4 posts tagged “domesticity”

What are your plans for the weekend?

First, movies. The Seattle International film Festival started Thursday, and I've only seen one film so far! I have tickets for two more this weekend, and might add a third. I'll be posting about them at my movie blog, letterboxed. Last night was a French horror/thriller, tonight is a Canadian indie, Sunday is a documentary, and Monday might be a film from Hong Kong.

Second, if I can drag myself out of the house for something other than film, I'll head down to the Seattle Center for Folklife. I looked through the schedule, and there is something each day that I am interested in, as long as it doesn't clash with movies or napping. Hey, napping is key on the holiday weekend.

Third, my apartment is a disaster. I need to fold laundry and maybe do more, take out trash, do dishes, and do some cooking out of my organic produce box. 

All that, plus knitting! Movies from Netflix! Catching up on "The Sopranos"! And maybe even some sewing? Too bad it is -only- three days.

Today is National Hanging Out Day, according to treehugger.com. In spite of not having an out in which to hang, I am inadvertently celebrating. Last night only one dryer was free, so the heavy load went in it & the rest went all over my apartment. Which is the problem, isn't it? I live in a) a small apartment b) in Seattle c) without a balcony or d) radiators (not that I turn my heat on anyway), so that'll be another two days when I can't use most of my space because there are clothes hanging everywhere. Am I forever doomed to make Al Gore cry? I mean, I have a clothes rack, so one load of tshirts & unders & stuff is fine and I wind up doing that most of the time anyway. But it'd take a more creative person than me to dry queen-sized sheets in my living room. Or maybe that's how the environmentally aware among you live, just not using entire rooms for days at a time?

I do not know. I do know that the guy in the NY Times article who can easily hang six lines & dry all his clothes in the bathroom must have much bigger bathroom than I do.

Dear Vox,

As of right now, I would feel comfortable having someone who is not me in my apartment. This is the first time I've felt this way since January, and that time no one came, but I think this time the odds are in my favor.

Granted, today they would have to promise to not look in the kitchen, but that's really just because I haven't put the dishes away or taken out the rest of the trash. Nearly all of the dishes are done, though, and so I am well pleased. There have been many loads of laundry and much vacuuming and hanging things up that should have been hung up like a year ago. In a lot of ways, I am finally getting moved in. (So just wait. With my luck they'll decide to convert my building to condos.) ((An old building of mine has been converted, and recently when I went by they were having an open house. If I hadn't had arms full of groceries and library books I would have had to go in.))

There's still other things I want to do that won't happen, but that's the way it goes. I always have to remind myself that my standards for myself are a wee bit higher than other people's standards for me. (Right?)

I am looking forward to finishing this settling-in and cleaning-up stage, though, because I have things I want to do. I went shopping today, which always has the effect of making me want to sew. Skirts are ridiculously expensive and don't fit me properly anyway, and I have a wrap skirt that does, so why am I not making scads of them? Because I can't get to the sewing machine, mostly. Also, I want to get serious about working on my t-shirt quilt, because I am pretty sure I should be cutting up some more of these shirts that I don't wear anymore.

I have crafty things to show you, but I need to upload the pictures first. I've been not bad about taking photos, but resizing and uploading is apparently too much work. But I made a baby blanket, and I am working on many pairs of socks, which should surprise no one.

Now I am going to work on going to bed.

Goodnight, Vox!

Today I woke up at an ungodly hour. I blame jet lag. I wasted some time screwing around on the internet, like you do, and then took myself out to breakfast. Did you know that if you get to Glo's before 8am on Sunday you can sit wherever you want? 'Cause you can. Over breakfast I finished reading The Prestige just in time for the film to come out on Friday. Totally looking forward to it, because it's just the sort of crazy twisty narrative that Christopher Nolan can work wonders with. Everyone's seen Memento, of course, but has anyone else seen Following? For it is awesome.

Now at home I'm watching the rain and thinking about all the things I'm not doing today. It's a quiet brainstormy day, I think. I've given myself permission to blow off grocery shopping so long as I do it tomorrow, and laundry has been bumped to tomorrow as well. Stitch & Bitch isn't for hours yet, and thus go my obligations.

Ever since I moved into this apartment I've been in a weird purging stage. I'm nearly finished trashing all of my CD cases in favor of oversized wallets, which feels amazing. My next area to work on is clothing -- tons of it needs to just go away, and then I need to sew two sweatshirts up into pillows. Then comes the project I spent time researching today: the t-shirt quilt. There are a lot of involved patterns on the Internet, but I'm interested only in basic hints re interfacing and the like. I made a denim quilt already, I know basically how I want it to go, and I know that it's an art, not a science. It'll be a good winter project. I can already see it spread out across the living room.

Next, I've been eyeing up my books, at least the few I have with me here, and I've decided to start bookcrossing them. Most of the titles I want to get rid of I got for free or very cheap, and I just don't think I'd ever get around to selling them, and if I did, I wouldn't make much off of them anyway. Better to be entertained, that's my theory.

I've not been writing for some time now, and I don't know how I feel about that. There are some writing-things coming up, with deadlines and everything, that might get me back in the mood, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. I think I'm just in a different sort of space, a consuming space, maybe, instead of a creative one, and maybe that's okay.

It's raining today, and it'll keep on raining for the next 6 to 8 months regardless of how I feel about it, so I will try to not fear it, I will try to not fear free time, I will try for a world outside of my apartment, but I will try to not punish myself unduly if I fail.