World enough and time

August 25, 2009 at 8:26 am (Bibliophile, Updates)

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Re-reading that last post, I am so, so, so relieved that I managed to get out of that awful situation.

In May I moved into a new place: More than twice the size, and only about $50 more a month. It’s huge, it’s in my favorite town, and I have a room for my library.

The way the situation at my old place ended was sort of like this: I found this new apartment in the paper, borrowed enough for the security deposit, and managed to convince the terrible lawyer to accept my old security deposit as the balance for my back rent.

I had some incredibly helpful friends who offered moral support, hardcore legal-sounding letter-writing skills, and help moving about a thousand boxes of books. I can’t thank them enough.

I also learned that there is such a thing as Moving Karma, and that I owe it, big time.

This is my new place:

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A year of not knowing

April 10, 2009 at 7:58 am (Updates)

It’s been exactly one year since I wrote this. I’m still living here. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), yesterday I came home to a long note on my door from Norman’s widow, Sue.

My living “situation” (or whatever you want to call it) has been pretty strange in the past year. Mostly just confusing, actually. It goes a little something like this:

I live in a little cottage behind a bigger house, where Norman and Sue lived.

I’ve been on a month-to-month lease for three years now. After Norman died, I missed a few months’ rent (partly due to confusion over whom to pay it, partly due to me not being able to afford it and sticking my head in the sand) and then started paying rent to “The Estate of Norman Ganter” via a lawyer. I’ve been paying the back rent gradually, in addition to my normal rent, each month.

More confusing stuff: Norman and Sue had been together for many years, but had only married a month or so before his death. Everyone thought that Norman didn’t have a will, and then they found some really old will from before Norman and Sue had even met. I don’t know what was in it.

Norman has three children from previous marriages, one of which, Yurgi, was appointed as “Administrator of the estate.” He lives in New York.

It’s taken me an entire year to glean these little scraps of information. Meanwhile, the property, which is large and picturesque, but dilapidated, has been the subject of all sorts of confusing claims (Yurgi’s lawyer, mentioned above, is one Robert F. Ruehl, whom everyone seems to abhor. He tells me the house is “cash poor”).

Our washer / dryer hasn’t worked in at least two years; our fireplace has never worked; there’s been power outages (Yurgi didn’t pay the bills) and water outages (broken and / or frozen pipes) and snowy driveways.

During the winter, I managed to apply for and receive heating assistance, and had the cottage insulated and sealed, and a new thermostat installed, all for free, all of my own doing.

Sue, who has lived in the big house for several years, has understandably been inconsolable since Norman died. From what I can tell, Norman’s kids want this property, no one knows who’s entitled to it, and Robert F. Ruehl is a jerk.

That’s pretty much the total amount of information she’s given me.

All this brings me up to date, as much as possible, to the present day.

Yesterday, on the anniversary of Norman’s death, I came home to a note from Sue taped to my front door.
The most recent event, she informed me, is that the property is now for sale and that she’s tired, and ready to move on. She wants to leave within a few weeks.

There’s no reason why I should move, too, that I can tell, besides the fact that a lot of confusing shit is going on and I’d be better off without it.

I don’t want to move, though. If I did, I would have been out of here a long time ago. But the rent is very cheap, the cottage is adorable, we have a giant back yard, and it’s a good distance from both my jobs.

Plus, to be honest, I can’t afford to leave. I don’t have money for a deposit on a new rental, let alone a house to buy.

Regardless, a Realtor is coming today to … do something … assess the property, I guess, and tell us to make it look nice. I took the day off work so I could be here to talk to her. She’s going to need a copy of my keys – keys? I have one key, which I’ve used maybe five times in three years. It’s that sort of neighborhood.

But here’s the thing: I don’t really want the house to sell. If it sells, I’ll most likely have to move. And I can’t.

And still, despite (or because of) all this, I’m still so confused. I don’t know who my legal landlord is. I don’t know whom to call when something breaks down. I don’t know why I haven’t simply been evicted (I missed three months’ rent, for Christ’s sake), and that’s led me to believe I can’t be.

I’ve downloaded the Landlord Tenant Act of Pennsylvania, and gotten the number of a local place that offers free legal aid. I’ve saved all my documents, official or otherwise.

And, as far as I know, that’s all I can do.

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What I did on March 8, 2009

March 8, 2009 at 11:52 am (Updates)

I had a wonderful day yesterday.

