Climbing Mt. Ikea

I am forty-seven years old. It has taken my entire adulthood to prepare for yesterday morning when I took a deep breath and walked into IKEA.

When you live in a small apartment in NYC, IKEA is commonly used as a sedative to be utilized at various turning points in life. Most common among them are:

1. You've decided to stop sleeping on the floor.

2. You've decided to stop sitting on the floor.

3. You realize that having a table to eat on is a good thing.

4. Jesus Christ, you're pregnant.

5. You live in 450 square feet with a husband, your baby and your dog...you need a miracle or you will shoot yourself.

IKEA has done more to extend the leases of thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers living in untenable space situations than any act of public policy. So needless to say, I walked into IKEA with a bit of baggage....which is why I went to the IKEA in New Haven, CT.

It would have been far too mind tripping for me to go to Brooklyn. I would see too many versions of my past self, wandering through the aisles anxiously trying to find that miracle piece of furniture that would make it all work out. My space. My marriage. My mommyhood. My career. My dreams. All stuffed into 450 square feet.

IKEA would have driven that girl to tears.

I was on a different mission now. I needed a table. A huge table for the dining space in my little house in the woods. Would it shock you to learn that the dining room table I bought is as long as my bedroom in the East Village and just as cheap? There is enough surface area to reenact the Last Supper if necessary. We even bought chairs that were so light and inexpensive that I am wondering if they can endure the weight of an average human being....well, average American human being (add 20 pounds to the early calculation).

Will report back.

Poor People Migrating to Suburbs

So I have been reading more and more about how all the white people with money are taking over all of the cities and that everyone is being pushed out into the suburbs.

This news gives me great hope. That means that the counter culture and emerging art communities will continue to do the same.

Is it possible to think that I will one day be surrounded by my beloved East Village hodge podge again? Why not? Hell, it's a free country.

I wish the entire NYC gay community would take over Westchester County...or at least Tarrytown.

Spring Cleaning

Last night I went for a short walk. It was dark and I took a stroll down roads that wrapped around the perimeter of the village center I now live in. It's a switch to feel perfectly safe walking in darkness. I closed my eyes and inhaled the sweet fragrant smell of springtime.

Smelling springtime at night is heavenly. There are no flowers or sunshine to compete with. The cars and sounds of day have subsided. All that's left is darkness and fragrance with an occasional rustling of the leaves on the trees. I crossed paths with three bunny rabbits on this walk. They must all get together at night and do gymnastics on front lawns.

Which brings me to the subject of needing a housekeeper. I have never had one in my entire life. I grew up with lots of siblings and extended family in the City. All of us jammed into a small apartment building. No one was ever brought in to clean anything. It's weird to think of a stranger in my house doing the things that I feel that my husband, my son and I responsible for.

I discovered that I am the only woman in my entire department that does not have someone come in to clean on a routine basis. They are shocked that me...their boss...is foreign to this world. And yet. I cannot keep up with my household. It's usually in a shambles unless we have company coming over. It's a bad example to Ben.

My search for a maid begins.