|
|
| |
|
|
| |
i am: 40...a capricorn / moon in pisces / libra rising...an old soul with a young spirit...older than i look...contemplating my 3rd tattoo...NOT a web designer...a lesbian...working things out with the g.f....a native iowan...a graduate of cornell college and ohio state...a critical reader and thinker...really rather shy...agnostic...an ardent feminist...a bleeding-heart liberal...a pacifist...and so not your average white grrl...
e-mail me
feeling generous? *grin*
Who Links Here
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
January 27, 2003
life in a boxso, we're moving in a month. about a block down the street, to the cutest little brick house (yes, an actual house...no more sharing walls with smoky, noisy, rude neighbors). while it was unexpected, leaving us scrambling for the security deposit and $$ to pay a moving company (we've decided we're too old to be asking folks to help us move)—and wondering how in the hell we're ever going to figure out how to disassemble and reassemble the pieces of our bedroom set that, upon delivery, had to be assembled on-site because they wouldn't fit up the stairs—it was one of those opportunities that we just couldn't pass up. and while the prospect of purging and packing seems more than a little daunting, as well...we're excited. no, we won't own the place...but it seems like a good spot to land until we're ready for that.
the owner rehabbed it and lived there himself, for several years...and in my experience, when a gay man renovates a house for himself, he includes all sorts of little amenities that the landlords we've rented from in the past (i.e., gay men who didn't ever live there themselves) don't bother with...like ceramic tile in the kitchen...and refinished hardwood floors...and exposed brick...and a functioning fireplace. AND we can paint the walls! "nothing too loud," he said...but we're already putting together a "proposal," complete with back-up colors in lighter shades in case he freaks at our first choices. it may sound goofy, but we've been fantasizing about painting the walls of our home for years, so this is a big deal. we can't wait to move in.
so anyway...the other nite, i was going thru boxes of stuff in the basement, trying to sort out what i want to keep (and therefore, move) and what i can pitch. i'm a certifiable packrat, so there's a lot...and i came upon a whole bunch of stuff that i didn't even realize i still had:
the art work and various writings that my mom saved, from kindergarten on up...certificates from my completion of swimming and gymnastics lessons...a newspaper clipping from when i won a prize for my "hula girl" halloween costume...a pink scarf, on which i had embroidered my name (which looks like "usa" instead of "lisa")...the 2x3' latch-hook rug that took weeks to complete...the vial of ash from mount st. helens (dated 1980) that my grandmother brought me after she visited there...my first plane ticket...sea/tac, june 1977, when my brother paid for my sister and me to fly up to see him and my sister-in-law for 2 weeks. shopping for bathing suits with margaret...jeff kissing me goodbye as he left for work, and me wondering if margaret would be jealous....the totem poles in vancouver...a snowball fight on mount rainier, my first mountain experience...the ocean (my first time for that, too)...the camping trip...the bear that invaded our camp one night, and the slug the size of a football...fleetwood mac playing incessantly in the car.... dolls...a stuffed, sweet-faced holly hobby; and velvet, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, hard-plastic one with the hair that "grew" when you turned a knob in her back, whose ears i pierced and adorned with a pair of my own earrings. my elementary school autograph book...my little sister laura's goofy poems every few pages...signatures and addresses from girl scout and church camps, including the entry from a college-age counselor who said i was "a quiet sophisticate"...my best friend, jolene's entry: "god made the ni***rs, he made them in the night, he made them in a hurry and forgot to make them white." my "my senior year" book from high school... all my friends' senior pictures..."stay sweet" and "friends forever" and all the other corny things they wrote...the keg party admission "tickets" we sold for $3...my notice to appear in court after the cops busted us at one of those parties...diaper pins, painted with our school's initials in red nail polish, that we, as cheerleaders, pinned to the warm-ups of the wrestlers who had just pinned their opponents...many concert ticket stubs (foreigner...loverboy...the '82 iowa jam)...newspaper clippings of the homecoming court—i.e., ALL my old friends—from the high school i had left when my mom remarried and we moved after my sophomore year.... photographs...me—permed and clad in the yellow overalls i remember well—with my fellow employees from the wright pharmacy in traer...me in my cheerleading uniform...me and "the girls" (including the one whose face i exed out with white tape because she was the girlfriend of the boy i thought i loved) in the cafeteria after school...me "singing" into a curling iron between junior skip day and the evening party that followed.... cassette tapes (remember those?)...peter gabriel...the cocteau twins...book of love...sheila e...erasure...sisters of mercy...queen...the pretenders...janet jackson...joy division...the talking heads...the tom tom club...jane siberry...phranc...throwing muses...the cure.... albums (remember those??)...elton john...joyce sims...r.e.m....chaka khan...soho...soul II soul...ministry...laurie anderson...big audio dynamite...inxs...the fixx...bronski beat...nu shooz...kate bush...ub40...the english beat.... the mixtapes i loved to make..."mix that's eclectic," side a: "slave to the rhythm (grace jones); "the big sky" (kate bush); "all day" remix and "the angel (ministry); "full circle" and "fascinated" (company b); "i can't wait" (nu shooz); "break out," n.a.d. mix (swing out sister). side b: "icing sugar" and "the perfect girl" (the cure); "golden playpen" (inxs); "reach the beach" (the fixx); "why can't we live together," "smooth operator," and "hang on to your love" (sade); "don't break my heart" and "many rivers to cross" (ub40); "doors of your heart" (the english beat); "e=mc2" (big audio dynamite).... so i sat there. in the basement, on a 37-pound pail of scoopable cat litter. listening to the gurgling and whirring of the washing machine. sorting out the contents of the long-ago parts of my life. so many phases, represented in just a few boxes. soon we'll be boxing up the last 3 years, deciding what parts are worth saving and what parts we can do without, and agonizing over the difficult choices. and the next time we move, we'll pare it all down even further.
we are all products of our histories. if you've had the patience to read this far, you're probably like, "ummm, lisa? duh?!". but this concept still blows my mind sometimes. i have been shaped by every person i've known, every experience i've had, every place i've ever been, every mistake i've made, every bit of pain or happiness or contentment or sadness that i've felt.
it all adds up to me.
4:28 PM
|
|
| |
|
| |
