Sunday, August 31, 2008

sitting alone

Long weekend in the house. So many projects but not getting much done. Mahavira had to go to a wedding shower Saturday, but she wanted me to be able to do some unpacking in "my room" upstairs, so she told the brides-to-be that I couldn't come along because I had a cold.

This morning I woke up with a cold.

I guess that's the way it works. I had a sore throat and I felt worn out all day. I'd planned on painting the living room today, but Mahavira wouldn't let me because of the fumes. Instead, I huffed and puffed and dragged several crates of books out of the basement and up to my room upstairs. Slowly but surely all the stuff I've had in storage in Mahavira's basement since May is making its way upstairs. I guess pretty soon I'll start taking things back down, like the ebb and flow of tide, all the extra stuff I don't really need up here will end up back down there.

I put out a lot of books today. I just put them up on shelves, I didn't bother to sort or organize them at all. It used to be one of my favorite things, organizing my books. Poetry here, sexual politics here, religion here, novels here. Now I don't care. Or I care in some distant part of myself, I notice everything's all mixed up and it bothers me just a little, but I don't do anything about it, I just keep sticking them up on shelves.

I guess I've moved too much. Evidence that I've moved too much: my mom called me yesterday because she has a package she wants to send me and she wanted to make sure I was still at the same address. In fact, I am *not* at the same address. I figured it out once a few years ago: over my whole life I had moved, on average, once every six months. I stayed at my last apartment for two whole years, which you'd think would stretch my average a little, but then I go and spend only two months living in Mahavira's studio apartment, and that rachets my average down again.

The theory is that I'll live in this house with Mahavira for a very long time. Years and years, maybe for the rest of my life. So that will definitely change my average. And I guess that's partly to blame for my disinterest in setting up my space: I've got plenty of time. No rush. My brother is coming to visit me again in a couple weeks, my only goal is to have the bed put together up there so he'll have a comfortable place to sleep.

Plants are also a priority, now that I live above-ground in a house with windows. My room upstairs has two little windows and two gorgeous skylights. I plan to exploit the light up there by filling the room with plants. So far there are three, but there's time.

Tomorrow I think we're going car shopping. I got approved for a loan and I think we're going to go look at cars tomorrow. I say "think" because I'm not sure if I'll wake up feeling worse or better, and if I feel worse we might just have a total repeat of today. I'm off tomorrow because it's a holiday and I get those off now that I'm salaried. It's weird. Anyway, I've got to get a new car because mine finally died. It pooped out while Mahavira was driving it on Thursday. I felt so bad about it because I insisted she drive my car instead of her truck. I was so sure it was in better shape than the truck, but I was wrong. Now it's parked somewhere off Belmont, I have no idea. Mahavira says it will start, I guess we'll try and go move it eventually.

Really I just feel like staring out the window and not doing anything. Being sick makes me feel lethargic and brain dead. I subscribed to the Sunday Times recently: I tried to read the paper it, but I could't concentrate long enough to finish any stories. Except I forced myself to read all about McCain's VP pick and then I forced myself to try and imagine who those so-called "swing" voters might be. I tried to imagine what kind of jobs they have, where they live, what their friends are like. It baffles me that there are people in this country who honestly don't know whether they prefer Obama or McCain. Seriously. Who are those people? I want to know.

Mahavira went to bed an hour ago. She's got cramps. She's tired. I've mostly been laying around all day and am the opposite of tired. I was trying to read Nausea, by Sartre, but it was boring me so I decided to write. Also, I think the dog has fleas. Other than that, things are good.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

newsflash!!!es...

1.) I don't think I like working 9 to 5.

2.) It's raining! In Portland! In August! WTF?

3.) I love the Sopranos. I'm ten years behind, I guess. Which more or less suits me. I've been watching Season One this week and... well... I don't know what I did before this show entered my life.

4.) My kayaking group is breaking up. Slowly but surely. Dye was the first one to break it off and she won't return my emails begging for the gossip. I blame the Screechy One, she who will not be named at this time...

5.) Mera gave me a ring made of 2,000 year old Roman glass and asked me to marry her. Isn't that sweet? We've been planning to get gay-hitched on our one-year anniversary for awhile and I knew she had the ring for me, she was just waiting for the right moment. The right moment came one night last week during our fighting spree. She said she wanted to give it to me while we were fighting to help us remember how much we love each other during the hard times. Now isn't that sweet?

6.) That's all. :-)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

hey, remember me?

Sorry for the disappearing act, I had no idea I'd go so long without an internet connection at the new house! Lord! It's like I'm in the stone ages over here!

Mahavira and I officially moved into the Hawthorne house two weeks ago and it's finally starting to look like a place where people live. It has taken forever to unpack and begin the settling process. I won't bore you with the details.

When we first got here I felt like I'd won the lottery. I spent two years living in a tiny basement, then I spent two months living with Ginger and Mahavira in a tiny studio over a loud pizza joint, I haven't had a yard or a porch or anything in so long, and suddenly I find myself in a gorgeous, three-bedroom Craftsman bungalow with a fully fenced back yard, a gated front porch and more room than I've had access to in YEARS.

The dog is unbelievably happy. Last night, when we got home from the grocery store, Mahavira cut up a hot-dog into a hundred pieces and chunked it all into the backyard. Ginger spent about an hour out there sniffing them all out. It was awesome.

Every night we sit on the porch and Mahavira smokes cigarettes and we watch a whole murder of crows congregate in a huge weeping willow across the street. Mahavira's friends next door always drop by for a few minutes. Other folks wander by, my friend Leo is becoming a regular. Life has suddenly gotten so much bigger and freer.

What's funny is that Mahavira and I have been fighting a lot more since we moved out of the apartment. Not bad fighting though, if you can believe that. Good fighting. Moving from the apartment into the house was a bigger step than we both realized. In some ways it was really easy for us to crash in the apartment together. The space had limitations and we knew that. It was like a two-month honeymoon, like we'd run away to some European city and shacked up in some cold-water flat, so drunk on our love we didn't care about other comforts.

Now that we're in the house, we're learning new things about each other. New insecurities are coming up and surprising us both. Also, according to Astrology Zone, there was some kind of uber-distressing planetary alingment happening during the first of the month that was going to cause major strife in our closest relationships... and we felt it.

But fighting is part of relationships and I think we fight pretty well. We apologize, we work on our shit, we love each other. It's really good. Tonight we're hanging out with Mahavira's dad. Mahavira is making hummus right now and in a few minutes we're walking over to Pastaworks on Hawthorne to get the stuff for antipasti: fancy cheeses, salami, heirloom tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. Making good food is our new project, now that we're in the Hawthorne house.

Life is really good here.