March 25, 2008

or, Things We Lost in the U-Pack

We have sunburns. Everything's-bigger-in-Texas sized sunburns, sunburns we got standing in front of the U-Pack with our mouths ajar savoring the syllables of each new expletive we invented. We are in perfect symmetry to our stuff, we burned, our stuff worn on the edges and the hard points, shoulderblades, corners, the places feet rested.

This nice British guy from Craigslist, he says we're in the right place for shabby chic. I want to tell him that a week ago in Seattle's most rapidly gentrifying neighborhood this stuff was not shabby chic but well-preserved mid century vintage. Or art deco. Or whatever. And yeah I'm kidding myself now that no one will ever know the difference but it wasn't fucking shabby.

Everything we own now looks like something you find against the back wall of the barn, like the repurposed furniture you fill your auto shop with, your garage, Dad's stuff stained with grease and scarred by rough treatment. No one here has a degree in physics but it appears for all the world that at some point, the U-Pack tipped over. A poorly positioned box of spices and condiments spilled and broke, leaving everything in the front of the cube coated in a delectable marinade of balsamic vinegar and black pepper. This is the current scent of the bare mattress, incidentally. More importantly, it crushed anything not protected by furniture and eroded the points where the furniture was stacked up against something else. And keep your smart-assed comments about moving blankets to yourself. The moving blanket's fibers are embedded so deep in the veneer of the radio cabinet that it looks like a minature and suddenly fertile valley appeared there during the trip from Washington to Texas.

So we left with a meager household, a modest compromise of a beginning, his stuff and my stuff, but trying to hang onto only the best. Now we have dorm furniture. We have shit we'll have to give away next time we move. Our salvageable joint household is comprised of linens not stained with vinegar and a collection of plastic plates from Cost Plus.

In a badly remodeled apartment, overpriced with a pool that apparently doesn't get cleaned, we find ourselves starting over. From scratch. With only the four or five tubs of clothes on our backs (and the plastic dishes). I said something before about the past I was dragging around with me. Ironically, karma has let me keep that while literally chipping away at the shelves that house it. When we opened the storage container today, what we had left were memories and diversions. The useful stuff had been obliterated. And I don't know what I'm supposed to take that as except a mocking "you made your bed now lay in it".

And I am and it smells like vinegar and it has holes where it was pierced by chair legs and the edges are worn down. Here's to a new life.