Breaching the Museum's Forcefield

So. I've lived in pretty close proximity to the art museum for the entirety of my residency in Philadelphia, and yet, up until last week, I managed to avoid actually entering the building. It's hard to explain the strange fear/resistance complex I developed about the whole thing. I like art. I do. And I like walking to nearby places and seeing things. But somehow that just didn't translate to any burning desire to actually do so in the case of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This position softened slightly when my father gave me a membership for Christmas. Softened in that I began thinking that I should really go inside. And yet, still, I did not. This is in part some sort of fear of entering places that are big and have lines, neither of which I understand. Basically I want to look like I know what I'm doing at all times, and the museum struck me as a potentially troubling spot for that reality. What? Anyways. Enough was enough. I asked my new friend G. if he might not like to join me on my inaugural look at the place, and he said yes. So we went. On that day Rocky was wearing a sweater.
We went in the front entrance and the line was very long and I was confused. G. suggested we go to the super secret back entrance (not super secret if you're not a dumb dumb like myself), which we did with great success. So the museum is really not that scary guys. Everyone should just get a grip...like this painted figure did to the back of some other person's figure in this religious painting. What? I tired of the walls and walls of Jesus paintings, but imagined spending quality time in the Japanese Garden/Hindu Temple exhibits. I expected more Duchamp.
There were some more contemporary exhibits, one of which I really liked but because it was on loan I had to erase my photographs in front of a guard and I've forgotten the artist's name. Saws with phrases on them? Anyone? The armor stuff was cool, though Chicago's museum had a bigger and more demanding spacial display. You know what I mean.
Also? Spring seems to be here for real. I need to stop procrastinating and take a million photographs of my neighborhood's revival of prettiness after the greys and mud of the winter.
We made our own art along with a broken disk from a book written by Candace Bushnell. Famous for life.

One Part Terrified, One Part Prepared

Wednesday (that's the day the chipmunk stuff happened as well) I was vacuuming the same corner that Zul had used to get the chipmunk in line when I moved a curtain a little to see this terribly large spider.
Two years ago I had an experience with a spider down here that still haunts me, so I was prepared. Being prepared, in this case, means running to quickly get a quarter in order to help people gauge the size of this monstrous arachnid. Being prepared, in this case, means knowing that the chances of killing this spider without nine million more popping up were pretty well non-existent.
So I took pictures of the thing then left it alone. I thought about vacuuming it, but then imagined a colony of spiders living inside my mother's vacuum cleaner and decided that was more terrifying than just leaving the spider in the corner, which is exactly what I did.

Feeding Seagulls

I'm skipping ahead a little bit. Leaving out a trip to Palatka, Florida with the intention of seeing another relative's gravestone (but failing) and a lackluster lunch of fried shrimp. Instead, feast your eyes upon my father feeding seagulls bread. I did this first, but neither of my parents thought to take a photograph before my bread was all gone.


Seagulls are terrifying.

Expansion

I have lived alone since 2003. That, actually, isn't true. But I have had a fair amount of control over my living space since that time and I've collected a fair amount of possessions since I moved into my first solo living situation the summer after my freshmen year (it's funny that I just wrote that when what I really meant was the summer after I graduated from college). I will now list the things I have in a storage unit:

1) A futon/bed
2) A coffee table
3) A desk and office chair
4) Approximately five bookshelves worth of books
5) Three bookshelves
6)Framed photographs that could aesthetically take up 6 or so walls
7) Bedding for four beds
8) An oriental rug
9) Four wooden dining room chairs
10) A circa 1910 Sears sewing table
11) A very large closet's worth of clothing + one ample dresser's worth
12) A stock pot, bakeware, blender, food processor and other cooking related doo dads

And more, I'm sure.

