Thought of the Day: an ode to my house
2003-08-29 @ 2:21 p.m.

So I live in this house. It isn't the greatest house: sometimes it feels too small for the three of us, there isn't nearly enough room for all my books, the hall floor squeaks terribly, basement flooding is a constant, nagging worry, airplains rattle the windows in their frames, and after it rains you can sometimes smell the fumes from the bleach factory two blocks over.

But I grew up here. More than that: I lived here, dammit.

I played in the fron yard with girls who turned out not to be my friends. I watched movies in the living room with girls I know will always be my friends. I wept at the kitchen table while my grandmother assured me that my unfairly early awkward stage would end and I sat there numb when I learned she had died. I have played innumerable games of cards and Yatzee at that same table while the Beatles or the Stones or West Side Story played in the background. I played kickball in the back yard with my cousins on an unseasonable warm Christmas, back when I was still a Chiristian. I swam in a pool in that back yard, wearing all of my clothes, watching fireworks, and wondering what it means to be American. I've decorated 13 Christmas trees in this house, always being extremely careful of my father's mother's ornament: a silver glass ball with a shooting star, now so worn that it's a clear glass ball with a fading star. I've baked cookies, layed out appetizer trays, stuffed turkeys, and made pies in preparation for family parties. I've burned rice and nuked hot dogs in preparation for lonely nights in front of the TV. I've squeezed, crawled, sidled, and stumbled my way through a house packed with friends and relatives telling jokes, sharing stories, and trading only half-meant insults. I've lain awake in my bed, looking up at a celling I painted with a mostly accurated constellation map of the Northern winter sky worrying about the future, dreaming about posibilities, composing stories, anticipating, wanting, deciding. I have read great books in this house, sitting the couch, legs curled under me, TV on in the background. I have chosen the person I am here. I have painted my room three different colors. I have watched the Macy's parade and my father dance a raw turkey across the kitchen counter. I've obsessed over things here, filling my room with evidence of my devotion in the form of plastic toys, pages clipped from magazines, and other artifacts. I have laughed, cried, learned, been confused, been cynical, been awed, been loved so much here. It isn't the greatest house, but, sometimes, it was perfect.

before ~ after

Failing Miserably - 2004-10-08
So Not Dead/Catching Up - 2004-09-20
Murphy's Law - 2,629,163,298, Sarah - 2 - 2004-08-23
Listmainia! continues - 2004-08-04
Continuing the list - 2004-08-02