I got up early and took the train to Philadelphia, where I met up with a beautiful friend:

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We ate sushi, then went to an exhibit of Brothers Quay sets at her college:

I bought some art supplies at Dick Blick before we exchanged a goodbye kiss, and I went to visit my friend Gil:

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And helped him move into his new apartment.

We talked nerdy to each other, and ate Chinese food.

Finally, I caught the train home, contently exhausted.

Today, the weather is gorgeous and I have the whole day off. I feel great.

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Making a difference

February 14, 2009 at 10:28 am (Don't read. Watch TV instead., Updates)

On the New Hampshire state website there’s a lovely list. How to do historic preservation as part of your everyday life: 101 ways to make a difference. As a younger person, it sometimes feels a little frustrating to have limited means to support the cause financially, but it’s heartening to learn there’s still a lot I can do. Today I’ll take a page from their book (or site, I suppose) by posting a few of my favorites:

2. Talk to neighbors and “old timers” about their memories and stories of the area – where they have lived, where you live, what they learned from “old-timers” when they were young.

3. Go to the library and find out what information it has about local history; read the town history and study local history publications.

The Spruance Library is an amazing place; I can’t encourage a visit enough.

4. Learn how to research the deeds for your house or a nearby historic property.

I suggest Terry McNealy’s ‘How to Find the Story of an Old House’, which you can read and / or purchase at the Spruance.

5. Write the history of your own house.

8. Look at old photographs and views of your house, your neighborhood, your community, and try to imagine yourself in the pictures. What can you see, hear, feel, touch, taste? How would it be different now?

9. Arrange to borrow, copy, and catalog old photographs of your town for your local library or historical society.

14. Join your local historical society.

It’s cheap, and it’s worth it.

15. Volunteer to help the historical society with a task or project (it can be mundane, not monumental — just do it!).

19. Share the enjoyment of what you’ve learned with others, especially children (an impromptu “history walk,” a “preservation picnic,” a historic “mystery tour,” an outing to a museum or to nearby historic sites, telling historical or historic preservation bedtime stories … ).

29. Learn how to disagree without being disagreeable, and how to build consensus … then practice!

40. Volunteer to help with local history projects in the schools.

53. Learn about the interrelationships between historic preservation and other aspects of land-use planning.

54. Familiarize yourself with strategies and techniques that communities and Regional Planning Commissions can use to advance and enhance historic preservation action and achievements.

58. Enlist others to help establish a local Heritage Commission, if the community lacks one.

69. Write a “letter to the editor” on a history or historic preservation topic (be courteous!).

So there you go: Just a few things you or anyone else can do. I’d love to hear more suggestions from you, or stories of somebody you know who’s done something to make a difference to preserve local history.

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Swain

February 14, 2009 at 10:23 am (Recollection)

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It wasn’t so long ago, in the long run of things, that to get a look inside Fonthill, all you had to do was knock.

You’d be taking your chances, of course. My mother, as a teenager, repeatedly made the pilgrimage up from the city, fingers crossed, hoping that this time Laura Long Swain would let her in.

From the early 1900s until 1974, Henry Mercer employed Mrs. Swain as a combination housekeeper, secretary and associate at the fairytale castle he had built for himself. Like a maiden from a story, Laura was just a “raven-haired teenager” when she began her employ.

Mercer arranged her marriage to Frank King Swain, the manager of Mercer’s Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, out of convenience. When Mercer died in 1930, he willed the couple lifetime residency, and Laura and Frank stayed on at Fonthill.

Laura continued to live there alone after Frank’s death in 1954, giving (or denying) tours as she wished. In October of 1974, at age 86 and after a lifetime spent on Mercer’s property, Laura entered Doylestown Manor Convalescent Home.

In a January, 1975 interview, just months before her death, Mrs. Swain unapologetically defended her seemingly random method for permitting tourists to traipse through her home. “They don’t allow anyone to go through unless I say.” she said, “And how many people know what to see? You have to be someone who can tell them what it’s about, and I have to prepare you before you go through … you’re so young … you have lots of time.”

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Where I live

January 4, 2009 at 12:57 pm (Updates)
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I was asked to post some photos of my cottage, specifically I think of some of the clutter / ephemera / oddities / whatever you want to call it. I’ve been here for three years almost exactly. It’s the longest I’ve lived in one place since I moved out of my parents’ house eleven years ago, though I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be here since my landlord passed away and the property, apparently, is for sale (I found this out only because the lawyer in charge of the estate told me, much to my bafflement).

