Monthly Archive for February, 2008
I’d really like to see Persepolis. It is playing at the Parkway this week ad 7 and 9:15. Would anyone be up in seeing it with me?
Ok. I need some advice. Two things:
1) The Musty Smell(tm)
Storing all of my stuff at Berkeley Storage was a lot like placing all my worldly possessions in a very tidy garden shed. My things weren’t exactly out in the open weather, but there wasn’t anything controlling the humidity or anything either. Most of my stuff was covered in this layer of urban dust when I unpacked it.
There’s also this Musty Smell(tm) all over all my fabrics. All my clothes, my bedding, and my two pieces of upholstered furniture all smell a little…stale? Dirty? Almost moldy but not exactly? I don’t know. Musty is really the best way to describe it. The smell goes away after a run through a washer and I’m slowly getting all my clothes, bedding, and towels washed. But now there’s this Musty Smell sort of hanging around my apartment. I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve burned some incense, but now I just smell of hippie.
I think it will start to go away a little once all my clothes are laundered, but I fear that my furniture is going to carry this scent for a while. How would you go about freshening up a couch?
2) The Junk in My Truck
I have this big yellow trunk that I got from Penny six or seven years ago. It had been her father’s and she was getting rid of it during a move because she thought it was irredeemably dirty. Which, fair enough, it’s pretty travel worn. I’ve personally never tried to clean it. I just put a towel down on the inside and tried to mostly store things that weren’t prone to getting dirty. But now I’d really like to store my bedding in there. ‘Making my bed’ these days consists of taking off the sheets from my futon, folding them up, and sticking them somewhere. I’d really like the somewhere to be the trunk. So how would you go about cleaning it? I think it’s made of pine. The wood inside is totally unfinished. Could I sponge it down with some Murphy’s Oil Soap? Whatever I clean it with has to not leave much of a scent or residue because I don’t want anything getting on my bedding. Should I just staple some fabric to the inside and call it a day?
I seem to only get things done if I’m all Go!Go!Go! within an hour of waking up in the mornings. This morning I left the house before ten and managed to bike from my place in Oakland all the way to Solano Ave to pick up the cover for one of my futons. On the way there I also stopped and did some errands. Now I’m back home. This all didn’t actually take me very long considering that I’m on a rather slow, extremely heavy bike. People with cars must be able to get a million things done in a day, right?
I feel better about having accomplished a little something today. I have a ton of homework to catch up on. Hopefully I’ll manage that today as well.
It is rainy out and I have not felt like leaving the house all day. I could totally go for some hot chocolate, too. But I don’t have any vanilla here so I’d have to go brave the afterwork rush at Trader Joe’s to get some, I think. Bah.
Les left yesterday morning. I haven’t gotten any panicked calls from detention yet, so I guess immigration went ok. I hope that the bag I made held up to the plane ride.
Yesterday after I got home from the airport, Theresa and I went through the fridge and the cupboards and threw out everything we didn’t recognize. It was sort of odd that it was the two of us doing it since we’ve lived in that place the least amount of time. I ended up with three bags of groceries to take over to my place in Oakland. I only had room on my bike for two bag, though. So I’ll have to go back tomorrow and get the rest.
After cleaning out the kitchen, I sat down to look at what my readings are for the week. Between Les’s birthday and all the last-time-I’ll-see-you social stuff, and being busy with sewing that bag I made for him, I didn’t have much time for my classes. I made sure to do the biographical write up that was due for one of them and I’d sort of scanned the websites for my other classes a little but for the most part I just sort of skipped out on the week figuring that I could make up the readings and I’d be ok.
Turns out this was a bad idea. Apparently I had a seven page paper due in one of may classes last night. I totally didn’t realize that I had anything to do until around 4pm yesterday. I hadn’t done any research or thought about my topic! Ak!
I raced over to my place in Oakland and started working on the paper. I just barely finished with just about 6 1/4 pages written at 11:30pm. The paper was due at midnight. Phew.
I really need better time management skills. I’m having serious trouble getting motivated to do my homework in these classes. I’m finding the online format to be really difficult to get a handle on. Without interaction with my professors face to face and other students, I’m finding it to be really difficult to figure out what each professor really expects out of me. Also, I find text books to be deeply boring so it’s hard to stay focused. I knew there was a reason I was reluctant about taking any classes after I finished my BA. Bah.
I swear I’m going to stop thinking about all my moving/furniture buying and rearranging soon.
+ Boxes were given to someone.
+ I have a table and chairs.
+ I still have a lot of closet space.
+ This place is feeling a little more like home.
+ I have a sewing room.
- My futon isn’t here yet.
- Urban freakin’ Ore has not returned my phone call about delivering the 4 chairs I bought yesterday.
- I need more lamps.
- I don’t know where my copy of D&D clue went to!
- I need another bookshelf.
Les got his student visa today. He’ll be making plane reservations soon.
I’m really happy for him and sad that’s he’s leaving all at the same time. It was really great having him here.
Ok, technically she endorsed Clinton over McCain, but still. I don’t even know what to do with this. I mean, besides hope an pray for an Obama presidency.
Jesus. To hell in a handbasket, I swear.