At the Virginia house

My parents have this cabinet where the plates and casserole dishes are kept. On the inside of one of the doors they tape all their important phone numbers: friends, family, doctors, the piano tuner that came once. There are also scraps of paper devoted to my sister’s and my boyfriends. Rather than getting new scraps as boyfriends expire, however, my mother simply crosses out the old name and number and squeezes the new into the leftover spaces. As a result the cabinet serves as a kind of quick reference history of our early love lives with each name getting progressively smaller and more cramped as the one before it is crossed out.

Not a single bum had asked me for change.

Iowa City makes me feel like a step back in time. On the dusk walk from my place to Kyle's I trailed behind a sixty-something couple taking a Sunday stroll, met two dogs, said hello to a handful of house painters, passed three brave little bunnies and saw a young-looking couple making out on a front porch in shorts and sneakers. I also passed a fire station with real firemen inside and two cars left idling with keys hanging from the ignition.

What is this place?

I feel like I need to start an overly innocent summer romance which ultimately ends in life-changing tragedy.





That and I should know way more embarrassing gossip about my neighbors.

Defined

I don’t know what it is about the Midwest, or maybe (possibly) it’s just Michigan, but I have heard more heartbreakingly tragic stories this week than I know even about my own hometown.

At the Michigan house

There is a fan in my room called the Kool Operator and a little green one named Windsor on the patio.

I never realized there was such an art to the clever naming of fans.

The Situation

I finally made it to Iowa and moved into my new home. One day later I discovered a huge construction effort in the hallways and a newly displaced roach infestation in the living room of my apartment. After assessing the situation I decided the best way to cope was just to run away. I put the kitty back in the car and we headed off to Michigan to mooch off Kyle’s family vacation, thus putting officially moving off for another whole week.

I feel homeless and irresponsible.

Rejected

I’ve been packing for two weeks. In two weeks of packing I need to be able to fit everything important and vital to my survival into my little blue car. This includes my cat and boyfriend. I am strapped for space.

It’s taken me two weeks because that is exactly how long it takes me to work up the courage to throw anything away. I am a consumer whore.

The first things to go are the stacks and stacks of peer-edited poems and stories from the various writing classes. Apparently I’m not revising. Next are the piles of Spanish rap CDs I started receiving to be played on my now-fallen-to-the-wayside television show. Most are unopened, yet saved and organized just in case the mood should ever hit. Behold the value of free.

Gradually it gets easier and I start to trash things I’ve actually paid for: old plates, clothes, and shoes. I make a Goodwill pile. Goodbye microwave.

It’s down to the wire, everything is packed hold about ten books and the kitty. These are the last of my books, rejected first by me, then by Bookmans. They are lying sideways on the built-in closet shelf being either uninteresting or uneducational. Mostly, however, they are taking up space.

After waiting until Kyle is out of the house, I scoop up the books. I stuff them far into the recycling bin behind the building and close the lid.

Halfway through the walk back I feel suddenly liberated. Books are paper and ink and not inherently valuable. They physically can be thrown away and I just did it. I brag about it at the bar that night.

I’m up at six the next morning making last minute preparations for the trip. This includes taking the last bag of garbage to the trash bin. There are bits of garbage scattered all around. The half empty bottles of vodka and rum are missing along with the unopened sleeve from a box of graham crackers. By the recycling, every last book has been pulled from the deep blue bin. Not taken, just extracted and strewn about in the dirt. I feel instant and overwhelming guilt. I want to dust off every one of those books, sign and date them, and cart them around with me to every last place I move. I stand there for a very long time.

Finally, I clean up the stray bits of garbage, toss my last bag in, and leave the books untouched, semi-circled around the rest of the recyclables and head off to Iowa.