Mind Wanders

Everything seems unsettled. This week seems to exist outside the perameters of reality; an alternate dimension, where nothing quite makes sense. Rules seem flexible, schedules seem amorphous, things are floating, breathing, rising and falling in their own paces,
without me
without my hand.
My hands.
They feel idle and brittle, shaking and uncertain. My grip is lax and minimal on the objects I grasp. Glasses. Is this water or wine?
Pills. Are these red or blue?
Money. Is this real? Does it matter?
A tiny bacterium nested in my stomach. The status quo is altered. Pills and chemicals scribbled on green paper, folded neatly and shoved down my esophagus. Synapses widen. Organs respond. Tears about nothing, laughing at silence, doors locked but windows open. I cannot settle!

Mind wanders.

This skull houses wads of silly putty. It oozes from side to side, occasionally nestling against a crevice to take on it's shape, if only temporarily. Crevices that create mounds. Irritants. Jagged edges. Discoordination. Serated blades that catch in your hair.

Have I been biting my cheek all night? Whose blood is this?

I am a system, I am a machine, I intake and produce. Everything is scrutinized, weighed, measured, evaluated. These decisions are heavy and numerous and frequent.
Every breath is a choice. What will I breathe in?

My head. My head feels long and escaping. These pores have failed me. These guards are sleeping on duty.
The phone is ringing again. There is someone at the door. Someone needs something. Someone is hungry or lonely or intoxicated. Some emotion somewhere walks into a party. He has a martini and introduces himself to money. They sleep together and regret it forever.

Can you really befriend that which rules you? Do relationships ever really end?
The end of one, the start of one, an event, an e-mail, a porch, a glass, a sandwich, a document in my mailbox. Who planned this party for Wednesday afternoon. Whose handwriting is this? Where is my mind? I left it in this drawer by the pistachios and painkillers.

Caffeine. Nicotine. Alcohol. Marijuana. Barbituates. Benzos. Sex. Ice. Air. Water. Solar energy. Pizza.
Who is on the guest list? Does this party end? Someone, please, flip the breaker. There's a man in my house and he won't leave. There's a man in my house but he isn't there.

But we get up anyway. We brush our teeth, we open the curtains. Light reflects dust. Morning exposes evening. We do our dance, sometimes the Shuffle. A made bed is a clear mind. Tight shoelaces mean business. I am never out of contact. I am never unavailable. I am the most reliable person in the whole universe. I answer my phone on Mars.

I'll check in. I'll retweet. I'll update, respond, resend, rescind, reskin. This silly putty pulls levers and flesh obeys. It is weak and melting. It houses chaos. These lions should fight to the death in a cage under a shroud. You will hear the ferocity, and the whimpers, and the pure pure pure fear.

Listen and wait.
Admire it's purity. Shut off four senses.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the man in your house who does not exist.
I am the ghosts of beginnings and endings. I am a frightened bird, a ferocious lion, a pepperoni, a vaccuum cleaner, a marionette making sandwiches. I have spread myself thin enough to carpet a sunny porch, a sanitorium. Walk upon me and do not look at your feet.

I am harried and crying and all of the streetlights are too bright. I am smiling and relieved and the hardwood floor is familiar. I am walking and it's raining and I break down to call him. I am unsure until I realize I have been staring at a wall for hours. I am angry that it did not speak.

I live in jars and bottles and boxes and pots. Walk through this landscape, against waterfalls of lime and tonic, springs of gin, boulders of chemically hardened powder, green beans that squirm in the sunlight, a floor of fibers and it's all my hair.

It's unsightly. It's itchy. It's weak. It's medicated. It's crying. It's trying and trying and trying and trying.
It's a matter of weeding and tending, picking and choosing, and every decision is the biggest decision of your entire life, because it affects your right now. Right now, right now is all that matters.

And the decisions are heavy and numerous and frequent.
And every breath is a choice.
What will I breathe in?

Census 2010

So about a week ago, amidst a typical busy day of classes, meetings with cohorts about all of the silly arts & music projects I'm working on, and generally stressing about my dwindling bank account, I stepped into the elevator at school and was greeted with an obnoxiously hot pink flyer. Though it had multiple typos and a predictable misuse of punctuation, it caught my eye. Well, the part about "flexible hours" and "$17.50/hr" caught my broke, starving, desperate art student eye. It was an ad for jobs with the 2010 Census.

