I was rather hermity today, indulging in the uniquely hermitlike feeling that the log cabin can so easily incite. That's the cabin's greatest strength and its greatest weakness -- when I'm in a good mood, it's heaven, but when I'm in a bad mood or too pressed down by solitude, it's all exacerbated by the shadows lurking around the beams and the strange noises that make it all too easy to imagine that I'm about to die in some horrifically gruesome way. It's the kind of place where I could spend my entire life, or ache to run from at the first opportunity. So perhaps that explains, to those of you who know that I've loved it here, why I'm both eager and sad to leave, why my mood is swinging between 'oh my god I can't wait to live in the city' and 'why am I abandoning the cabin?'. Granted, right now, with some unknown thing scratching into the leaves in the deep trench between my house and Stanford Avenue, I'm in fullblown city mode. But I'm sure I will continue to oscillate until I've moved and settled in, and then my fickle affections will latch on to the new place and I will view this place with scorn and disdain.
Anyway, I slept in, then made myself some oatmeal and bacon, then settled into my task for the afternoon -- sorting through my books and deciding what to discard. I ended up culling about 100 books, which would be a large number for some people, but for me made a barely-noticeably void on my shelves. The task took longer because I made a spreadsheet and listed them all out to allow my nearby friends to say whether they wanted any of those books before I donate them later this week, but hopefully the books all find a good home. Then, I sorted through my closets and culled anything that I haven't worn recently, know I won't wear again, or have had for a decade (with incomplete success on that last criterion). I still need to go through three or four plastic bins of clothes that I believe can be almost entirely tossed, but this was all good progress.
While I was sorting and culling, my landlord came over, cut the grass, and cleared the patio of leaves. It took him over three hours, but it looks lovely now -- a little less like an overgrown fairy-tale cabin, but a little more habitable. As soon as he was done, I left the house in search of an early dinner, and had a cheeseburger (sans bun, per Alyssa's orders) at the Counter. Not per Alyssa's orders, I also had a glass of wine while writing in my journal and doing some desultory watching of the NBA finals. Then, I came home and talked to my father; I'd talked to my mother earlier in the afternoon, but since my uncle and aunt and cousin were over, I delayed talking to my dad until they were gone and I was back from supper.
I didn't feel like cleaning or sorting tonight, and I'm not going to start packing in earnest until my landlord shows the place on Wednesday(ish), so I decided to read a book. I finally picked up Deanna Raybourn's DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING, which continues the stories I was reading before my roadtrip of the Victorian-era daughter of an earl who falls in love with a private investigator of v. mysterious backgrounds and quite prodigious talents, and of the dangers she gets herself into as she gets involved in his investigations. The whole reason I started the series was because I loved the title of this one, and I wasn't disappointed; the first half was a little slow, but the second half was uniformly excellent. Needless to say, I inhaled the book and finished it tonight -- not the best habit in the world, but one that I haven't figure out how to break myself of.
And now, I should go to bed; I intend to tackle the garage tomorrow, go to the gym, and have dinner with Heather (aka dear respected madam), so sleep is essential. Goodnight!
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