12.9.01 – home sweet buffalo

ooh, hot competition for the phone line after 11pm in this apartment – hannah’s got a long distance boy and i have an internet habit (just a cover for the fact that i have no friends in buffalo). once again my social life consists of drinking with the actors after midnight.

we have a home! we’ve finally acquired enough furniture that we have something to unpack the boxes into. a lot of the furniture was filched from the theatre’s prop shop: it still has glow tape on all the sharp corners, which gives it some sort of charm, i think, in addition to making it easier for me to navigate the house in the dark.

the loot: two twin beds, a futon, a dresser, a desk, a card table, a giant rubber crate-turned coffee table, a kitchen table, four chairs and a bathroom cabinet

grand total: $29.89 plus the cost of the brownies i promised to the prop guys.

i’ve moved 11 times in the past five years. it’s a slow process, but i actually am getting better at refining the list of things that have to go. i’m not down to fits-in-my-honda-in-one-trip quite yet, but i am down to fits-in-the-car and costs less than $100 to ship the rest. the key is disposable furniture. i’m thinking maybe hannah & i can sell all this stuff to our landlord when we move out and then he can rent the place as a furnished apartment. the hardest thing to leave behind is the books. i think i’ve finally disciplined myself into only taking 3 or 4 on the been-meaning-to-read list and keeping the library at my parents’ house. thank god for parents that never move and have excess attic space.

i can (reluctantly) leave the books behind, but there are a few seemingly-frivolous things that i have to go. they are: zeke. the oriental rug i inherited from my grandmother. the wall hangings from korea, japan, vietnam and ecuador. a poster of SF. the lamp paul’s mother gave me. the chinese paper lantern lauren gave me. my red paper parasol from japan. a couple of tapestries to throw over the ugly furniture. a few photos to tape on the wall next above my desk and bed. it’s not more than one extra box of stuff, (well, except zeke doesn’t like riding in the box much) but it enables me able to feel at home given four hours and a box of thumb tacks. and when you move as often as i do, i guess you have to find some sort of trick to keep the constant sensation of alienation at bay.