Yesterday I looked at an apartment near work. It had a nice courtyard landscaped beautifully with bright flowers. All the doors to the two story buildings (12 in all) were painted a happy red color. The apartment itself was lovely, kind of small but nice...if you were one person. Unfortunately I would be one of two and as the newcomer I would have the smaller room...which would certainly not fit my bed, a dresser and my desk. The living area was already furnished with a sofa, two chairs and a dining table that already was pushed up to the wall. It doesn't even matter whether the girl and I would have gotten along, there wasn't enough room for my stuff. I thought, when leaving Chicago, that I had done a pretty good job of paring down my belongings. I left behind two sofas, three dressers, a television and VCR, a dining room table, a kitchen table and a whole set of Fiestaware...and other stuff, I'm sure. And yet in my search for a new place to live I'm finding that the things I kept are still too many to easily add to someone else's already configured life.

When I first started thinking about moving to Philly I decided that I most certainly would live alone. I held on to this belief until I received my first paycheck...with more than 25% of it withheld for taxes and health insurance. My initial ability to spend close to $850 per month (on Thursday E. made some comment about how you could always count on me to talk frankly about money...it's true) on solo housing went out the window...I mean I could do it but then I wouldn't be able to eat or have electricity and what fun would that be? So I had to come to terms with the fact that I'd have to share space with someone else...and this someone else would be a complete stranger.

I have looked at three different places so far. One I liked very much but nothing came of it. The next had the space/college girls problem and this latest the same space issue. I'm beginning to think that it may be impossible for me to find a share of a house for $650 or, preferably, less that will allow any kind of full integration of my household items.

Right now I am paying for a storage unit in Chicago. Last month I received a notice that the cost of keeping this space was going to be raised from $80 per month to $158. I protested and was given a slight grace period until October. So that's an added worry. Not only do I need to find a place to live, I need to find it quick-like-a-bunny-like in order to have time (I have no idea where the money will come from) to go out to Chicago and haul the stuff back before my job's busy season (yeah, my job has a busy season and it's late summer early fall). This busy season also leads me to a strong desire to stay within a reasonable distance of my office for, you see, in the busy season I'll be working late into the night....and Philadelphia's public transportation system seems to pretty much shut down after 11pm. Sigh.

So if any one knows any one who can help me find a place to live- that accepts cats, is near the Fairmount/Art Museum neighborhoods of Philadelphia, has room for my belongings and is around $600- well, I'd strongly suggest you contact me before I lose my mind.

The problem is I nested. I nested in a serious way. I accumulated things with a person and made a home. Many of those things were split up or left behind but what remains is still too much. How can I get rid of my books? I can't. I love my books. How can I get rid of my coffee table? I've had it for six years and it's perfect in its rickety little way. My desk is a dreamboat and I don't care that it's too long to fit in a snug corner. I can't conceive of parting with it...all I would do is constantly search for another one just like it. I do not feel that I am being so terribly materialistic. It's just why get rid of things that I'll only want to get again at some later time? Why get rid of things that make the place I live feel like home? Oh yes I know the glory of living out of a suitcase and the feeling of freedom that can give a person but, frankly, I've never been too into freedom...I'm more into 'cozydom'.

Living La Vida Nightmare

So, I've had a job for a few weeks now. The majority of the tasks that make up the job are fairly interesting, entertaining and nice. The variety of work/clients makes each day different and relatively nice. My co-workers are a nice bunch, we went to The Belgian Cafe that one time, if you recall. On Wednesday it was decided that after work we would go to Table 31 for something called "Sips". I met three of my coworkers there and it was like one of my nightmares wrapped up in trendy packaging. It could have been worse, sure, but it wasn't good (let alone nice<---see I realize that I used the word nice too many nice times already and now I'm making fun of myself...in as nice a way as possible). The whole standing in a tight circle, constantly being bumped into by dudes in suits or girls with better hair and figures than me is just not my scene. Maybe it would be if I was sitting down but, well, as I mentioned there was standing involved. Though I did see one inordinately tall dude. That was the highlight, seeing a tall dude and saying 'man, that guy's tall'. He is not in the photograph. The drinks were cheap (something about this whole "Sips" thing) but I only had one, downing it fast thinking that if I finished it we could all leave (there were a number of flaws in that logic). The one complimentary appetizer I was able to snag was not all that great. And that, folks, is all I have to say about that.

