a room of one's own

Generally I file women who cite Woolf's overused quote under "useless," but ever since I started ruminating on this post while walking around today, I can't get it out of my head. I give in. And it's fitting: I needed a room of my own. Or a desk, anyway. And I could use some money too. Cough it up, Woolfie.

What? You're dead? Filled your pocket with rocks? You don't say.

Hi, friends. I'm back. I know it has been a few crazy months of roller-coastering, but my mission this weekend was to go nowhere and do nothing. Instead I filled myself with Indian food on Friday night, shopped for groceries, ate tiny candy bars while watching L&O. Saturday I met a friend for breakfast, bought some vinyl, washed my clothes, wrote long e-mails, chatted on the phone, ate leftover chana masala and wiped my nose on my sleeve, watched terrible movies on cable, read magazines. Today I ate a pancake sandwich, took the dog for a walk, moved furniture around, uploaded old albums, hung little postcards on the shelves behind our drinking glasses. I've always wanted to practice the French for citrus fruits while I do the dishes.



And I decided to buy a desk. When we moved into this place, I originally gave my desk over to the B, rationalizing that with a laptop, I could move around the house as it suited me. And this worked well for a while--after all, last year I usually camped out on a wheeled table in my giant kitchen, and earlier this summer the cast kept me couch-bound--but since then I have been seized by the need for a desk of my own. So Mr. Visa and I went to Target this morning, and I came home with a box of flat-packed composite pieces. And I even managed to assemble it without putting anything on backwards, which I always do.

And now I have a desk. I can sit here in the sunroom-turned-Steena-office, typing and looking at people kicking leaves down the sidewalk. I must remember, of course, that working in a sunroom means that I cannot pick my nose at night, because I have no blinds or curtains out here. But I can duck my head under the desk for that.

Or, as the B put it, "Who cares if the homeless guys know that you pick your nose? They're peeing on our lawn."

*

In other news: a mouse has taken up residence in our living room furniture. This hasn't concerned either Ben or I much, since the mouse is not eating our food or leaving droppings anywhere. But he did keep Liz awake last week, when we thoughtfully put her up for the night on the couch, and the mouse is driving Truman crazy. He spends his days with his snout jammed under the front of the couch, sniffing and whining. Never mind that Truman would be terrified if he ever found the mouse.

So today I took pity on them both and gave Truman his own mouse. Hopefully it will suffice.



I fucked this mouse up, Truman says.

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In other news: fall in Smichigan is drizzly and stunning. The leaves are yellow, orange, red, scarlet, even green. They are ginkgo, maple, Japanese maple, oak, locust.

They are all over the sidewalk and bright yellow out the window. And I can see them from my new desk.



Now we're going to drink cheap beer and play Apples to Apples with friends, even though it is a Sunday night. And tomorrow I will wake up and grade poems in my office, and then I will watch my students prepare their marketing presentations. It's taken a very, very long time for this semester to find its happy place, but I think we're nearly there.

I hope we are. I think we are.

I hope.