Back to Beaverdale
Jul 30, 2008
Categories: relationships, apartment hunting, family, des moines, life
It’s been an eventful week, so i apologize for not being able to post in a while.
When i went home from visiting my sister i was confronted by Dan about some things, and the conversation ultimately ended in us each going promptly to facebook and changing our relationship status from “In a relationship” to “Single”. The timing of it forced me to hastily pack a bag and return to Des Moines, find and sign a lease the following morning, and sneak back to Ames periodically to pack shit while Dan was out of the apartment. It’s still my apartment, of course, and i’m welcome there, only if the other resident happens to be around i’m greeted by cold silence the back of his head. Understandably.
So, one week, three trips to Ames and one overpriced Uhaul later i’ve got all of my stuff in my new apartment finally. I had thought that, having lived with a roommate in a small one-bedroom apartment and lost virtually everything that wasn’t in it, i didn’t have that much stuff left. My furniture filled a fourteen-foot truck and the rest took two carloads though, amazingly. Let me tell ya, walking fifty yards between the car and the front door over and over again in the middle of summer can make a person want to burn what’s left of her worldly possessions. Next time i’m hiring a moving crew, i don’t care how much it costs.
I owe a huge thank-you to Mike and Dan Falk, and of course to my Mama who not only helped me schlep my stuff around but has also provided companionship and food, and will most likely continue to do so. Maybe it’s just the fact that there are still boxes all over the place, but i really haven’t found the motivation to cook any sort of meal just for myself in this place yet. I don’t even have butter. And i don’t care.
The new place is a two-bedroom, bigger than i need but with no dishwasher or garbage disposal or working air conditioner. There’s a constantly-crying baby next door and the laundry facility is in the basement of the next building. It has its drawbacks. I’ll post photos of the interior when i’ve put all this stuff away. I haven’t even found a bike rack yet, so my bicycle is taking up a big awkward chunk of my living room. The cable and internet will be hooked up tomorrow, and i think it will be a much more comfortable place with those distractions readily available. I’m thinking of getting a futon for the extra bedroom, so if you’re ever in Des Moines and need a place to stay, give me a call.
Growing
Jul 21, 2008
Categories: des moines, cellphones, family, apartment hunting, art, concerts, photography, shopping, road trips, life
First of all, thanks for leaving so many wonderful comments on my last post. It meant a lot to me.
My sister Amy and her son Harper are visiting from Oregon right now. They arrived on Wednesday and the three of us and Mom had fun shopping around the East Village of Des Moines, going to see WALL-E, reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and generally hanging out. Friday evening Uncle Doug and Aunt Vicki had a little BBQ to celebrate, and of course their whole branch of the family was there. Saturday we drove out to Uncle Dave’s and visited with that bunch and Harper had fun playing with his second cousins. It had been a couple years since most of us had seen each other, and it was nice to be able to catch up.
That evening Mom, Amy and I went to see Ani DiFranco at The Capitol Theater in Davenport. I never cease to be amazed by how much she rocks. She was a little less talkative than the last time i saw her over in Iowa City with Emily last summer, but that’s okay.
I wish i’d taken pictures of all this stuff. 
Next time.
Yesterday Amy & Harps headed for Cedar Rapids and Mom & I came back to DM. On our way we stopped at the Amana colonies for lunch and picked up some blueberry wine. I hadn’t been around there in quite a few years. It’s really well-maintained and cute, but it was so hot that we didn’t stick around for long.
I saw some paintings by this Chicago artist Laura Lee Junge in a little gallery there, and i thought they were really neat:
On an unrelated note, my current goal in life is to decide on an apartment to move to in Des Moines, which is proving to be a major headache. But i got my new camera phone today, so playing with that should relieve some stress for sure.
Materialism
Jul 14, 2008
Categories: iowa floods, des moines, art, life
This weekend i learned that even artwork is a material possession, and sometimes you have no choice but to let it go.
Iowa has been flooding this summer, as i’m sure you’re all well aware. I blogged about the floods in ames, after that happened Des Moines also flooded, and just after that Cedar Rapids and Iowa City took it in the shorts big time. As it turns out, the storage unit that my mother and i had a lot of our worldly possessions stored in was overtaken by about 2.5′ of water, and we didn’t have the means to deal with the aftermath until this weekend.
Mom lost all of her furniture except for a desk we acquired at a garage sale at some point for $5. I lost whatever nostalgia i had stored in there except for my stupid fucking beanie baby collection, one other box of toys and some lightweight box i didn’t bother to open.
I had figured that my old journals were destroyed, and i discovered they were. I’ve been keeping a journal for ten years now, and the earlier half of them is gone. My high school letter was in there, no big deal. And my portfolio. That portfolio had probably eight years or so of artwork in it. My charcoal self-portrait. The sunflower i hated but mom loved. The conte and oil pastel drawings i did in my last drawing class. The graphite drawing of a rose. I don’t even know how many other pieces. I never found my old sketchbooks or the three-dimensional artwork, and so those are probably in there somewhere, too.
This is the self-portrait in charcoal, which is destroyed now.
I cried when i saw the portfolio. I discovered that my drawings are worth more to me than my writings. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but i think the two are incomparable. The journals were mostly full of drivel i’d written about boys i ought to have forgotten by now anyway. Which reminds me, the statue i was given as a gift once upon a time was destroyed as well. Sadly, though, i suppose that’s only fitting.
I’m grateful for what i still have: my more recent journals, all of my photo albums, all of my black-and-white photo negatives and prints. My poetry is all preserved on my computer. I have the people i love and my own life, and that’s actually worth more than everything i’ve ever created or ever will create. As an artist you imagine that the things you create might live beyond you, but i’ve never done anything of that importance anyway.
My first ebay
Jul 07, 2008
Categories: ebay, cellphones
After all these years of buying stuff on ebay and selling books on half.com, i finally have actually listed something on ebay to sell. It’s my Nokia 5300 Xpress Music phone. It finally occurred to me to get it replaced since the call clarity was bad and it’s under warranty until August. I just got the new one today though, and I still don’t like it. I don’t use the MP3 player and I don’t like how hard it is for me to hear the person on the other end. So, i’m selling it.
I plan to buy a phone that has a 3.2 megapixel camera to replace it. Or, should i say, a camera with a phone in it. 
While i’m on the topic of cell phones, i’ll quickly sing the praises of T-Mobile. They saved my ass last month when i went way over my minutes, to the tune of $100. I gave them a call before the billing cycle was up and they simply moved me temporarily to a plan with all the minutes i could possibly use, for only $20 extra (which actually turned into $40 because of increased taxes and a few extra text messages in addition to the minutes, but that’s still better than $100+). No contract extension. In fact, it seems someone effed up and only signed me up for a one-year contract last August (that Nokia was supposed to be free with a 2-year). I’ll be sticking with them anyway. The iPhone is really enticing, but i hate AT&T with a passion. I could always hack one and use it on T-Mobile if i worked up the balls.
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