June 18, 2004

See a Man About

So I know this chick (my grandmother) who knows a guy (my uncle) who knows a guy (this dude on his rugby team) who has a house in Dublin he's looking to rent. It's his mom's house; since her death a few months ago it's been empty, and they were looking to rent out the place while her son is in America --- he plans to come back to the Republic in a year or so. Pretty perfect, eh? At least, it has the general out line of perfect --- that one sentence contains as much information as I currently know. You'll note it doesn't include details like location, price, size, availibility, ect.

I'm off to meet what will hopefully prove to be my future landlord right now. Wish me luck. I could use some; I can't find my lipstick anywhere, and as we all know, the use of lipstick telegraphs "Not at all the sort of drunken irresponsible sot who will get behind on her rent and trash you late mother's house."

Posted by Diablevert at 06:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 14, 2004

Fabulous

I’ve been crashing on Strunk and Rogan’s couch since the move. Their new apartment is a lovely, traditional New York-style converted loft. Needs a bit of work; the previous tenants, rather than attempting to achieve an unfinished look, simply left things unfinished. As in the bedroom walls are about 80 percent done, and rather half-assedly done at that. But finishing them off will still be a lot less work than putting up new walls, and aside from a few other small projects, mostly what their problem is space: There’s a hell of a lot of it, and it will take quite a bit of skill and planning to make comfortable and stylish. Like being too rich or too thin, having too much space in a New York apartment is a problem that evokes envy rather than sympathy. And the boys are really excited about planning and buying new stuff and doing all the little necessary things to bring it together. In fact, these past couple weeks I’ve spent listening to them have an voluble debate about their design preferences. Let me see if I can distill the essence of their respective visions into a single paragraph for you:

Rogan: Our byword will be stark. I want to clad the floor in textured aluminum. Walls: white. For the coffee table, there will be a single pane of smoked glass, suspended from the ceiling on transparent micro-filaments. All the furniture will be rolled stainless steel, burnished to such a brilliant sheen that anyone entering the apartment will have to wear sunglasses or else go blind.

Strunk: Hey, you know what would be neat? A couple of big brass-studded leather armchairs, a rocking chair, some heavy walnut furniture. We could get a roll-top desk, velvet-flocked wallpaper, mount a deer head on that wall. A gun rack would go with the theme, but that might be a little much.

I’m really interested to see the collision --- er, compromise they arrive at.

Posted by Diablevert at 06:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Moving Schools

Hey, it was only two weeks ago.

My roomates and I are of two different schools when it comes to moving. They're Fuckits and I'm a Score! They: “Damn, that bookcase is both heavy and ugly. Fuck it, let’s just buy a new one.” Me: “Hey, they left behind their ice cube trays! Score!” Money for pleasure I easily spend --- beer, books, food, wine, tickets, amusements, trinkets, presents --- but damn do I hate buying saran wrap. Or garbage bags or aluminum foil or extension cords or mildew remover. In college, through sheer happenstance, I managed to be the last one moving out of my suite almost every time, and thus scored, in part: innumerable extension cords, cleaning supplies, beer, a TV, a professional grade artist’s supply box complete with easel, canvas and about 40 tubes of oil paint, and David Sedaris’ Barrel Fever. I’ve yet to actually purchase a coat hanger in my adult life. It’s amazing the things people will just huck out --- Fuckits love the illusion of a burden lifted. I think it’s the sense of waste and necessity combined which so irks me --- The idea that I need something, but don’t really want it; that its acquisition will merely be an irritation removed rather that a pleasure gained. Or, to be as succinct as I ought to have been from the start, I feel like, Dammit, I could have spent this money on booze.

Posted by Diablevert at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 10, 2004

That Tell-Tale Gleam, but Whose Eye?

Today while cleaning out my desk I found a note: “Strunk --- tool. Rogan --- watch.” I’m not sure what this refers to. It certainly reads like the maddened gibbering of a bitter paranoid --- or perhaps it is the frantic scribbling made during a moment of clarity, a brief dissolution of the clouded delirium that I conceive of as “reality”:

You are on a couch in your apartment with your roommates. This movie is terrible, you realize, inane and plotless. Why was I laughing? Briefly, the haze has dimmed, and as you glance out of the corner of your eye you witness their false and patronizing smiles evaporating, to be replaced, on Strunk’s face, with a scowl of contempt, and on Rogan’s with a thin-lipped, shifty-eyed smirk combining equal parts loathing and cunning. You see it all now: One of your closest friends is an asshole, and the other is quietly plotting against you. Surreptitiously as you are can, you ease a pen from your pocket and a on a twisted scrap of ATM receipt note your discovery, praying that someday, you will find it again and remember…quickly, now, the beer Rogan is about to hand you is probably drugged…

Though to be fair, I gave Strunk a tool box and Rogan a watch for Christmas last year.

Posted by Diablevert at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 09, 2004

A Fly-by Post, in which I use Spanish poorly and senselessly

So, my posts have been scanty. This is because momentous stuff is occurring! Momentous stuff which encompasses trifling matters like denying me internet access!

Uno) We moved Memorial Day weekend; packing was enervating, move not too bad though still exhausting; there is as yet no DSL in new apartment.

Dos) Kid sister graduated from high school, so paid a flying visit home this weekend. Congratulations, Sull.

Tres) It's my last week at work and these jaw-droppingly inconsiderate bastards have behaved as if I were still in their paid employ, and thus in addition to cleaning out all the crap from my desk and labeling boxes and sending them to molder in the basement and leaving cunning little notes for my successor, they've been calling me up and expecting me to perform urgent and necessary tasks, which have irritatingly occupied my entire six-and-a-half hour working day. (What, you thought I was still even attempting to arrive on time? Hold on a sec while I Audblog a hollow chuckle.)

Quatro) While after work I have been haggardly running errands and dissolutely packing. After much fretting and comparison shopping and longing looks at diamond-bright, nickel-clad steamer trunks, I bought stunningly capacious duffel bag which swallowed two pea coats, one Navy, one leather, and my queen size duvet and throatily begged for more. Which I happily crammed into it. (Wow, this metaphor got real dirty real quick.) I may yet get my luggage down to three bags plus carry-on.

Cinqo) Places to go! People to see! I don't even have enough time to have things to do! I have to go a gathering of my writer friends this evening. (Oh, fine, it's a reading. Okay? Happy now? I may even have to read something. If it makes you feel any better, I'm already pretty sure it sucks.) Then tomorrow I have to let the work people get me drunk (Torture!) and Friday I may actually try and leave the house and see my friends, possibly play some pool, bar hop at all the little places I'll be shortly splitting from. Saturday it's errands galore and the final, everything must be stuffed, pack. Then Sunday I go home for a couple weeks, during which time I'll have little to do but sun myself on the back patio and swill my parent's gin, so you can probably expect a few posts from me then.

Until then, Adios! and Au revoir! and Slaite!

Oh, and I might have a house! I don't much yet, but I'm sure that won't prevent me from posting about it, tomorrow, perhaps even!

Posted by Diablevert at 02:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 08, 2004

What the fuck, Lifesavers?

How is it that the five primary flavors of Livesaver have become Cherry, Orange, Pineapple, Grape, and Catalope? Grape for lemon, okay, fine. But what the fuck are these green things? They're not lime. They're not sour enough to be apple. I am forced to conclude that they are some sort of melon. That's fucked up.

Posted by Diablevert at 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)