So, I applied. I filled out an application, I gave them my drivers license, and I took a ridiculously easy 22 question test to prove I could read, write, and do simple math. I suppose that's really all you need to be able to do in order to perform the duties of a Census taker--fill out paperwork. Now, up until this point, I really hadn't bothered to delve too deep into the political discussion concerning the Census. I knew what it was for, basically, and all I really wanted to know past that was How much do I get paid?, and What do I have to do?.

The Census Bureau employees I met with were pretty vague about the job descriptions, and horribly unorganized. They let most of the art students sitting in this lecture hall fill out their I-9s before telling them they would be shredded if they didn't have their passport, birth certificate, or Social Security card handy, which of course no one did, as no one told us beforehand we would need it. They instructed us to fill out some questions on the application in a manner that completely contradicted the instructions. The meeting took about an hour too long and I rushed out as soon as I finished the bubble answer test.

I knew that I would be going door to door asking people questions about their households and families. I knew that I would be knocking on doors in my neighborhood, and not shipped off to Orange Mound or somewhere else that an unarmed white girl with a government badge probably shouldn't be at night. That all sounded reasonable enough.

But lately, I've been getting flack from my peers. I suggested the job to a friend of mine who is unemployed, severely broke, and without a car, as I thought it would suit him quite well. In fact, if he worked the maximum 40 hour weeks, He could make enough to pay his bills until mid-Summer in one month. His response was that he refused to be a government lackey, and that he wasn't going to sell out because he didn't agree with the Census. I've heard this from a few people now, but none have them have really been able to tell me what it is about the Census they dislike--not in any specific terms.

So, I decided I should probably go research this. So I did. I sat in front of my laptop for two hours straight and read articles, forum discussions, reviews, rants, arguments, and interviews from CNN, NPR, NY Times, etc. And honestly, I had to really dig into the bowels of Google to even find dissenting opinions. And when I finally did, it was as vague and empty as the arguments I've heard on the street.

Let me pause here and say, I'm not necessarily for or against the Census. I'm deciding.

I'm not going to bother going into the details of why the Census exists. I think the average person knows that it was written in the Constitution by our founding fathers as a headcount of the population every ten years. Most people know that this count is to periodically revaluate the Congressional and Senatorial seats each state gets based on their state's percentage of the national population. If you want to brush up on the basics, check out U.S. Code, Title 13, Ch. 5, Sub. II, Article 14.

Why would people be opposed to that? I've categorized (pun intended) those opposed to the Census into four main groups.

ONE) Ignorant racists. When the Census is taken, it's taken without bias. The government wants to know how many people are living in that house right now, regardless if they are guests, or cousins, or illegal aliens. A lot of illegals don't file with the Census because they think that information might be used to later find them and deport them--but it isn't. Census information is not publicly available to anyone than the Census Bureau for 72 years after. In any case, that means that the population of illegal aliens is figured into the total state population, and therefore electoral seat distribution can be affected by illegal populations. So, say a state like Texas or California, which is right on the border, is going to have a greater percentage of their population be illegal aliens, as opposed to somewhere like Wisconsin or Tennessee, where there are much fewer. Those opposed believe that the Census should not take into account illegal aliens, because they will then reap the benefits of the Census, such as the reallocution of state funds for schools, hospitals, and roads, but without ever paying into the taxes that pay for those things. However, those same people in opposition also believe that the Census should be used to hunt them down and kick them out. And, of course, their logic for why Obama allows aliens to be counted and not deported is that he is an illegal alien himself. Although, firstly, he isn't, and secondly, Obama did not create the Census. Thomas Jefferson did, dude. (You can check out that article, interview, & ignorant comment here: New Obama ATROCITY against U.S. citizens)

