1. On Thursday I drove to Howard County (locally: Hard Counnie, home of the Hard Counnie poe-leece and fahr department.) to have a look at some bedroom furniture I saw posted on craigslist. When I scheduled the appointment with the woman selling and she said that the furniture was at an assisted living facility, I knew that meant one of two things: some one died or went to a nursing home. I arrived early and sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes, then went in to have a look, along the way passing a man singing, and some people waving their canes at me. The door to the apartment had a folksy little sign on it that said “Rhoda and Joe.” I felt like crying. Two daughters and a son in law were cleaning out the apartment, and they looked like they were completely overwhelmed by the amount of stuff – furniture, piles of books, bags of papers, clothes, almost every inch of the floor covered with things to sort. The furniture was dirty, but pretty much what I was looking for, so I left a deposit and arranged to come back Saturday. In the mean time, I was waiting to hear from Scott, since Pop moved into the nursing home a few hours earlier. Scott went up the night before to help, and felt confident after talking with the administrator and surveying the kitchen. All the talk of nursing homes and assisted living made me feel like we were somehow back to our roots. At times like that I think about going to back to work part-time in long-term care. I miss the connection to the staff and residents, and getting a window into people’s lives during a difficult transition, which I always hoped I somehow made easier.
We went back to pick up the furniture on Saturday, and while we were waiting for a cart, I noticed a sign on the bulletin board: “All activities canceled until further notice due to a viral outbreak.”
I think the universe is trying kill me. Metaphorically, of course. As Scott and I drove away with our hands still damp from anti-bacterial goo, I was quite a bit less nostalgic about working in long term care.
Anyway, the furniture is nifty. It’s old, and as I discovered last night, much of the wear was not actually wear but old man dirt, which is good, yet disgusting. It’s nice to have well worn furniture because it doesn’t own us, but at the same time it does lack some of the modern conveniences, like silently running drawers that don’t fall out sometimes.
So, there was a little frenzy this morning, as I had to dump everything out of our old furniture in time for the freecycle person to pick it up. I had a moment of alarm when I was only through two of ten drawers and half the bed was covered. What the hell is that? Where the hell did all of this crap come from, and how the hell is it that I just bought two considerably larger pieces of furniture and I had to get rid of an entire bag of clothing just to get everything to fit? Damn you, fifties-era furniture with your small drawers, for making me aware of my overconsumption. All of the closet and drawer space in the bedroom, all of which was designed for two people (in the fifties) is filled with MY stuff. How is this possible? It’s not like people were running around naked all the time in the fifties, in fact, people actually wore more and bigger clothes. There is not a single crinoline in my closet. Yet, as I learned this evening with some self-consciousness, I have between 70 and 80 pairs of socks, not counting peds, knee-highs, and trouser socks.
But, the bedroom looks nice. It is nearly shabby-chic, and I am nearly embarrassed to admit that, but I like it.
2. I love local theater. Unpolished, imperfect, just right. We went to see “I Am My Own Wife” at Everyman Theatre on Friday night. Good theater always makes me cry, even comedies. I realized on Friday why theater does that to me, in a way that movies do not. (Incidentally, my teacher says that the difference between graphic designers and artists is that graphic designers solve problems, and artists create them. Likewise, I think the difference between theater and movies is that movies provide answers and theater provides questions.) There is something that happens in theater between the artists and the audience that make the audience an active part of the process. There is a contract, a trust: the audience has to trust the artists enough to suspend disbelief for an hour or two, to be willing to accept that this stage is a museum and a prison and a talk show even though it doesn’t change, and this person is a man and woman and a soldier and writer, and so on. As we were driving home Friday night, I finally understood that really great writing for the stage has reverence for the story, but it really has reverence for the audience. With that in mind, I think I’m ready to write.
3. Seriously, about 80 pairs of socks. 160 individual socks! Sock mayhem!