Reasons To Take Care Of Yourself

On Thursday my mother called me to let me know that my father was in the hospital. This was a bit of a long time in coming. Since they've been traveling (including their visit to Philly) my father's breathing was, shall we say, constantly wheezy. They (my parents) were relatively optimistic about the length of his stay...mainly that they thought he would be out by Saturday. So I went to work on Friday and then headed down to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania where they had been staying in preparation for a matriarchal family reunion of sorts in Gettysburg that weekend. The hospital food shown above is what my father had for lunch, or perhaps it was dinner, on Saturday. See, because there was no way they were letting him out that easy. I've been down there since...well, except that now I'm back in Philadelphia...but they're still in Chambersburg and will probably be there until at least Friday...or maybe tomorrow. I'm a little unclear.

I've never had so much hospital visiting experience and I won't lie, it's not so fun. Not so fun to wait for hours or days for some idea of what's going on or happening, not so fun to see a parent all connected to IVs, oxygen and the like, not so fun to see the non-hospitalized parent deal with the fact that their spouse is in the hospital. In the end it was serious but not as serious as it could have been or, if life changes aren't implemented, could be. Basically (and Dad, forgive me if you want this private) it goes like this: some time in the last months or years my father had a heart attack that was not attended to or diagnosed as such. Since then he's been walking around with a less than perfect ticker. The wheezy-ness we noted earlier was a sign of his heart working too hard, beating too fast and irregularly. There was serious talk for a few days of splents and by-pass surgery that really freaked all of us out, especially since they were in a town not their own. It's a strange thing to have to deal with this kind of stress and worry and not have a proper home to return to at the end of visiting hours. There will be more posts because food was still eaten and the family reunion did go on and I, more than my mother, did participate...but yeah, after a much talked about and twice delayed test it turns out that though my father's heart is damaged in multiple places it's not damaged enough to be treated surgically. Which, as we understand it, is a good thing.

I Now Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Sandwich/An Open Letter to the Cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

After work today I called up L. and asked if she might like to take a little iced beverage walk with me. I had a nice upscale version of sweet tea c/o Starbucks, L. had iced coffee. Then we walked to Logan Square (which is a circle). There we saw something unexpected...not entirely unexpected, actually, since I had seen signs near my office about filming happening...except that it said it was happening tomorrow, not today. So. Yeah. We ran into the cast of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (a show I actually watched a fair amount of last summer c/o dvds) do some promo shots (or something) for their upcoming season (maybe, I'm just guessing). You might note that Danny Devito is a cast member of this show.
I might note that he definitely acknowledged L (and by proxy me) in between these photographs. L. and I agree that this may be, in part, because he's kind of short and she's kind of short...but it may also have to do with the fact that L. was looking cute and, forgive me, even I wasn't looking half bad...but probably it was the short thing. Here he did a little dance and pointing number...for whose benefit, I don't know.
Here they are walking. Amazing how they walk, so natural, like they don't even care or nothin'. Except they have to do it a few times, so you have to assume that someone cares a little about how they walk.
I might add that while I watched the show I might have commented to myself about the respective cute-ness of the male leads. One in particular, of course. Cough. Tall guy. Cough, cough.

L. and I then continued our walk. Then we turned back and figured we might as well see if the filming was still going on. It was. So we sat on a bench at a distance. Then all the cast members made their way to somewhere else (I'm thinking vans?) and passed right smack by us. L. and I strongly considered asking Danny Devito if I could take a picture of the two of them...but we chickened out...but he did say, directly to us, as he was walking by: "I don't know why I'm leaving." I interpret this to be a flirtation on the part of Danny Devito...or just friendliness...or a nice mix of the two. L. says that Glenn Howerton smiled in our general direction...I was too busy trying not to look at him to notice.