TWO) Uninformed minorities. Yes, the Census does want to know what race you are. If you are one of the houses lucky enough to get the long form, you'll also be probed about your immigration status and what country you lived in ten years ago. But like I said, and like anybody can look up for themselves, the information taken in the Census is confidential for 72 years after it's taken (check out FAQ #32 on 2010.census.gov's Constituent FAQ). Elected officials and priests have been known to preach against the Census in minority neighborhoods. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders just last year had rallied nearly 4 million of their followers to boycott the Census as a means of protesting for citizenship. They don't want to be counted without first be legalized, which you must admit is noble, but do they not realize that the Census is not even close to the right arena for this fight? Do they not realize that those enormous populations of illegal Latinos in California will be ridiculously under-represented if not counted? Check out this article in response: National Latino Group is Wrong About the Census. Some black community activists tell black citizens to mark only "Black" under the question concerning race, among the myriad of other answers, even if they are mixed with some other race, because it "threatens to dilute funding" to answer honestly. What's ironic about it is that up until the Civil Rights movement, blacks were only allowed to check "black". Check out this article about it: Isn't It Time to Make Peace With Your Friendly Census Bureau?

THREE) Conspiracy theorists. The most dominant anti-Census voice on the internet are aging hippies that are obsessed with missing microfilms and the shooter on the grassy knoll. One of the most established I've come across is Gary D. Barnett, who appears to be an all-around disgruntled government employee that moonlights as a "rebel". You can read his anti-Census article here (In Preparation for the 2010 Census!), but I must first warn you that it is typical of a fifty-something year old guy that used to protest in the streets about the Vietnam War while stoned out of his mind that now has expanded his vocabulary, cut his hair, and taken a desk job that he justifies by shittalking it on the internet at home. I've found a lot of this kind of opposition, and it's mostly paranoids that think the government wants to know when they leave for work in the morning because they're going to sell the information to petty thieves and burglars. Much of it comes down to the ever popular and rarely backed-up stance of "WELL WHY DO YOUUUU WANNA KNOW?", except they are the types who are never going to be satisfied no matter what answer you give them. To clarify, I'm not saying it's stupid to question the government--I think that an intelligent citizen should, and a good government is one constantly questioned--but I also think some people just like questioning things to question them, and that they are not at all interested in the answers.

FOUR) Wannabes. This is the first group of opponents I encountered, and I can only categorize them as such. These are basically the young version of the conspiracy theorists. It's not so much that they think that the government is tapping their phone lines or raping their babies, but they think because they're a generation raised on the internet--and I am one of that generation--they know what's really going on all the time. Also, whether or not you realize it, because of our age, this generation has a much heavier personal responsibility to know what's going on in the world, what it means, who it involves, and how it affects them personally than their parents. I feel like all of these twenty-something kids talking about "selling out to the government", "being a lackey", or how they "don't agree with what the Census does to people" have all been reading articles written by assholes like Gary D. Barnett and his generation. They don't have a real argument past some cited incidents from the internet, and who the hell can trust that anyway? Most of these people are the type that aren't going to send their Census forms back because they think that it makes them rebellious or individualistic, when in reality they're just asking for a dreaded Census worker--like me--to come knocking on their door. And most of them won't be so defiant and rebellious in the face of a living, breathing, tired Census worker, who is just trying to get through a shift and go home. And even if they are rude and defiant to that poor art student that's just trying to get rent paid, they're even bigger assholes. Harassing the waitress doesn't make your steak magically cooked right. Shooting the messenger doesn't solve anything, it just stains the carpet.

When it comes down to it, the only real, substantiated argument I can find against the Census are against the Census takers--poor assholes that have to go door to door harassing people. And really, if you read up, an overwhelming majority of the horror stories associated with Census takers are fakes--the workers, not the stories. The Census is taken on April 1 in years ending in a zero. The forms are sent out in March, and nobody comes knocking on your door unless you don't send it back. So if some guy comes to your door in February, introduces himself as a Census worker, and then asks what color underwear you're wearing, it's just some creep. Likewise with groups of "Census workers". Census takers work alone. There's a pretty decent list of what to know about Census workers here: Avoid Census Taker Con-Artists.

Like I said, shooting the messenger just stains the carpet. It's not as if harassing the poor schmuck knocking on your door is going to abolish the Census, it's just going to make another human being's day that much more awful. I think when it really comes down to it, it's just that the Census Bureau is kind of retarded--and by that I mean unorganized, clumsy, and officiously bureaucratic, but not malicious. I think most people hate it because it's mandatory, and everyone deep down has problems with authority, even if what they're rebelling against is something aimed at helping them. And a lot of people are stupid, and paranoid, and gullible.

