Strobing Cherubs

July 26

My room looks like an exploded diagram of an explosion. It's deceptive, though-- I'm much more organized tonight than I was yesterday. The closet is nearly empty, and my bookshelves are actually empty. I threw away several garbage bags worth of accumulated crap. I also went through the results of my haphazard filing system (which basically consisted of throwing papers onto the floor by my desk) and actually put things into neatly-labeled envelopes. Well, all right. The envelopes are in fact rather sloppily labeled. But still.

There's dust all over my room, now. Bleah. That comes from stirring the unstirred depths. Here's a (very partial) list of stuff I found deep within my closet:

• 200 feet of cotton clothesline
• A pair of strobe lights (whoo!)
• My Xmas stocking
• A candle shaped like a pumpkin
• Tapes 4, 5, and 7 of the 12-cassette unabridged audio version of Tom Robbins's novel Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
• A large box of packing peanuts

It ain't glamorous in that closet, y'all. It's the dark heart of my bedroom. But now it's been tamed. I feel productive. Go me. Tomorrow, after my last (and doubtless much abbreviated) day at work, I'm going to clean out the trunk of my car. Anything that's been in there, untouched, since the move is going to get tossed. Well, except for my nice tent, which I'll probably never use, but you never know. And, of course, I won't be throwing away my other cherub lamp.

I think Heather is beginning to realize she's going to be living with a boy. I told her about the strobe lights tonight (and my plan of putting them in the living room and turning them on in order to amuse myself by making our guests nauseous), and she groaned audibly. Then I told her how good the cherub lamps look under the strobe light-- "It's almost like the cherubs are moving"-- and she told me the lamps would have to go upstairs in my room. That's fine with me. I don't need to share their unbeauty with anyone in order to enjoy it.

For your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of one of the cherub lamps (they're an identical matched set, though the one that's been in my trunk for a year is a bit chipped):

I like this picture. I especially like the strange "dark halo" effect behind the cherubs.

One of my readers once called my taste "impeccable." I offer this cherub lamp as an irrefutable refutation of that assertion.

So. Anyway. I'm going to clean out my trunk tomorrow, then load my car with various possessions and drive to Oakland. Then, on Saturday, Heather and I will attend a gala birthday party. On Sunday we drive back to Santa Cruz in a rented truck, which we'll fill with my couch and shelves and futon and so on, and then we'll return to Oakland... and I'll be moved. I don't know when I'll update again. I've got a busy few days ahead. I might write tomorrow afternoon, before I dismantle my computer. We'll see.

Happy birthday Marissa and Mary Anne! I'll say that to you in person, with more enthusiasm and less accuracy, this weekend!

In the writing-world...

Gordon Van Gelder rejected a novella of mine today. So I put the story back in the mail this afternoon. I'm trying to ascribe to the "Don't let the sun set on your manuscript" method of submitting, rather than my usual "Let a dozen rejected stories pile up and set your coffee on top of them for a couple of weeks, then finally send them back out again" method. It really is much easier to send them back out as soon as they come home.

I didn't write any fiction tonight, and I doubt I'll do so before bed. I did write two poems, though, which is nice. I did a lot of packing tonight, so I'm not too bummed about not working on the new story. I have an indefinite future of unemployment during which I can write, after all...

Ta, lovelies.