ripped out all kitchen cabinets except for sink base scraped painted-over wallpaper from kitchen walls replaced rotting bathroom vanity with new pedestal sink removed glued-on mirror above said sink dryer vent actually attached to dryer. years of accumulated fuzzlintdirt swept from basement windows. carpeted spare room in basement (rick and sally brought a scavenged bright. pink. remnant.---so we're going with the "theme"---lava lamp night light, cheap and bright ikea table, etc.). rick has been a godsend, working as both plumber and electrician. ...then there were the bathroom plumbing issues---holy f@#k! pipes stuck together with putty. another that broke in two after a few taps. rick to the rescue again! OCT 22 two layers of sheet linoleum---one was a lovely fake brick pattern---and a third layer of glued vinyl tile chisel-ripped from floor. walls stripped, spackled, caulked, sanded, KILZ-primed and painted---whew---a bright green benjamin moore shade called PEAR. right. should've been given a more accurate name. kryptonite comes to mind. or possibly plutonium. it's supposed to be some newfangled scrubbable flat finish...but...it glows in a radioactively chartreuse way that i find a bit disconcerting. sink and attached countertop crammed into dining room. i now wash dishes in the basement utility sink next to the washer, and have set-up a drying station atop the dryer. appropriate, no? multi-paned windows meticulously cleaned and taped for paint prep to the tune of karl sweetly singing "anal-weiss, anal-weiss" in the background. semi-gloss white application. because i suck (inept, frustrated perfectionist), one window=at least one hour of paint time. ridiculous. did i mention the kitchen is green? 2004-10-26
I once knew a girl who copied and saved a version of every letter she sent (via the post office) to a folder on her computer. This was the mid-nineties, mind you, before the term "snail mail" was commonly used. I'm assuming. I wouldn't have known, actually, being both an impoverished food server (no cash = no gadgets) and a luddite. I wouldn't have known the term "luddite" then either, come to think of it, being both computer illiterate and techno obtuse. Anyway, I thought my pc-savvy friend was being vain. and ridiculous.
judge, anamomda, judge. see anamomda a decade later. anamomda seems vain. and ridiculous. she wishes she had copies of all her correspondence in order to pillage content for her lame-ass blog.
OCT 2
the move was stressful and all---cried during final cleaning of cleared-out apt. k's friends were great hardworking haulers, though, and saturday ended with only one pane of broken glass, one bashed knee, and one bloody thumb!
the in-laws (rick and sally) arrived saturday.
here's a little sampling of what we've done so far:
as well as tackling and organizing our box clutter, sally bought a full sized mattress and pillows for the basement futon (which stays when they leave---woo-hoo!) because that's where they'll be sleeping. after arranging said spare room, she spent the next two days painting anna's room a deep lavender blue with glossy white trim.
with karl as apprentice, he's practically rewiring the whole house, doing everything from repositioning/ adding electrical outlets, to installing lighting throughout the basement---and we're talking SERIOUS illumination, folks. the laundry/furnace room now whites-out beneath two four foot long fluorescent fixtures! and the trio of bulbous globe thingies that once bulged from the ceiling in front of our fireplace? history. woo-hoo! in their place are three recessed (read: unobtrusive) dimmer lights.
rick's also removed a bucket full of tangled crap wiring and cable and phone cordage, etc. from the basement alone.
entire kitchen gutted.
alright, kid's napping and k's at work, so i'll end here in order to tackle painting window #2 in GREEN kitchen.