Disembodied After a week of hauling boxes, book cases, chairs and a bed up three and a half floors to my apartment, and a weekend spent hefting furniture, boxes, dressers, book cases, chairs, etc. into my siblings' places, I discovered I now have someone else's legs. It was startling at first, the washcloth moving across my calves in the shower. I pause. I stand. I look around. I think, "Those aren't my legs." I try again: foreign gams.

It was like waking after sleeping atop an arm. You turn and the arm--your arm, your bloodless, lifeless arm--flops heavily onto your chest.
-cK
  ¶ 11:27 AM

  Creaking floorboards Memory is not to be trusted. As I walked through the new apartment today, I noticed that the rooms were not nearly as big, the woodwork had changed, and there's a slight divide between the kitchen and "dining area." This divide, I'm sure of it, was not there two months ago. The floors are sorely scratched too, and actually gouged at a couple points near the radiators--something the manager hadn't realized either. (The previous tenants had carpets.)

Also, the property manager put the wrong apartment number on my lease, so now I have the right apartment but I've been changing my credit cards and setting up utilities for a different place. Yikes! She's from Wisconsin, though, and those people--many of whom are my people--are really poor liars (Jeffrey Dahmer excluded). Think of Squiggy, the Big Ragu, Laverne. You can shake your head, but you really can't be mad.

So that was exhausting in and of itself, as was hauling up a few boxes of cleaning supplies and the first wave of books. (Third floor unit, three and a half from the street-level entrance.) It's easy to regret, you know, and I did. I regretted not taking the apartment on Cleveland, the one owned by the woman who owns my current building. That had a layout more conducive to gatherings since the living room and kitchen/dining space were pretty much one large room. It wasn't as interesting of a neighborhood, though, and it was a few miles from my current neighborhood, which I was intent on staying in. I like where I am. I think it's the right place.

Now, the stress of moving is going to cause this sort of dissonance. To counter, I stayed around a bit and propped open the windows to vent some of the paint fumes. I put a few supplies on shelves, mentally mapped what bookcases would fit in the closets. (There's a gigantic closet in the living room. It's probably bigger than the can.) What sort of storage case could fit behind the bathroom door? How feasible it is to fit the work table I want into this kitchen space?

Walking then from room to room, sometimes walking into the wrong one--a fairly stupid act in a four room apartment--a bit of space was gained. Betsy suggests that one night I or a neighbor will be sick and require assistance up the stairs. We'll both be embarrassed by the episode but will grow closer because of it.

A life can happen here.

Yes, the excitement has returned ... so long as I hold off thinking about the condo they are about to break ground on next door, the lot that is currently a greenspace. It was a major selling point when I signed the lease for this corner unit: light, trees, greenery. Damn it all, now. Angel and devil, angel and devil. I am a man of thin shoulders. But my fiction can flourish in this new place.

(Ooo: Is there a greater fiction than the self? I should be French.)

Let it come.

Soon to wake to the sound of hammers,
-cK  ¶ 12:28 PM

  Point of Pride My powers of perception, long flagging under the weight of familiarity, have heightened as I gear up for a move. I pause to reflect: the toilet plunger is awfully dusty.

Well done, boy.
-cK  ¶ 6:43 AM

  Waterloo 10:30 pm, Saturday, Minneapolis. It’s Jakki’s birthday. I’ve just met Jakki, am visiting her and Andy’s house for the first time. Andy, Mahti, Misty, and I are talking at the base of the stairs. I’m waiting for the dude in the can to finish. He's really taking his time--no haunting linger, though, which I soon discovered, that's a plus. When he finally wanders downstairs I venture up. I set the beer on the toilet tank, wait a bit. The tank is sloped but the beer seems steady. Nice.

The gates are opened. There’s a pounding at the door. I respond. She responds. Neither one of us can really hear the other. It's a moment of bliss. (Does the bladder trigger endorphins?) A little buzzed. The party’s been going since 4:30. The voice outside the door scrapes the air, just a few faint notes. It's Misty, I'm sure of it.

I finish. I flush. I’m washing my hands. It’s at this point that fate begins to snicker. There's not even a warning, a sound of glass slipping across porcelain. Nothing. It's as if the bottle, which was quite full, evolved legs and a suicidal urge. The beer falls onto the toilet seat, there’s a nice little clack and crash, and abruptly urine-colored brew—damn you Samuel Adams!—sprays about.

The pounding at the door intensifies.

Horrified, I pick up the bottle and stare at it a moment. It continues its foamy release around my feet. I drop the bottle in the sink. The pounding at the door continues. I say something unhelpful like, “Uh … Uh …” and do a little Tom Arnold shuffle. That's it! I grab a line of toilet paper. My hands are still quite wet, so now I’ve pretty much saturated the role of paper while unwinding enough to wipe off the seat, a real rush job of it, though I haven’t enough time to wipe up the floor. Misty’s knocking is just too urgent.

Armed with a handful of beer soaked toilet paper, I open the door as she's just coming in, ready or not.

I’m just a pathetic, pleading mess. I say, “I swear to you all of this is beer! It isn’t urine. Really, really, it isn’t.”

She doesn’t care. Writhing like a child, she cries, "I don't care!" Her hands are in position to drop and douse. She says in her unplaceable accent, “I just need to sit down!”

Fair enough. I leave her to it.

Downstairs, my incredulity leads me to a point of confession. It was bound to happen, Andy. Misty returns. As another guest heads up to the jon, Misty says, “I can’t believe you just pissed all over the place.”

This line of commentary repeats itself for fifteen minutes of pissers.

Well, it was probably a good thing she shared the organic chocolate with me early in the night. She certainly would not have been so keen on the idea after my hosing of the loo.

Dear Andy and Jakki, thank you for a good night. You are marvelous hosts. Jakki, I truly hope you made Andy clean up the mess. And, I promise, if I ever make the cut again, I'll just wear a catheter.
-cK
  ¶ 7:49 AM