We don’t have enough money to move, which is a little worrying, and honestly I don’t think we’ll be able to find a place where the rent is this cheap. I try not to worry about this (the term ‘concerned’ has been suggested in its stead) and sometimes am successful, sometimes not. But I digress.

Click on the images for more detail. Alright. Here we have an old drawer that I think I found in the trash when I lived in New York. That ‘3′ you see there is from the apartment I lived in previous to this one. Um … hm, it looks like there’s an old doll hand, a bullet casing that I think I used to put in my ear, and this glass egg that that has a funny but long story behind it, which I won’t tell here. Up top is a neat vintage children’s booklet about dental care.

This is the corner behind the TV in the living room (one of two rooms in the cottage). The gold thing was given to me by my gay neighbor at the previous apartment. The violin I, um, relocated, from the prop closet of a place I was an artists’ model at. I wanted to cut it open recently but Thom dissuaded me. The Sandman drawing was sent to me by Michael Zulli, who is just incredible. The little bottles I *think* came from etsy. You can’t see them, but the photos tucked behind the bottles on the little left-hand shelf are photos of a woman’s funeral. They were a birthday gift from my friend Josh a few years ago.

I’m not sure how it started, but I started to put all the artwork my friend Jeremy has sent me over the years in this corner. (He doesn’t have a website, but he’s one of the most incredible illustrators I know.) He made me that puppet (we dated when I was living in Savannah) and the bottle (which once held very incredible mead) has an illustration he did on it that reads ‘NOT POISON’. The scrapbook propped up on the right has most of the other artwork in it, held in place with photograph corners. Jeremy is amazing. In fact, I’m going to post of photo of us now:

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This is us years ago at the Museum of Puppetry Art in Atlanta (with a skeksie).

I have a neat (albeit very small) bathroom. The window came from an old curio cabinet. Hanging from the ceiling is an antique enema bag that someone found in an alley in Savannah and promptly brought to me (rightly so). It folds up into a box and has a cameo on the lid. I know. Next to it, on the top shelf, is an antique enema syringe I bought for $15 in New York at a flea market. It’s huge and heavy and very disturbing. The tip of the syringe has been bent in sort of a U shape (my theory is that someone did this so they could administer their own enemas and avoid humiliation, but it’s just a theory). There’s a pamphlet that came with a vintage douching device called the Marvel Whirling Spray that has all sorts of old and incorrect advice in it (it says you can use it for children, for example. Vintage douching solutions were basically Lysol.). Behind that is this great book called Flushed With Pride, which is the story of Thomas Crapper, inventor of the commode. Another photo:

A lot of the little junk I can’t find room for anywhere else winds up on the fireplace mantel (the fireplace doesn’t work because it’s filled with branches and dead leaves) in the living room. The giant mirror I picked out of the trash in town here. It weighs a billion pounds. I’m not sure where a lot of the other stuff came from … hrm. The dried roses I’ve amassed from various, er, suitors, over the years. The little clasped hands you see to the left are a really neat clay rattle I got for the holidays a few years ago. One thing I really like is the metal dohickey on the right, propped up against the old photo. I believe it’s a micrometer, though I’m not sure. It’s the same shape as the wishbone I propped up underneath it.

Whew! So that’s some (but not close to all) of the stuff I can’t seem to stop attracting. I love it. The end!

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Lover’s Diary

January 1, 2009 at 2:28 pm (Updates)

So my current fascination appears to be making assemblage art. Inspired by my recent clutter trouble, I’m trying to transition from simply arranging my junk nicely on the windowsill to putting it together as artwork.

I’ve made some half-assed attempts to do this in the past, but this is the first time I’ve really put effort to it, and the results aren’t totally awful. It’s interesting; when I draw or paint, the process comes so naturally to me that it’s almost like muscle memory. There’s not really any thought process involved beyond a pause once or twice to think about the composition. But with this assemblage stuff, everything I add, a twist of wire, a paint color, a texture, I consider. I look at the composition and think, How can I balance this out? What’s the significance of this element? I’m enjoying it quite a lot. It makes me feel very good.

Here’s what I’ve been working on recently. It’s not finished, though:

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It opens, too, but my camera battery runs out really fast for some reason. Dunno. Anyway, here’s some closeups:

lovers-diary-door

lovers-diary-upper

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That last one’s a little grainy; sorry. More photos after the battery re-charges.