An open letter to the cast of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia:

Hey remember when you were filming at Logan Square today and L. and I stood and watched you for a few minutes then left...then came back, sat on a bench talked about things other than you (that's true we really did have a unrelated conversation), wished to talk to you and chickened out? Um, can we have a do-over? I'll buy you a limoncello Danny Devito? I'll buy you a beer/water/soda pop remainder of cast? Think about it...we can take a photograph and if we eat something together it'll be on my blog and won't that just be the bee's knees? Yes, I think it will be!

The Sheep Alpaca Project

M.'s grandmother keeps a small amount of sheep and alpaca. We walked the walk of terror to get there and see them. They were pretty cool.
Walk of terror, you ask? Oh my god. It was my worst nightmare. It was terrible. My heart beat faster, my brain hurt and I felt dizzy and sick. Why? Oh, well, you know, TENT CATERPILLARS everywhere! I don't like to broadcast this particular fact because there are assholes in world who think irrational fears are fun to mess with. I disagree. Since I was 7 or 8, maybe a little later...I have been unable to stand the sight of tent or gypsy moth caterpillars. This is, at least in part, due to the blight/infestation my area of Maryland went through during that time period. Burlap sacks on all the trees. Barrels on fire with people stuffing tent after tent into the flames. I remember, specifically, my father and I gathering as many of the suckers as we could and putting them into a large jar of turpentine where they died a wriggling, awful death. It was a holocaust of caterpillars. Ooook! Guh. Guh. Yick. I tense my shoulders and cringe just writing about it. So getting to M.'s mother's house and finding the driveway/house/yard/every possible surface crawling with tent caterpillars really threw me for a loop. A terrible, stultifying and paralyzing loop. I was scared. I wanted to see the sheep/alpaca but in order to get there we had to walk down a path a path liberally strewn with live and recently deceased creepy crawlies. It was awful. Did I mention how awful it was? Oh shiver of all shivers. This alpaca's eyes are blue. Blue eyes in an alpaca suggest a high probability that they or their offspring will be deaf...not a good attribute for a species born to protect and guard their fellow fiber cows.
Luckily we didn't stay overnight there. I would not have been able to sleep in a house that could so easily be attacked and infiltrated by tent caterpillars. To take a photograph of the buggers would put me over the edge so there is no photographic proof. If you doubt me I'll let M. get in touch with you.

Me, I love a tent party.
Me, I love a tent camping trip (not during caterpillar season).
Me, I hate tent caterpillars...and most other caterpillars too. I fear they will get me.

Enough!

Inauspicious

Yesterday I did make one foray out into the world...three actually but of the three this is the only one in which I was successful. I took a little walk. I came across this community garden. It was pretty.
Right after I took this photograph a man walking towards me suggested that he could eat my pussy.
Which was strange since I had just been thinking that of all the things in the world that Zul might like, being eaten by a 20 something black man in mid-90s tee shirt and running pants in Philadelphia was probably his #1 goal. It's like the guy was a mind reader or something!
Well, I did exactly what I shouldn't have done. I drove to the event. Half way there I realized I hadn't remembered to get the camera (and how would I manage if I didn't have a camera?). Parking was stupid. And so I gave up and went home. Zul has been a regular pukefest for the last twenty four hours which, one might guess, concerns me. I've scheduled a vet appointment for later today. How he could have been healthy just last week and now unhealthy is beyond me but, with the whole Meow Cat experience always in my mind, I have decided to err on the side of crazy worry. Some things I, as a not vet person, think might be the problem:

1) That two days of being drugged in a car with not as much food or water as he's used to has made his stomach shrink and so now every time he eats he gulps it down (which isn't even entirely true) and then his stomach doesn't like it.

