choosing to stay put

After all of my dithering about whether I am going to move or not, the time to make a definitive decision arrived today, and I am choosing, for various and sundry carefully considered reasons, to sign another 12 month lease.  After one more year here, I will be better positioned–financially, emotionally, logistically, mentally, etceteraly–to move again.  But that is in the future.  For now, I am going to practice the fine art of patience and staying put.  The last three years of my life have been marked by geographic upheaval and major life changes.  Today, I am choosing to live in the present instead of my imagination.  A wise person once told me that our lives must be lived in the domain of the real.  For now, I am here, and this is real.

apartment hunting and crushing disappointment

I am starting to do a little apartment hunting.  I haven’t given notice on my current place yet, and I’m not in any particular hurry, so I’m just casually watching craigslist for anything interesting, just to get an idea of what’s out there.  I want to find a place either in Old Louisville (where I lived for three years in my previous stint in Louisville) or the Original Highlands.  This morning I went to an apartment management company to check the latest listings, and I was totally stunned to see that my old apartment, the huge, beautiful apartment I loved so very much (even if the building wasn’t in great shape, and I had rowdy neighbors), was available.  An asterisk indicated that someone had submitted an application for it already, but they still take back-up applications in case the first one doesn’t work out.  I secured the apartment key with a quickness and made a speedy jaunt down to Third Street.  Letting myself into the building, and then the apartment itself, was a singularly bizarre sensation.  I was pleased to see that the apartment was in fine shape, even better than it was when I lived there, having benefitted from a coat of fresh paint–a pale yellow that would coordinate perfectly with my couch and wall art.  I reveled in the pleasure of standing once more in this apartment that was so beloved to me, and then quickly made my way back uptown to submit an application, while thinking all sorts of “please don’t work out” thoughts about the person who had the nerve to apply for the apartment first, and calling in favors to the previously abandoned deity of my Catholic girlhood.  I got to the rental office, and began filling out an application, only to be told that the previous applicant had just been approved, minutes before.  I was crushed.  Crushed, I tell you!  I wanted that place so, so, so much!  I am not a flaky UofL student, I told them!  I am regularly employed!  I wouldn’t need a co-signer!  I am a librarian!  But it was not meant to be.  Some UofL kid got MY apartment, and I am so disappointed.

reading And the Band Played On

So, I ended up choosing And the Band Played On as the first selection from my box o’books. I was gchatting with Best High School Friend Forever (BHSFF) about this earlier, and I was telling her: You know how when you’re watching a scary movie of some kind, and the innocent victim is blithely going about his or her business while the baddy lurks out of sight, ready to pounce when the victim least expects it? And you want to yell at the TV: Watch out! Beware! The Bad Guy is waiting to get you! That’s how it feels reading this book. I’m at about 1983 or so in the chronology, and I keep Googling the names of men who play a role in this story. Dead. Dead. Dead. Randy Shilts himself? Dead. I wish I could crawl inside the book and arrive at around 1981 and get people to wake up, act up, listen up. But I know that people were doing that in 1981, and 1982, and 1983, to no avail, so my time traveling activism wouldn’t make much of a difference, would it?  This book makes me so ashamed of America and I feel deep sorrow for all of my dead gay brothers.  I don’t know if there’s an afterlife, but if there is, I’d like to imagine that every last person who died of AIDS is haunting Ronald Reagan, preventing him from resting in peace.

a box full of stuff and weekend plans

Before leaving California, I ended up having to ship some stuff home to myself because I ran out of room in my suitcase. Today the box arrived. It mostly contained books I bought at Acres of Books, one of the best used bookstores ever, but it also held other things I had forgotten I shipped. I don’t know why I chose to ship a box of See’s Famous Old Time Candies. Spending nine days inside a UPS box is not the ideal way to store chocolates. Also, I had forgotten that my Nana had given me Vanna White’s book of crochet patterns. Hey, don’t hate! She has some cool patterns in there! Mostly I’m excited to have my books. I’ve been looking forward to reading them all week. I especially can’t wait to dig into Sallie Bingham’s memoir, Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir. This box of books means my weekend is all set. This weekend is my turn in the weekend rotation at work, and I’m going to have lots of time to read. Happiness!

a sunset

Let us not speak of why. Let us just say that looking out the window at precisely this moment tonight, as the sun set over the Ohio River, was exactly what I needed.

kittycats

Today I walked into my bedroom and saw this.   It is a true fact that the pleasures of cat-ownership greatly enrich the solitary life. Yes, I live alone, but my cats keep me company, and their needs provide order and purpose on the days when the solitude seems unendurable.  They bring me endless pleasure and contentment, so you’ll have to forgive me for sounding like one of those cat ladies, okay?

genealogical research and subsequent revelations

I developed a knack for genealogical research while in library school and uncovered all sorts of interesting facts that filled in gaps in our family history. On my recent visit to California, my grandmother asked me to do some additional research, giving me a list of names and asking if I could dig up any information about these people and their departure from Sicily and their arrival in the United States.

signs in my apartment building

This picture pretty much epitomizes the half-assed ethic of my apartment building management office.  Here we have a sign announcing that there is dangerous broken glass–as if it were not evident–with no apparent effort to repair the glass or at the very least remove the glass.  And then we have a sign announcing the cancellation of the promised Roof Top Luau.  And have I mentioned that the apartment swimming pool is still not fit for use and enjoyment, in this the first week of July, when they assured us it would be ready and open mid-June?  As I sit here in my apartment with broken air conditioning–the air conditioning that I was assured would be repaired over the weekend–I’m reminded of the sage counsel of the greatest songstress of our time, Tiffany:  promises made are promises broken.

drunk tall people in a Holiday Inn jacuzzi

I don’t even know how to talk about this thing I saw and did tonight.  I am still in Anaheim for the ALA conference, and tonight I went to the hotel jacuzzi with Emily, my former co-worker and current friend and hotel roomie.  It was 9:50 pm when I suggested that we go to the pool before it closed at 10:00 pm, and Emily and I immediately scurried to the pool with great celerity.  When I initially proposed this late-night dip, I never imagined that we would end up in a jacuzzi with drunken friendly people in town for the Tall Club convention.  And yet this is precisely what happened.  There were four of them in the jacuzzi, accompanied by a bucket of booze, in flagrant violation of the No Glass in Pool Area rule.  They were a jovial bunch who greeted us heartily and asked if we were librarians.  (They had heard that there was a library conference in town.)   Upon confirmation of this fact, they started listing books they had read recently.  We engaged in very pleasant but also very surreal conversation.  The party was broken up by hotel security closing down the pool area for the night.  What a very nice time!  It was totally random and strange and very enjoyable.

bunnies!

The community where my grandmother lives is colonized by bunnies. There are rumblings and rumors that the maintainers of the community are going to Do Something about the bunnies, whether it be allegedly humane trapping and releasing or some other unmentionable alternative that no one will say aloud. These rumblings have been going on for as long as my grandmother has lived there–fifteen years–and yet! The bunnies remain. I suspect that they shall continue to do so. How could anyone want to rid the community of such adorable and furry critters? All they do is hop around and hang out in people’s gardens and bring joy to anyone who crosses their path. Sometimes you will luck out and see a mama bunny with some baby bunnies, and the cuteness?  It is barely survivable. We should all be so lucky to have bunnies hanging out in our neighborhood.

Typically the bunnies scurry off when anyone approaches, but thanks to my zoom lens and a safe distance, I managed to capture this shot. Ignore the flash-induced red eye and enjoy this bunny’s inarguable cuteness.