Futility Now

Hazel brought home a kitten.

His name is Yoshi.

Like all right-thinking creatures, he doesn’t care much for hanging files.

So last weekend we escaped to some friends’ country estate.

Hazel preparing for departure:

The digs:

(As you can see, we invited our esteemed colleague, Mr. Pillow.)

The view:

We mostly just schlubbed around the house, which is good because the outdoors are packed with incredibly frightening spiders.

Once we were done screaming, we noticed that the spider’s shed was kind of pretty in its own rustic way.

Last weekend we went early-birthday shopping, and Hazel bought me a record player from the nice if poorly-named Fred’s Sound of Music.

It’s all archaic and German, meaning that it’s heavy and sounds great. The first things I played on it was this:

which I have been carting around with me un-listened to for years. The story behind this is that I received the record at a goodbye party for myself at the end of 2004 (if I recall correctly), and hadn’t been near equipment I judged up to the task since. I think it was worth the wait.

Speaking of early birthday presents, I got a camera in the mail this morning (from the mum.) I’ve been sort of bemoaning the lack of precision in my current camera for ages, meaning I’m really, really excited about this. So naturally the first thing I did when it arrived was break out the old camera and take a picture of it all zoomed in because it sort of looks like a dick.

Artist at work, folks, artist at work.

But once that was done I got back into being intrigued by everyday objects seen through the lens, which is something I always find rewarding.

This is way overdue, but here’s some video of our youngest member beating up a pinata.

Home is so Sad -- Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Tomorrow is our last day as renters.  While we won’t get our keys until the 1st, our loan is scheduled to fund Friday and we will officially own our disarming grandmother of a cottage. This is occasion for celebration, certainly (and they are in the works boy howdy), but I’ve been thinking about this last year and a half and what all has transpired in this particular apartment during that time.  How zia & I got the keys a week or so before jmags arrived from Brooklyn.  How his last flight here arrived early and I was still reading Poetry magazine in the bar in my black wrap coat. The expression on my face when the boxes with his books arrived (we’re going to need a bigger bookcase). How he & I kept the mattress downstairs in the living room in front of the fireplace for days after he  arrived.

Pretending to be Pyramus & Thisbe.

All the cooking & hijinks & sci-fi.  When, after too many days of being snowed in together, we put a pancake on zia’s head during breakfast. When I went rollerskating in the living room. The sugar ants on the ceiling.

I know we will look back on this as such a defining time.  jmags & I are very close to our 3 year anniversary — half spent long distance and half in this apartment, figuring out all of the things that you can’t figure out on gmail chat.

When we all dyed our hair together.

zia & I have lived in a total of 14 apartments together, some for very good reasons and others not so great.  So this feels like the end of a way of life. As we rush rush rush toward it arms outstretched, I didn’t want to forget to say goodbye.

zia & I, Jan. 15, 2007