My Room III

(You are at part III of a series.)

Other items of interest in my room are: the decrepit shoe rack hanging from the back of my door that houses at most only one shoe from half the pairs that I own. I also have taken in the poor orphaned recliner that has essentially been in every house my (local) family owns. I finally took it in and used it to store Toby, my huge Valentine’s bear, and more of my assortment of stuffed animals. Finally, my secret stash of art supplies is hidden under my bed. At least 20 re-purposed canvases that I have collected, a huge portfolio, a drawing board, numerous sketchbooks, and some finished pieces that don’t deserve the light of day, but probably don’t deserve to be thrown out either.

My room is far from my sanctuary. It is cold and far away from civilization. In fact, it is the exact opposite of me. I am warm and have a need to be close to people, and my room accomplishes neither of these goals. My sister, on the other hand, has a room right at the front of the house, down the hall from my parents. It has 2 walls of windows and is always warm and bright. Sometimes I wonder why I decided to take the back room instead of kicking my little sister out or just sharing the room for a few more years. Looking back I remember wanting a place of my own, even if that place was dark and cold and lonely. I guess we all make sacrifices for things we want so much.

My Room II

(You are at part II of a series)

The bed that I have now has been a progression. When I first began sleeping in the room, I had a double bed, which used the bed frame I now use, only extended to its full width. In the search for MORE ROOM, I decided to eventually consolidate to a trendy, brand-new loft bed, which I convinced my grandparents (yes the same ones) to purchase for me. It was treacherously close to the ceiling, and, unfortunately, the ceiling fan. Wherever its placement, it was always within a foot of the fan’s swinging death-blades. Only when I finally became tired of climbing UP to bed every night and wedging myself underneath my bed to finish homework did I realize what a mistake I had made. To add insult to injury, I was reminded by my mother that in my joyful nonchalance at acquiring a cool loft bed, I had left the old double bed mattress outside through the last 8 months.

In my pursuit to find the perfect bed, I slept on a futon mattress, a foldable couch (complete with phonebook box spring) and finally, a small twin bed, wedged in the NW corner of my tiny room.

I didn’t always believe that my room was tiny. When I was younger, I fancied my room like my own apartment. The environment was perfect: my room was the furthest away from the house, with only a long, dark, concrete hallway connecting me with civilization; I had a kind of stoop leading into my room, as I suppose it would have been a mistake to place my room on the foundation like the concrete hallway; and, only a few years into living there, I acquired my own phone line. Technically, the phone line was produced by me squirreling away an old cordless phone from my grandfather (the same one) and running a phone cord from our dial-up internet line, through the vent, into my room.

Until just recently, I had a huge L-shaped glass desk that hogged one corner of the room. My mom and I found it at Officemax and decided that it was a decent deal and bought it. it was the first “some assembly required” item that I constructed entirely by myself, with the assistance of the ever-helpful Allen wrench. Just before I sold it, it was covered (COVERED!) with papers, photos, pencils, pens, art supplies, books, computer parts, monitors, and (very recently) a terrarium with my 2 pet mice. When I made the decision to sell the hulky desk, all of those things, (except the mice, of course) went into boxes that now reside on the floor where the desk once was.

At the end of my bed is a shelving unit that is a relic of my loft set. It is the home of most of my knick knacks, along with the large bulky set of drawers I use as a bedside table and a tall skinny set of rainbow drawers behind the door. Each is full of things I just can’t bear to part with. Maybe someday I can catalogue them for you, future children.

My Room I

I’d like to begin by saying that (on my honor) I am not writing from my bedroom. I feel that it is important for my future children to realize the full impact of their future mother’s domestic neurosis.

Although the details are, perhaps, for another day, the fact is that I have memorized my bedroom. Let’s not get confused with the idle memorization that satisfies the urge to not stub one’s toe at 3 a.m. when one needs to rush to the bathroom. No, this is a neurotic, extensive brain-catalogue of items and their whereabouts inside my own personal sanctuary.

The carpet in my room is roughly 15 years old, and was placed in there when I, at five years old, moved into the house with my parents to find that the back room (deemed my sister and I’s playroom) had previously been home to a cow. To clarify, the cow moved in as a helpless calf, and then grew up in the room, as I surely would in the coming years. To remove the unmistakable “eau-de-bovine” my parents desperately carpeted and painted the room a stark white-on-white.

Since I moved out of a shared bedroom with my sister in the front of the house, to a single room deep in the depths of the cave we call the “add-on” 10 years ago, things have changed, if ever so slightly. The walls were painted years ago in accordance with my obsession with the night sky. They are a deep dark blue with funny little handmade stars stenciled on in yellow and some sort of opaque white. The ceiling, my mother’s masterpiece is light blue with big white puffy cloud outlines swirled on it.

The carpet has since been fruitlessly covered up by a clearance area rug that covers all but a 3 foot space between it and all four walls. The rug is a deep blue with spots of green and maroon, and has been hand-sculpted into a lattice-and-rose pattern. It was a kind of gift from my grandparents on a shopping trip. Most recently, I was devastated to find that our new family vacuum would like nothing better than to suck up small tufts of my beautiful rug, leaving the dead, dry rug-bones behind.