February 18, 2004
Unpacking


Finally, we are unpacked. We've spent the past couple of weekends hanging shelves, breaking down boxes, tossing out, organizing.

I hope that our house feels welcoming to people who visit. I'd like to think that it does.


Of course, when you visit my house, this is one of the first things you see. A cluster of icons on the mantel in the front room, per standard Orthodox practice. Does this feel welcoming, or frightening? Perhaps a little of both?



And last weekend we bought a real-live bookcase for the bedroom, for that pesky corner of the room which was constantly cluttered with my journals, books and magazines.

I don't know what it is about this bookcase, but it has cast a spell over me. In fact, I have dubbed it the Zen bookcase, because most of my time at home is now spent obsessively arranging and re-arranging the shelves until they reach a pleasing, perfect proportion.

There is a fine art to bookcase arranging. This is going to sound pompous, but I shall admit pridefully here that I consider myself an unusually gifted bookcase arranger. Please note, I will be signing autographs when I am finished with this entry (limit one per household, please).

While assembling the shelves, my husband got even more comfortable with the Christmas gift he received a couple of months back:


Clearly, he and the old FireStorm are of one mind. It's a beautiful thing.

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To top off the flurry of domestic productivity last night, I unpacked one case I haven't touched in several years:



(I blame Andrew Bird for this.)

I bought the violin in 1996, soon after graduating from college. My affection for violin music was the purest kind of love; it was born when I attended my first contradance in 1995, and has never since wavered. After I bought the violin, I took lessons for about a year. I was a pretty devoted student, practicing diligently, listening to obscure old-time recordings, and tooling all over Atlanta, playing with other students at group practices.

My violin "career" hit its peak in July 1997 when I attended a week-long folk music intensive one summer at Swannanoa. It hit bottom right after, literally. I came in the door to the apartment with my violin case in hand, and was informed by my roommate that during my absence, a young man named Tom had called to ask me out.

That was pretty much the end of the violin.

Not that I ever got rid of it. I have always known that I wanted my future to include the violin. And Tom has always wanted me to get back to it, too. I think he realizes that I am smitten with it; he's very supportive.

So I unpacked the case last night, and made a pathetic attempt at tuning. How's this for terrible: I forgot the standard tuning for the violin. Yeah. I had to look it up online. It's obvious that CMYK and RGB have devoured all the space that my brain once devoted to DGEA.

Apparently, it's time to do some re-programming.



Finally, because my husband and I love you, dear readers, we give you this:


Backstory: My husband has taken to "borrowing" my Biore Pore Strips. Ladies, you may not know this, but boys really like those Pore Strips. Tom loves the Pore Strips. He "gave them to me" a few months ago (each Christmas, he fills up my stocking with randomly selected beauty products from the drugstore, and this year I got a bunch of Biore stuff). So technically, he gave the Pore Strips to me, but he intended them for himself.

So this is my husband last night, enjoying his Biore Pore Strip while having an intense moment with The Gulag Archipelago.

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...Okay, okay, it's possible that parts of this photo might have been set up. Maybe. But the Pore Strip part — that part is for real. (I can't wait to see what kind of search engine hits I get off this entry.)