I think the best bit of wisdom I've run across is from a Time.com article by Jessica Reaves, who is in favor of the Census because:
If we don't define ourselves, the government will do it for us.

Married to the Road

I have recently conjured the suspicion that being a young woman dating a musician in 2010 must hold a great parallel to the young women of the 1800s who tried to date sailors. Everyone knows something about sailors, and that something is usually that they are married to the sea. That old idea is a warning to lofty girls not to fall in love with them, for the hearts of such men will always belong to the sea. They are just as fickle as a modern day, struggling, touring musician. When they are away, they fantasize of home, wish and yearn for it, and seem to find little pleasure in their voyage past the spark of the first few days, as they remember all of the hardships a tour entails: uncertainty for a place to sleep, absence of a real bed or reliable companionship, monotony, close quarters, physical exhaustion and abuse. But when they return, it is only a matter of days before they are sitting at a bar, beer in hand, talking fondly of the road and reminiscing as if they cannot wait to get back out there and do it all over again.

And what of the women? We sit at home, at first relieved to have them out of our hair for a moment, yet within days have fallen into similar suit, missing their warm bodies in our beds, their inherent protective presence by our public side, and whatever combination of petty little details, like the smell of his pomade, or the ironically pink hued boxer briefs in the dryer. We, just as they, wish for the day they get home, and vicariously follow every rough night, every violent storm, every tumultuous wave they at sea endure. We, as women, are just as abused in this sense, for we are stripped our ability to coddle & nurture the abused, just as they are made to face it all without the coddling of a woman, which all men will deny a real need for, yet crave regardless.

Indeed, musicians today are not married to the sea, but to the road, and their guitars their boats. Their job is to chase something just out of reach, and to suffer the obstacles. The love they hold for something which primarily yields irritation is something they may never really understand; the need to leave, the urge to return, and the desire to repeat it all over is foreign to this species. Yet, we women are born with an understanding of emotional contradiction; we are made of it. That is why we can kiss them goodbye and kiss them welcome, time and time again. Though, I think it still takes a certain kind of woman to tolerate it all, don’t you think?

Why do we read horror?

I'm taking a class right now called Forms of Fiction: Horror. It's exactly what it sounds like: a literature class focusing on horror stories. Yes, I go to art school. I get to read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Dracula, The Exorcist, The Shining, and The Secret Lives of Monster Dogs, and go to class two times a week to sit around with a bunch of other horror dorks and talk about it. I expected all of this, and I've been waiting a few semesters to get into this class.

What I didn't expect to encounter hit me yesterday. Real discussions about not just writing style, plot devices, character development or effectiveness of suspense or drama, but questions being posed like, "Why do we like horror?"

I didn't have an answer. It's something I have definitely thought about, but never really forced any conclusions out of myself toward. I have been a total geek for zombie lore since I was fourteen when some fellow outcast kid on my bus loaned me a VHS copy of the original Dawn of the Dead. I watched it four times in two days, just amazed. It was like someone kicked open a door that I had always passed thinking it was spare molding on a blank wall. And over the years, I've questioned it. Why am I so drawn to zombies? Why do I buy books breaking their idealogies into metaphors for human nature, culture, and society? Is it the blood and rotting flesh? Is it the limbo between life and death? Is it simply an attraction to the unknown?

I, at some point, deduced that the commentary on human nature is really what intrigues me. The idea that our brains are shaped by the ethics and mores of the society we are reared in, but that at our core, we are animals. For all of the progress, knowledge, technology, innovation, emotion, learned restraint, traditions, expectations of civility that a few thousand years has yielded via mankind, we, as a species, are still as base as the others on our planet. We require food, we feel the urge to travel, we crave company and the need to be a part of a group, yet inherently know we are alone as sentient beings, and when it really comes down to it, we'll save our own ass first.

