I'm listening to Ani DiFranco's Double CD Reveling/Reckoning right now. It's tearful, broken-voiced, staccato slow-jazz. Neither my usual fare nor Ani's, but I dig it out now and again, feeling vaguely guilty, I suppose, that I don't listen to it often enough. But sometimes music's a sort of trap - I wear myself into a comfortable groove with a new band or a new sound, and soon two months have gone by with only the same 10 CDs revolving through my stereo. Everything else is just air, or dead plastic.
As it turns out, though, this album fits my frame of mind about perfectly. I'm feeling a little bit regretful today and annoyed at the demands on my time; I want there to be either more of them or fewer. The ones I have right now are small enough for me to push off until later but large enough to take some time to tackle. It makes me feel guilty about doing other productive things. So I end up becomming both reclusive and lazy. More lazy than usual. Example: I've been resisting going to sleep at night because it seems like too much effort compared to lounging around doing nothing. In fact, I'm doing it right now.
It's starting to get to me. I can't think this way. I need a change. I need to reduce clutter, both in my head and my living space. I'm in the market for the following:
1. A filing cabinet
2. A vacuum cleaner
3. New bookshelves
4. New, colorful art for my walls
5. A plan for how to rearrange the furniture in my apartment
6. Help in doing the rearranging
7. A new design for my blog
8. Something new and different in my everyday life
So. Who wants to help?
Comments (6)
Sounds like you need a trip to Ikea.
Posted by Bekah | February 20, 2006 5:44 AM
Posted on February 20, 2006 05:44
Yeah, some Swedish meatballs with lingonberries will solve any problems you may have!
Posted by Eric | February 20, 2006 6:20 AM
Posted on February 20, 2006 06:20
I can always help rearrange furniture.
Posted by Lukas | February 20, 2006 8:52 AM
Posted on February 20, 2006 08:52
Were I in the area I would assist with your Feng Shui Ikea.
Since I'm not, I can only offer this sage bit of advice:
IKEA tables, chairs, lamps, and desks will fall apart within a year. This is what you get for shopping at a store where breakfast is 99 cents.
No good can come of any place wherein their restaraunt is cheaper than McDonalds.
Posted by Bard | February 20, 2006 10:07 AM
Posted on February 20, 2006 10:07
Yay! I'll help!
Ideas? Hmmm...
Ikea sucks. Their stuff is so cheap that it doesn't even have the decency to burn well. If you want a change, you shouldn't go for soulless, boring furniture anyway.
New bookshelves always make me happy! Then I have fewer books in piles on the floor. I also have some cool chests that I put stuff in. Filing cabinets are good, although I usually make a mess of the filing pretty quickly.
Artwork? What is your favorite period and/or style? Maybe you should go for something textural as well as colorful for your walls, like a tapestry or some banners of some type that would add visual interest. Maybe some Chinese scroll paintings? If I ever stop being so lazy and finish the calligraphy I am doing for you, you can have that to put on your wall. :) You could paint the wall a vibrant sort of color and then hang black-and-white photographs and sketches on it, the opposite of most people's neutral-toned walls with colorful prints. A deep, richly colored wall with mostly black-and-white framed brush paintings or scroll paintings on it would be quite striking.
Actually, forget the colorful artwork altogether and just make your wall more colorful. You could get out some paint brushes and cover the wall with alien symbols and glyphs. What a fun conversation piece! Better still, invite Ogre and I to come and visit, and we'll help fresco your walls with hieroglyphics and papyrus so your rooms look like the inside of an ancient Egyptian temple. Pretty cool. You could put up some cobwebs and statuary and have an Indiana Jones themed party. Get some sculpture for your new bookcases too.
You could always add color to your floor by a cool rug too. Get a flying one. :)
I don't know what your place looks like, so I cannot help with a plan to rearrange it. Maybe you should post "before" pictures, or a diagram. I would help you move stuff if I didn't happen to be on the other coast right now.
Something new and different in your everyday life? I felt the need for something new, so I just went and auditioned for a part in "The Taming of the Shrew" on campus. I am pretty sure that I won't get the role I auditioned for (there were about fifty other girls there for the auditions on that day, most of them theatre people), but it made me feel like I was trying something new. Maybe you should join a campus group, or take lessons in something that sounds interesting. That's how I got into fencing and Argentine tango. Try kung fu or kendo. :)
Posted by Sarah | February 20, 2006 2:50 PM
Posted on February 20, 2006 14:50
Wow. Nice suggestions, all (esp. Sarah). Ikea's right out - I'm not a fan of shopping in the land of the terminally tacky. Likewise, I'm not going to paint. It's not entirely kosher under my lease, and it's more money than I can afford to commit.
Hhrm. Can't exactly afford to go to Turkey and get more rugs, either. Stupid money. I could pop for a few Mucha prints or something, but then I'd want to frame them.
Filing cabinet's quickly becoming a necessity, though. Has been a necessity for a while, really. I'll likely get one of those soon.
Groups... Yeah, not a bad idea, but then that would involve people, and we know how I feel about them. Maybe I'll just start swimming again. Have to see if I can buy any swim trunks, though.
Lukas: I'll take you up on the offer of help as soon as I figure out how to rearrange things. Thanks!
Posted by Jason | February 20, 2006 4:05 PM
Posted on February 20, 2006 16:05