I feel like the transition between the gold leaf and the green book cover is too stark. I’m not sure what to add to the border to make it a little more gradual. Any ideas?

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Mallomort

December 28, 2008 at 10:20 am (Updates)
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Malady is a Mighty Hunter and a Great Slayer of Tiny Beasts. All last night I could hear him galloping around, smiting (or as we like to say, smoting) little creatures. Then he took a Mighty Poop.

This morning there were what we call interns on the floor. An intestine (pronounced in-TES-tyne) and a stomach, Thom said.

It’s interesting that living with someone for an extended period of time, you start to invent words for things, or to use existing words in different ways. Smoting and interns and intestyne being the examples here. I do think most of the words we’ve invented to tend to refer to the cat. He’s got myriad nicknames (such as Mem and Mallomort) and words for things he does (when sleeping, if he rolls over so that his belly is up, we say The cat has turned).

There are many other odd turns of phrase and spoonerisms we use without even really thinking about them. Do you do this too?

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Keep my clarinet beneath your bed ’til I get back in town.

December 21, 2008 at 11:57 am (Updates)
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This is my third year renting this cottage, and my third winter being utterly frozen. We’ve got two space heaters running, though, which is great because they cost a lot less to run than the gas heat.

So recently I felt upset and angry. This was because I have a lot of stuff, and my boyfriend has almost none. He’s not into material possessions almost at all: He doesn’t collect anything. He owns the minimum number of pants, shirts, and shoes that he needs to get by. The books he reads tend to be ones I bring him, and they go back on my shelves when he’s done.

I, on the other hand, have amassed things, just things, for as long as I can remember. Exhibit A:

messy-room

Here I am, age … maybe seven? LOOK at all that junk behind me. That was my junk. I probably still have some of it. Exhibit B:

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That’s a photo of a bunch of junk we actually took out of the cottage about two months ago. And some of it is actually still outside right now. It’s covered with snow and totally ruined.

The thing is, it was inevitable that that would happen. My boyfriend can not stand having this much junk and clutter all over the place, and I can only continue to helplessly stress that this is how I’ve always been, and how I will always be. I really can’t help it.

I purge regularly. When the amount of junk builds up to where it gets on even my nerves, I sort through it and take bags and bags to a local thrift shop. I sell some of it on eBay. I even rent a storage space, which is where most of my art supplies are.

But the junk returns. If I see something for free, I take it. If I see something that’s cheap and will fit me or look neat on the windowsill, I buy it. Sometimes (but not often) I’ll even buy something that’s not-so-cheap, like the $100 glass-fronted book case I bought at an auction the other weekend. (Hey, at least it holds stuff.)

I try to convince my boyfriend that I don’t have control over the junk. It’s a partial truth; I don’t really want to have control over it, or at least to have to control myself. I really like my stuff. I like seeing it there, looking weird. I like people’s reactions when they come over for the first time. I like touching it, and moving it around, and putting it away. I like throwing it out, even!

But he doesn’t understand. His possessions literally take up about a quarter of our bedroom. The rest of the cottage is my junk, except for a few bags of his tools in the front room (which we call the Airlock). He’s tolerated (or at least, he hasn’t moved out) this for about two-and-a-half years, but occasionally it just gets to him (usually in the winter when we’re cooped up and hungry) and we have a Conversation.

I’m not sure what the compromise should be. I constantly feel guilty because I know my clutter drives him crazy, even though he rarely complains about it. If it were warmer maybe I’d take some of it outside to the fire pit and burn it. Our property is for sale and we’re going to have to move soon (but that’s another journal entry). Until then, I think we’re at a standstill.

sill1

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Scrub scrub scrub

December 14, 2008 at 4:32 pm (Updates)
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This weekend I basically did laundry and watched a lot of TV. Today, for example, I decided not to leave the house (haven’t even been out to the car yet!) so I did “special laundry” in the bathtub.

Special laundry is laundry that is still all stainy and gross even after it’s been through the washing machine. Today it was three of Thom’s work shirts, all coffee-spattered and grimy. It took about an hour (or, conversely, one episode of House MD) to wash them, and now they’re white as the driven snow.

Something about doing the wash (although not the part that eats up your day) is intensely cathartic to me. I love the clean, perfectly crisp, new feeling of something that’s been thoroughly soaped and rinsed. And then the ironing! Ooo, don’t get me started.

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