introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the house that jack built late afternoon - twenty first of april, 2001-rainy saturday- "i'm keepin' to myself, though, if you don't mind. i don't want to leave any fingerprints."~jude i noticed just now that i've aquired quite a number of cigarette boxes here on my desk. i should really give some thought to getting rid of a lot of things and to packing what's left soon. the very thought of it makes my stomach seem to fall out. i run over the memories tied up in this house and i'm one third happy, one third disappointed to be going, and one third glad to be rid of the place. i remember the first time we came to look at the apartment. i remember the voice of the man that would become my landlord: flatly round in dialect and middle american, if i had to place it. i remember how he struck me as a sort of manequin man, striking poses that he kept for long moments, as though he couldn't multi task both talking and gestures at once. i remember the first time i saw this very room and exclaiming that it would be mine...and how i sometimes regret it this winter, when i woke seeing my breath as though i were out in the woods winter camping rather than sleeping in what was supposed to be a warm house. i remember the plans for the attic and the wonderful feeling of finding a place that would be ours..just the four of us, laughing, learning, and living together. i remember how i smiled when we decided that this was the place. i remember moving in. i remember the fight with my father as we took the multiple trips to and from the storage unit i'd rented because i had had to wait an extra week to move in. i remember the trouble we had moving my blue velvet twelve dollar sofa in, maneuvering it past the landing and finally, into the living room. my father and i had been arguing all morning over ridiculous things and i don't think that we have ever had a fight-free move. i think that when i finally pack my things to go west in the next month or so, i will ache for those fights, as stressful as they have always been, just because it would mean that he'd be close by. i'm leaving a lot behind when i go. i'm leaving the arguments and the inconsistancy (as brian calls it) of the relationship between the smartest man that i have ever known (though i often times can't or won't admit it) and myself...but i'm also leaving behind a father that would do most anything for me. i'm leaving my cheerleading mother behind. i remember moving in. i remember how they never really helped me unpack once, except that time that i first went away to college (and then, i only wanted to be rid of them). heather, one of the two roommates i let stay here for free over the summer, moved in that same day. i found some comfort knowing that she was across the span of the boxes and misplaced furniture of the living room. i liked knowing that bells was coming to live the next morning. i remember the wonderful times of summer: waking up to the swooshing sound of morning traffic to get a shower in the multicoloured bathroom with the yellow toilet, marble sink, and avacado tub; getting ready for work and biking in the warm mornings uptown; of coming home to the cool of my six windowed bedroom. i loved the feel of the sun on my skin as i ate my lunch outside at vinegar hill, watching the construction of the new drug store and the apartments over it that took the entire season. i think i grew with the building, spending my first summer not struggling on my own. they were high times, the evenings. when it rained, bells and i would puddle jump all the way to campus and slip and slide along the lawn in front of Keith Hall. i remember the Survivor Wednesdays when we'd all sit around the television and i'd scream at Rich Hatch and throw things at the t.v. (I KNOW YOU'RE NOT CALLING DURING SURVIVOR!!) i saw my first phish show, bringing the hemp necklaces and bracelets that corey had showed me how to weave. i helped teach high school kids at camp with my then-favourite professor. i vacationed to toronto with my best friend. and all it surrounded this house with its small kitchen and bells' dirty dishes and day old dinners left around the house. it all revolved around the house with the room with the nice breeze that was so comfortable that i never needed a fan to keep it cool in here. it was the summer of larry bowman and the beegees coming from my computer. it was a lovely summer. and then, the time came for bells to move in with marie and heather and corey to move on to their new place, too. but i wasn't alone. RFG (really fucking gay) Megan dwelled in the intersection time between summer and fall. It was good company, although frustrating and there are times that i regret the falling out and there are times when i really wish i could keep my mouth shut. i learned a lot about myself in those few weeks when we went to the gym together and trained for rugby. i saw a lot of myself in her: the arguing with parents, the struggle to be myself, the learning process. i was glad to have put those things mostly behind me and i was learning to like me a little bit at a time. i have her to thank for reminding me that compromise and honesty are the most important things, sometimes. toni moved in first, taking bells space off the kitchen. i suppose its just as well that she took that room, for now, its like that room doesn't even exist. i was so happy to see her that first day after the months of summer that i could have burst. nacho moved in next, taking corey and heather's room and changing the decor of my hippy friends to sequins and velvets and metal-band posters and photos. and we decorated the living room with the cds that i'd burned and melted and put up posters together. jess moved in finally, into the room that had been the guest room all summer and turned it into a very nice beachhouse looking sort of place that would later be inhabited by Zool one stormy night; a room that is so pretty that i hardly ever want to go in for fear that i might break or get something dirty or wrinkled. "your house looks like a comic book," Lisa Boobs had said to me one sunny fall afternoon. And I suppose it does. I've got comic clippings all over the house, lines of mantra taped up to mirrors and the television, in the kitchen, on the toilet seat (if you can't put it down, don't fucking pee here.) i wonder if the landlord will notice that. i wonder what magic marker will add or subtract from my script on the porceline. the quotes started showing up on the walls very early on. we were all sitting stoned in front of the television...everyone that mattered in town. we were high society and watching "Hackers". The phone rang. "That could be anybody," I said. It made perfect sense to me. Everyone laughed because....it could have been anyone....but it was just that anyone that would have called was already there. I am forever a tool. But that quote led to so many more that are being spray painted over every day as we prepare to leave: "jess broke the butter", "what's that smell?", "cuttin' muffins", "this isn't bad. no. its good.", "i'm smarter than the average sheetz-goer: i dont need help." Those phrases have a lot of meaning to the people that live here.....well, to three of us. Toni never really lived here after the fiasco...and I am forever grateful that things have gone the way they have. I have lost two very good friends to love and I'm glad for them now. I can finally honestly be glad for them. There were the keg parties and the keg stands, the trips and the pot, the SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAYs, Homecoming and a fascist with beautiful blue eyes and pressed pants and shined shoes and a hat *melt* and a migrane who curled up beside me, just four inches away from my fingertips (i am such a chicken), vegetable lasagna, a wonderful turkey dinner for some professor friends, wrestling, movies, music, Passions. We've had so much between us and in so little time. And now, its coming to a close. The attic never got cleaned out; never became the studio for Nacho and I. The keggers dwindled after that last bad one when our Treehouse was torn to shreds by drunk insolent townies. The weather grew cold and the gas bills went up. Then, in its turn, the weather began to thaw and the leaves came back. They've filled the fountains on campus and that has been a sure sign of spring to me for a long time; has been a real turning point every year. I've learned. I've loved with a vengeance. I've grown. I noticed that there are a lot of cigarette boxes empty and adding to the commotion of the litter on my desk. I suppose its finally time to clean up and throw them away and start thinking about packing up my belongings. I've got a new state and a new beginning to look forward to. I'm still torn and hurting for the support of the most important boy in the world but I can't look back. I leave a lot of memories in this house and in this town, but there are new things to look forward to. There are new people in my life that have made such huge impacts. There are the old best friends that have made me stronger and helped shape the woman i'm becoming. to them, i owe the most sincere thanks. and to the new person in my life i owe some more thanks...for all the laughter he brings me, for the support he gives me, and for believing in me. i haven't been this happy or this sure in my life and i really believe that its all been for a reason, now; that there has always been a purpose and i just had to open up my eyes to see. there are a lot of cigarette boxes on my desk and maybe i will never quit smoking and maybe i will. its time to clean up. its time to start packing. its time to start thinking for a future...for a wonderful, satisfying, adventerous future. be well, cats. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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