And of course, I didn't realize it that afternoon in my mom's living room hogging the VCR in incredulous wonder, but the meat (pun intended) of the philosophical and social commentary of zombie flicks is in the living characters, and their responses to the undead counterparts. The ideals and values that people cling to in a post-apocalyptic world versus the mindset of necessity. When manners, social graces, formalities, and preconcieved notions of human interaction have been erradicated, man becomes a science experiment, stripped to pure instinct and emotion--dirty, volatile, selfish, violent, and malevolent.

So, why do we read horror?

Burton, my professor, quoted Stephen King as a contribution, who said horror literature is a means for us to take out the monster, play with it for a while, and put it back. Who is the monster? The monster is the shadow. Burton pointed us toward some light Jung reading, which really just organized all of my thoughts on the matter into something much more concise. "The Shadow", according to Carl Jung, is basically your unconscious. It's all of the shit that makes you you, that you're not aware is even there. The idea is that fate is a myth, that things don't just happen for no reason, you're not attracted to certain people 'out of nowhere', and that when you meet someone you absolutely detest, it's really that you hate the things about them that are a part of your shadow.

I already know this. I don't really hate anyone, but I can think of a few people I completely despise. And over the years (I'm so old and wise and sage now, and the ripe old age of 21), I've learned things about myself I seriously never expected. Things I thought I was the entire opposite of. Things that people I didn't understand my attraction toward have brought out. Not all of them are good, but through this whole lifelong process of getting to know yourself (that I hope I live long enough to complete, in some form), I've figured out what it is about me that I see in those that I dislike. I have always known everyone you meet is your mirror, I suppose I just didn't grasp how effectively the mind can separate itself; how efficiently the unconscious can mislead the conscious.

We read horror out of curiosity for the darkness that lies in us all, at that inherent level, that a majority of us now accustomed to a civilized society will never fully witness firsthand. We read horror, so I have decided at this point, to satiate those urges that are a part of us. I remember in eighth grade, I decided of my own volition to go to church for about six months, because I genuinely had no idea what Christianity entailed and I wanted to know why everyone thought it was so cool. I had some qualms right off the bat, and made the decision to leave when my pastor told me I was a bad person to question the Bible, or anything it had to say. I remember one of my biggest issues was the idea that God made man in his own image, loves him unconditionally, yet curses him with grief for having natural sexual urges. It made no sense to me. Likewise, I think humans naturally have inclinations toward malice, violence, anger, sex, apathy, greed, and selfishness. I'm not saying if you got it, flaunt it. But denying the things that make one human is a denial of life. Those urges must be addressed.

Carl Jung says, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

Put quite simply, if you repress pieces of your outward being, whether they be good or bad, they unbalance you. Indeed, "the shadow" is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not that cut and dry, just as there are rarely true examples of good versus evil, rather, it's all dependent on a balance. A pure concentration is never an option. We, as humans, are amorphous shades of grey living, breathing, and interacting in a grey world. Have you ever seen a white brain or a black brain? No. That's what I thought.

It's important to get to know yourself. It's important to explore your shadow, and make decisions on the kind of person you want to be based on what you've go to work with and how it relates to your world. I think it's also important to acknowledge your basic human traits, and find ways to exercise them. Reading horror literature or watching zombie flicks has worked for a lot of people for a long time, but it's not the only way. It's all a matter of balance.

MLK's Assassination Site: Glorified Injustice or Humbling Experience?

Today I went to the Civil Rights Museum to drop a key off to a friend and I ended up sitting on a grassy knoll drawing, something I haven't sat down and done in a while. It was nice, even though it was unbelievably sunny and humid and my bandana was sticking uncomfortably to my unwashed hair. When I leaving, I noticed that lady that sits on the corner near the museum boycotting the museum. She's been there, on that corner, for 21 years and 239 days, as of today, boycotting the museum on the grounds that it is a monument to a great injustice.

On one hand, I can kindof see her point. It is a little odd to purposely and meticulously preserve the shitty motel where one of the greatest orators & civil rights leaders of the century was gunned down. I had to mull it over though, on the way home. I mean, it isn't completely unheard of to build museums or erect monuments commemorating the site of a great revolutionary's death. There are war memorials all over the South immortalizing great generals, prepared to go into battle, right where they were eventually slain.

