So, I’ve been living here for over a year now and I still don’t have a porch. Never in my life has it been so important to “have a porch.” As Liz so wisely put it after her first year in Atlanta, “It feels like you are being cheated if you live in the South without a porch.” She also told me I would eventually get used to the “thin film of sweat over (my) body” from the heat. I agree with the former, but not sure about the latter. In Michigan, porches were not all that important, considering that 9 months of the year were spent in weather not suitable for porching. But here, it’s different. Here, the porches are big, and people really do wear seersucker (shorts and pants mostly, but sometimes suits) and have parties on and drink without “being outside with a drink,” and people string lights from porches and they always look like so much fun. I have a sad and dusty fire escape—not unlike Maria’s in “West Side Story”—from which I can gaze across the street at my neighbors who have porches. Of course, if I had a porch last week, then I would have been that much closer to witnessing my freakazoid neighbor taking NAKED pictures of some woman with the shades WIDE OPEN. So annoying. And so not what I have come to expect in the RIC. Then again, I have met my fair share of weirdos here: couple that asked me to join them in a threesome (she asked if I liked “to party” which I didn’t take as a cocaine reference), weird Joey Buttafouco character who asked me to stop by his “private club,” flasher guy who wiggled his thing at me in the middle of my street—the list goes on and on.
Anyway, I need a porch. And why does it seem that Vogue always arrives on the days that I really “need” or “want” something miniscule. Whilst I want a porch, I torture myself with a charming story about some WASP-eriffic “Miranda Bottomley” who finally (double underline) found the perfect Nantucket house after years of (gasp!) (all lowercase now in a whisper) renting a cottage. Or, I can simply be jealous that (way uppercase and loud) friggin’ JOHNNY KNOXVILLE got to attend the opening of the Chanel exhibit at the Costume Institute Gala at the Met. I mean, if you can extend the invitation to a guy who willingly eats other people’s vomit and is probably one large human scab, would it be so hard to invite little ole me? I’ve often wondered how anyone could date him knowing the things that have been in his mouth. Great. Now I’ve grossed myself out. And the freakazoid Olsen Twins? Double ugh.
So, in other news: I need to move. Once the D gets here this place is going to just up and shrink on me. I already have no room for anyone else than me, unless you count under my Big Gay Dining Room Table or in the shower. I know that it is so un-FengShui to not make room for other people, is it really not making room if you truly don’t have room to make? I mean, I’ve got the bed on a good FS angle, I make use of mirrors to make rooms look bigger, I divide space, I try not to clutter—we are only talking about 500 square feet.
Ack. When will my life live up to my expectations? When will I be sipping cocktails in the garden of the Met? When? WARNING: BIG EXCUSE TO NEVER GROW UP COUPLED WITH BIG AVOIDANCE OF ADMITTING LACK OF FUNDS. . .
Maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet about even attempting to own anything—because I’ve lived so long with my head in the clouds (yet feet firmly planted, thank you) that I’m not willing to relinquish the dream that I will own a big sprawling apartment in a fabulous city. Or a beautiful house on some body of water that is right on the edge one country and on the horizon, you can see another. Perhaps that is why I read the real estate section in the NYT magazine. Am I really this delusional? I guess I am. I’ve just never been much of a fixer-upper. I also don’t like “buying” things with money I don’t have. I like things neat, tidy and complete. Sure, I’ll search for a bargain, but I don’t like impostors. Which is why I’m pretending that my tenement-style apartment is actually super-hip if it were 1972 and this was New York City, or it were 1968 and this was Paris. I’m a delusional purist with fancy dreams that might never be realized but sometimes get me through weary nights in a tiny apartment.
I want my gossip! - 2005-08-17
Goodbye, BGT! - 2005-08-08
hell hath no fury like a awriting workshop - 2005-08-01
My Love Don't Cost a Thing - 2005-07-14
Kiss My Grits! - 2005-07-06
