I have a pretty hi tolerance for clutter, but my surroundings are making me crazy right now. Even the presence of a couch (yes! a couch! and it is orange and cute and it turns into a bed if you pull at the front part! it doesn't have arms, though) upon which I am sitting, like a real person in a real apartment, is not enough to calm the little worry that is going on in my head about the clutter, the clutter.
Somehow, having a couch seems very adult. I have not had an actual couch since Rwanda, three and a half years ago. And actually, the couch in Rwanda was there when I moved in, so it didn't seem that adult, it just seemed like a furnished house. But adult people do this, right? They sit on couches instead of on butterfly chairs or folding egg chairs or leather office chairs scavenged from a building about to be destroyed? Right? They BUY couches. Today, i BOUGHT a couch. NEW.
Ehem. From Ikea, so it's not exactly an investment. But I like it.
We sat on the floor fighting with the insensical instructions. (Do you like that word? Insensical? I made it up. It's a mixture of insane and nonsensical. I like it. Goal: insensical to be in dictionary by 2010.)
Anyway, my friend S. and I sat on the floor fighting with the insensical instructions. "Do you feel like an adult?" she asked.
"No," I said, "I don't."
"Me, neither."
We graduated from the same university seven years ago this May. We've both traveled two or three continents since then, and gotten graduate degrees, and worked non-hourly wage jobs. Still, we don't feel like adults. I didn't say what I was thinking, which is that maybe you never feel like an adult, and then someday you have to be the adult for the small people, and still inside you want your mom to bring you a flashlight and give you a hug when the power goes out and you can't see your hand when you wave it inches in front of your eyes and the world gets all scary and you are convinced that this will be the time that the bad guys slit the screen window next to your bed and jab you with that knife. (That was my childhood fear, yes, why do you ask? And it was rooted in reality, too, because for a while there was a rash of crimes in our town in Liberia in which people slit the screen and stole whatever was within reach on shelves or headboards.)
I also bought a printer today. A couch and a printer. That's like an establishment.
Somehow, having a couch seems very adult. I have not had an actual couch since Rwanda, three and a half years ago. And actually, the couch in Rwanda was there when I moved in, so it didn't seem that adult, it just seemed like a furnished house. But adult people do this, right? They sit on couches instead of on butterfly chairs or folding egg chairs or leather office chairs scavenged from a building about to be destroyed? Right? They BUY couches. Today, i BOUGHT a couch. NEW.
Ehem. From Ikea, so it's not exactly an investment. But I like it.
We sat on the floor fighting with the insensical instructions. (Do you like that word? Insensical? I made it up. It's a mixture of insane and nonsensical. I like it. Goal: insensical to be in dictionary by 2010.)
Anyway, my friend S. and I sat on the floor fighting with the insensical instructions. "Do you feel like an adult?" she asked.
"No," I said, "I don't."
"Me, neither."
We graduated from the same university seven years ago this May. We've both traveled two or three continents since then, and gotten graduate degrees, and worked non-hourly wage jobs. Still, we don't feel like adults. I didn't say what I was thinking, which is that maybe you never feel like an adult, and then someday you have to be the adult for the small people, and still inside you want your mom to bring you a flashlight and give you a hug when the power goes out and you can't see your hand when you wave it inches in front of your eyes and the world gets all scary and you are convinced that this will be the time that the bad guys slit the screen window next to your bed and jab you with that knife. (That was my childhood fear, yes, why do you ask? And it was rooted in reality, too, because for a while there was a rash of crimes in our town in Liberia in which people slit the screen and stole whatever was within reach on shelves or headboards.)
I also bought a printer today. A couch and a printer. That's like an establishment.
1 comment:
i, for one, demand photos of the orange couch with no arms.
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