But more importantly--and this is where I feel I get a little controversial--I feel like Dr. Martin Luther King's death was just as much a part of his career as his politicking and orating. I mean, it would be different to sanction off the patch of grass where someone like Ted Bundy died. But for a man like MLK, a man who made his career on preaching love, acceptance, equality, and peace: being killed by an act of ignorance and hate is... in a sick way, poetic. I mean, would his impact have been so immense if he had gracefully aged into the new millennium? I think standing in front of that small, frumpy, mint-green motel in the middle of what was a pretty undeveloped area of Memphis in 1968, seeing that tiny balcony, and realizing all that enormosity associated with MLK, his ideas and his philosophies, all ended in its human form with one tiny bullet, on that tiny balcony. It's... humbling. We as a species need visual explanation. When someone says that the national deficit is $11 trillion, I have no idea what that looks like. I don't even know what a thousand dollars looks like. If someone said a trillion dollars in one dollar bills in one hundred stacks measured as tall as the Statue of Liberty, I'd get it.

As sad as it is, 'martyr' is not a concept outgrown by mankind. We still need drastic examples to drill points home. Whether you're against black people or against white people, I bet you're against murder more.

Learning to teach students to learn to teach to...

I know a lot of college students in Memphis. Having grown up here, I know a good 300 or so just from high school, plus everyone I've met at MCA, and through Rozelle Artists Guild. They all have a very broad range of majors, from American History to Philosophy & Religion, to Printmaking. It's really cool to have that broad range of studies available to you and the chance to hone in on one of them so seriously for a few years, but everytime I hear someone spout off a major that isn't law or medicine, I immediately have to ask, "...Soooooo, what are you going to do with that?", to which almost all reply, "I don't really know, probably teach."

I'm in no way against the proliferation of knowledge. Contrary to that cliche high school argument "when am I EVER going to need to know this?", I really do think it's important to learn the basic principals of physics, geometry, American history, the selected works of E. E. Cummings or whatever else you're forced to do in those four years, even if you literally never use a calculator or read a poem again. It's about training your mind to think in different dimensions, and it's about exposing yourself to a shitstorm of different things with the hope that, by the time you turn eighteen, you will have found at least one thing that interests you enough to continue your education.

That scope will linearly lead to a declared major in college, a degree in it, and if all goes well, some career that employs it. But aside from the few lucky exceptions like those guys that preserve really old documents at museums or the old, sage men with PhDs and smoking jackets who write weighty books, what can you really do with a degree in history? What career is there for history freaks? What, other than teaching?

It does seem a bit off that there are so many kids today going to school for things that there is no secondary use for. I am all for education, and lifelong education is not an idea I'm unfound of whatsoever, but isn't the root purpose of education the preparation for real world application? In this age, I find that more art students, as hard as it will be for them to find good jobs, have a bigger advantage when it comes to venturing out of the teaching possibility post-grad. We're all just learning some specific sect of knowledge to pass down to the next generations, in hopes they might find it interesting too, so that they'll have something to declare as a major in college, so when they get out, they can teach kids the same thing.

It's a cycle I really don't have an opinion on. I'm for it, if anything. I'll always be supportive of an educated populace. I'd rather a world of teachers who are also students than a world of people that never found any reason to go to college themselves. Even with the stress, lack of sleep, doubt of a future career, and insurmountable debt incurred, I think it's worth the trouble.

Home?

I have been thinking extensively lately on the concept of "home". I think that everyone around my age has, is, or will go through that weird transition point when you realize that your parents' house is no longer what you would consider your home, yet simultaneously, there isn't really a whole replacement yet. As per my roommmate, Ryan Steed, & I's many deep backporch discussions, lit by a citronella candle and smoking Camel Lights like they government is going to bust in and steal them, "home" is one of the ideas that we often revisit, as if we'll find what we're looking for if we just talk it out one more time. What do you consider home? Is home the house you grew up in? Is home where you store your shit, and sleep, and get dressed in the morning? Is home, like I've heard it described, the "place where you complain the most & are loved the most"? More importantly, is home a physical location to you? Is it a house, or a building? Or is it a feeling? This post will not be extroidinarily insightful, as this is still something I am pondering, and plan on discussing more with whomever is willing in the future. I think I have come to some sort of definite answer to the question, for the time being.

