Maggs has arrived

She’s here, she’s out cold, and she doesn’t know I have this blog. I’m don’t think she knows what a blog is. Maggs is one of those people who’s phobic about computers. Sometimes I think she’s a….oh, what’s that word that means someone who’s afraid of machines and smashes them up?? I’m pretty sure if I wrote this while she was sitting next to me, she’d been too scared too look at the monitor. It still seemed more polite to wait til she was asleep. And this is the first night since she got here that I’m not too exhausted myself.

I just read my last entry so I can catch up. Wow, I’ve been busy! The next day after I wrote that entry, I just ripped this house apart. I’ve been doing a lot these last couple months, but with Maggs coming, it took things into a whole nother planet. I mean, I love her to pieces but she’s – even she’ll say it – a major snob. And here she was, coming to Armpit to act out her personal drama. There was no way of knowing if that meant she’d be too self absorbed to notice anything or if she’d turn it on me and pick everything apart. One thing I did know was that if she wanted to go that way, there was plenty to pick. There’s a lot of Uncle Harry’s stuff that I’ve been leaving until I was ready to decide what to do with the space it was using. And a real lot of my own boxes that are still packed up. It took forever just moving things out of sight up to the attic or out to the garage. I also squashed a lot into the sun porch. I nailed down the shutters a couple of hurricane seasons ago, just in case, and I never got around to un-nailing them since I moved in, so its almost like having an invisible room. There’s only the one door from the kitchen, and all I have to do is keep it locked and tell her it’s the back door.

This reminds me. Last time I wrote was just after Don told me about the apartment closing, and that he was sending me some things. They came on Friday, and they’re a lot of the reason I have to lock the sun porch. If it hadn’t made me so crazy to have to deal with it right now, I’d be really touched. You don’t expect lawyers to be sweet, but really that’s what it was. This guy pulled up in a van and started unloading boxes and it seemed like he’d never stop. I swear, if it wasn’t certified as art and it wasn’t made of precious metal, they sent it. Anything the people who bought the place didn’t want, that is. I left behind a lot of books and things because I really thought they’d have to try and sell them, but maybe it doesn’t work that way any more – or maybe it would cost more to sell it than it would bring in. There was a big box marked “linens” that I had to open and check – it was full of tablecloths and lace I bought in flea markets in Europe over the years. They weren’t in the linen closet when I was packing up my things and I didn’t remember about them until I was looking through the trunk I had in my room here and couldn’t find the napkins with the thistles that I bought for Malcolm’s mom for Christmas the year he left me so I never gave them to her. When I opened that box, I almost started crying I was so excited to have my stuff back. There were a few things like that, and other stuff that’s just good to have. Hell, if I don’t like it or need it, I can sell it at the thrift store and make a few pennies. I think my idea of “resale value” may be lower down the scale than whoever made the call, bless him.

Back to Maggs. So I crammed away whatever I could. Imagine boho minimalist, cause that’s my new style, at least for now. And I cleaned as if the boy in the bubble was coming to stay. Back to the Home Depot for more of that orphan paint, and I found a dusty peachy color that I thought might be soothing and flattering to her skin when she looks in the mirror -- which would definitely make it soothing ☺ I took down all my posters and things, which I needed to do anyway if I’m making a fresh start, so thanks Maggs for that, and hung one of Mal’s paintings on the long wall. Target had some long sheer window panels that I could make work with an old table runner tacked across the top. After I cleared my old velvets and patchworks out of the closet and replaced the pole (there’s a guy at HD who thinks he’s my best friend by now), I put in some really nice wooden hangers, a new mirror in the door and a clove orange on a piece of ribbon for the oh-how-charmingly-old-fashioned look. I left the rag rug in place for the same reason, after I took it outside on the only dry day we had last week and beat the crap out of it with a warped old tennis racket I found in the garage. And I put the nicest things I could find on top of the bedside table and the bureau. I thought the most important thing was to make it look the opposite of “decorated”, because then it couldn’t be compared.

In the end, from the minute I picked her up at the airport, Maggs didn’t notice anything anywhere. She was either talking a mile a minute about Ken, or crying her eyes out. I think she drank her way across country, and she’s hardly stopped since. I think she’s almost done with that, though. I set out a cheese plate for dinner tonight and she criticized the brie. It may have something to do with the news about the Mel Gibson divorce. Suddenly, Ken sounds like small potatoes.

I’m getting pretty tired, so I’m going to stop for now. No matter what, it’s good to have a friend around.