My ordeal of the last half-year is over.
It all began on, of all days, what would have been my aunt Betty’s 91st birthday. I’d noticed a faint odor of mildew wafting up from the basement earlier in the week, but I didn’t actually venture downstairs until Gil the Wonder Cat came trotting up the stairs, plumy tail waving behind him, and rubbed against me…
And his silky legs and underside were soaking wet.
Thus I learned that my water heat had a) given up the ghost, b) was leaking like the proverbial sieve, and c) had expelled enough water that the wall to wall carpeting was soaked, along with a lot of fabric, yarn, furniture, etc. It was not what I had been expecting, not at all, and after I stopped swearing and called into work with the joyous tidings that the Last Homely Shack East of the Manhan was now Ye Wee Grow-Your-Own-Antibiotics Underground Laboratory and Aquatorium, I spent the rest of the day calling plumbers, calling my insurance company, calling a prompt and only marginally competent flood restoration company, and trying to salvage what I could.
The results you see above.
Fortunately, my homeowner’s insurance covered almost everything except the replacement hot water heater. Even more fortunately, my buddy Gene Gene the Contracting Machine was ready, willing, and available to arrange for the work. We had some setbacks along the way, but work progressed, paint and wallboard was applied, and this Monday afternoon the very last work was completed, the last item on the punch list checked off, and the last book moved back into place.
So now...six months later...after mold, mildew, fights with my insurance adjuster, more weirdly named paint colors than I care to remember, one case of fleas, a vastly inflated electric bill, and a fall and early winter spent writing in what was basically a garage…
Good gentles all, it is my genuine pleasure to introduce you to….
THE STUDY!!!!!!
This is the main space, complete with a Comfy Chair, a Comfy Futon that has already been claimed by Gil the Wonder Cat, books and LP’s, a nice Waverly fireplace cover, and a small homage to my favorite superhero above the mantel. My desk, in all its 200 pounds of Honduran mahogany glory, is on the left, with my computer just visible at the edge of the screen.
And there’s more, so much more:
More books, more desk, the original 1979 ceiling lights that all but scream out for black light bulbs so I can get my groove on while staring at a lava lamp for hours and hours and hours, and a couple of knickknacks (a stapler advertising Zoloft I scored from a former employer, a small inlay box with a 1935 penny I found in my wallet one day, tiny action figures of Iron Man and Captain America). There will be more knickknacks in the very near future, but that was enough to start.
Yet more books, the Comfy Futon my friend Sarah the Knitter gave me, and an Indian spread with a nice 70’s zodiac vibe even though I personally think astrology is a crock of hooey. As I said above, Gil the Wonder Cat loves the futon and has already begun shedding on it. Isn’t he a good boy?
What will be my sewing/craft area in the very near future, with the sewing table just visible behind the television. I may or may not be replacing the TV — it’s old and very heavy — but I now have a very sweet CD player/radio so I can get my groove on listening to the tuneful song stylings of Claudio Monteverdi, Agostino Steffani, Bruce Hornsby, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. And seriously? If you haven’t heard Philippe Jaroussky sing “Scherza Infida” in a melting countertenor right after Daveed Diggs breaks land speed records with “Guns and Ships,” you have missed a real treat.
The bathroom was probably the worst part of the space after the flood — the baseboards were waterlogged and basically destroyed, humidity had trashed the ceiling tiles, and the prompt and not especially competent flood cleanup crew had put several holes in the drywall as they moved in drying fans and mopped up all the water on the tiles. A new toilet, new woodwork and walls, a new shower stall, and a fresh coat of paint, and it’s probably the nicest room in the house.
The new shower staff is particular treat, since the old one hadn’t worked in years and was that hideous yellow we used to call “Harvest Gold” in the Common Speech of the West. Now it’s all white, with plenty of nooks and crannies for toiletries, shampoo, etc., and works just fine. I’m planning to christen it over the weekend, possibly with a couple of aromatherapy candles burning on the vanity to increase the illusion that I’m in a spa and not my own home.
Needless to say, I am thrilled down to my tippy-toes. I have wanted what Virginia Woolf so memorably called “a room of one’s own” for longer than I care to think about. Having a space that is 100% mine, where I don’t have to share it with anyone, where all the books and records and furniture, the computer, the amenities, the stuff is for my use and no one else’s…my friends, this is a dream come true.
And it’s a dream I’m putting to use even as I write this diary…which I’m doing sitting at my desk, listening to Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, wrapped in a shawl as the cats wander about and the late winter sunlight streams in through the windows. I am truly, truly blessed, and I could not be happier or more content.
So! Since you’ve patiently endured two whole months of rewinds while I finished my book reviews and Gene Gene the Contracting Machine’s colleagues finished the Study, it’s time I gave you the lineup for March of 2016. I’ll have a complete second quarter schedule in April, but over the next four weeks look for the following:
March 5 - The Tale of Two Soldiers
March 12 - Traitors to Their Sex
March 19 - The Coming Wave and the Ruined Reputation(s)
March 26 - Take It, Wally Ballou!
It’ll be great. Promise!
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Do you have a room of your own? Or a special place where you work and think? Has your basement ever flooded? Do you have little action figures on your desk? Do you cats know this? Do they even care? Now’s the time to tell all….
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