To me, home is where I'm comfortable.

I think it breaks down into several aspects to me, and at one point, before I turned 18, all of those aspects were present in one location. Now, having lived on my own for three years, at six different addresses, with fifteen different roommates, they are scattered. To me, my home is where I put my shit. Not just my cereal and my blue jeans and DVDs, but everything else, actually. Anywhere I have ever moved in, I have always covered the walls in photographs & postcards, and the windowsills in trinkets before I put my clothes in a dresser. It's funny, but the things that I have around me in my bedroom that really transform that space into my space are things I wouldn't pack to go on a trip, because they're not utilitarian whatsoever, except that they make me feel at home. Polaroids of my best friends, cards from art shows from roadtrips, souvenirs from jobs and parties and family; those are the things I need to have around. Also, secondarily, and along the lines of comfortable physical space, I need sanctioned boundaries where I am allowed to be me. In my new house, I have a about thirty square feet of space that is just for me to paint, and draw, and blog, and leave plates with crumbs on. That is one of the most important things to me. A sense of freedom within an enclosed environment. Perhaps spatial relationships also feed into my desire for comfort. Our living room is massive, but even if I had had the option, I still would have picked to cram all of my inks & paints into that corner rather than sprawl everywhere.

I think the biggest second aspect to the comfort of home is the people. Steed & I have similar views on our childhood homes. He doesn't have a bedroom at home, nor do I at my mother's (& although I do have one at my father's, I oddly enough usually sleep in the guest room), and beside that, the physicaly edifices don't hold the real value, as they are not the setting in which we lived our entire lives, but only a portion, whereas our roommate Katie has lived her entire life in the same house, where she still has her same bedroom. This is where we differ, and perhaps may have been the spark to our first discussions. Katie can go home and stay for consecutive weeks comfortably, while neither Steed or I could hang on to sanity for more than a few days. Not to say I don't enjoy my dad's company; on the contrary for sure, my father is one of my closest friends. Part of my heart, if that's the cornball expression I'm going to choose to employ, is at that house on Concord Green Cove in Cordova, TN, because it is comfortable. Because it is predictable, and safe. Because my dad will always do that shrill voice & eyebrow raise when I sit on the couch with my keys still attached to my belt loop. Because there is always V8 and garlic pickles in the fridge, and fifteen boxes of half-empty spaghetti in the cabinet. Because there is always a huge pile of mail engulfing the counter for me to look through. Because there is always a cop drama recorded on the DVR, just waiting for us to take our seats on the leather couches with bottles of Ozarka and blankets and watch them until the wee hours of the morning.

In a way, though, I consider where I'm closest to my sleeping brother's room to be home, because of the many times I would go into his room before I slept to find him slumped over on his bed, sitting indian style, fast asleep with his nose in the corners of a book, and I'd lay him back, and turn out the light, so he wouldn't get in trouble for reading late in the morning.

I'd also consider wherever my cats, Truman or Bill (R.I.P.) are around to come beg for attention to be home. Or where my grandmother has set out those godawful pilgrim salt & pepper shakers for Thanksgiving. It's a distinct piece of familiarity.

It's odd. When you're young, and nearing adulthood, you can't wait to get out of your parents' house. You can't wait to get your own apartment and make your own home with your own rules. Then one day, you have it, and you realize that painting the walls, and buying furniture, and stocking the fridge do not a home make. It's like we spend 18 years trying to get out of that comfort zone, and we'll end up spending the rest of our lives finding and cultivating our own.

Me? Stuff is a big part of that for me. I have always been a "stuff" person. I collect a lot of things that are useless, but I love to have them around. I think I'm a lot like my Mimi in that respect. I think when I'm in my fifties, I'll have some huge house that is much too big for me, and therefore always messy, and it will be just filled to the brim with stuff. Paintings and photographs and old wind up toys and broken jewelry and sculptures and lumpy furniture and fifty hand crocheted rugs from my mother. And that is one of the most comforting thoughts I can think of.

So while I picked my current roommates very methodically, in an attempt to create a sense of home by living with what I consider to be a second family, I also have covered every surface in the house with my knick-knacks, yet still have boxes of clothes sitting in the foyeur a month after move-in. But that's just me.