2) The stress of being in a new place is giving him anxiety attacks.

3) The vaccines he got in Tennessee coupled with the drugs and the stress have wonked out his system entirely.

4) He managed to eat something in this apartment he shouldn't have and now his intestines are slowly shutting down.

5) Asbestos?

6) Lack of large quantities of fresh air (there are windows with screens and the balcony has a screen too but I'm terrified that he would suddenly think it was a good idea to lean on or push these screens thus falling 17 floors to his death).

I'm feeling a little defeated.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Yesterday I did it. I got it done. I bought a car. Here is me attempting to shake hands with the car.
This is me showing off the rear of the car.
This is me driving the car...not really, it's a set-up.
This is me getting intimate with the car.
Now, all that's left, is naming the car. Here is my plan: I am going to encourage you, dear reader, to give me a good number of suggestions for names in the comments section. After collecting these suggestions and filtering out those I loathe, I will put a new poll up on the side of this blog (see: What Should I Do poll as example) and you, sweet reader, will be allowed to vote. Let's get this done, shall we?

A note: my last car (see the wreckage at your right) was named Lola, after The Kinks' song..you know because she walked like a woman but talked like a man.

The Baby Jane c/o Woodside Deli

I used to have dreams about this water tower. Epic disasters, huddled masses or a great deep silent pool of water...also with some kind of massive catastrophe involved.
I went to the Woodside Deli, which I had confused in my memory with The Parkway Deli.
I never went to either place with any frequency but I have a clear memory of going to one (Parkway I think...though with Woodside's decor?), having some kind of sandwich and a lot of pickles, lots of different varieties. But, at that specific moment in time, I was not a fan of pickles. I believe my feelings about pickles changed after J.- a friend of mine from high school- kept large, Costco sized jars of Claussen's dill pickle spears in her room's refrigerator. The point, of course, is simple: I wanted to try the selection of pickles now that I was a grown up. But, as I'm sure it's already clear, the Woodside Deli was not the pickle horn of plenty. What? The sandwich I ordered was massive, ridiculous and tasty. The Baby Jane: thinly cut ham, freshly cooked bacon, cheese and mayonnaise. I know. Ridiculous. I couldn't eat all of it but I made a good dent. The chips were forgettable and the pickle couldn't possibly have lived up to my expectations.
Spooky, looming water tower? Gah, imagine getting locked in that thing. I did. It is really scary. Floating with all that water beneath you, way up in the air (I imagine being thrown into it from a hatch on the roof, with a good ten foot drop before hitting water)....oh my goodness, don't you just get chills? I'm terrified just thinking about it.

Oooky, Scary, Nasty Exploding-With-Babies Spider

Yesterday morning I woke up. I fed the cat. I went to open the back doors for a wee bit of air circulation and that's when I saw this horrifying, terror-inducing sight. It's a spider. I'm not generally scared of spiders, you can't be when you live near or in woods...they're everywhere and that's just how it is. But big furry spiders and spindly legged wimpy spiders are two different things. And as you might not be able to see since the spider wouldn't stay still for me the spider I saw yesterday morning was not so spindly. Complicating my feelings even further was Zul's interest in the spider. Now I don't know for sure, but I think this spider was probably harmless and yet I didn't want the cat messing with it. Beetles? Sure. Crickets? Eat the hell out of them, buddy. But this thing freaked me freaked me freaked me. So I made a split second decision to kill the spider and save myself and the cat. Ah! But, oh my god, how that didn't work out for me. I used a wooden shoe and went SMACK but when I lifted it (with fears that the spider was the kind immune to killing by shoe) what I saw was worse than the spider being alive....the spider exploded! Exploded with nine billion little spiders just like it. It was awful. Haunting. I think I might not conclude the story with what I did next because the spider demons are going to get me. Oh god. It was so, so, so yucky gross. And once again I'm not some girly idiot.