Wednesday, September 15, 2010

When I was a freshman in high school, I had a friend who went through a faux-rebellious phase and dated this senior guy named Steve who was into punk music and not on the approval list of her super-religious family. After a couple years of dating, the relationship between them ended, soon followed by the relationship between she and I. This was back in the day when all of my female relationships tended to implode for reasons I was never quite able to explain, a trend that was ended by my current group of girlfriends who are so thoroughly non-neurotic that I'm not sure they're real. I got lucky on that front.

Steve graduated, but he went to college at Purdue, so he was still around after that and he became my go-to person for first time college experiences. I once went to this this house with him to hang out with some of his friends. The guys were taking turns donning bicycle helmets and ramming into the walls at full speed, all while British porn played on the tv in the background. You can't make that stuff up. When I finally started at Purdue, he of course was a senior, and when I took my first drink at college it was at a party thrown at his townhouse the very first weekend. I still see him around when I hang out in my hometown, and I'm always happy when I get a chance to talk to him again. I've just always found him very easy and fun to be around.

That's the background for the following story. It's funny the things that stick with you over the years. I can recall this one thing that Steve told me, and he probably doesn't even remember saying it, but for some reason it rattles around my brain every once in a while. Not long after he and my friend broke up, he was trying to get back out into the dating scene. He told me of a strategy that he had either borrowed from somewhere else or came up with himself. What he would do was ask out lots of random people. He would just ask out any random girl that he happened to meet. If she happened to say yes, well that's great, he would go out on a date with her to see what would happen. But if she didn't, then he would become used to rejection and it wouldn't hurt as much. Then, when he met a girl that he really and truly was crushing on, he would be braver and able to ask her out without fear. That was the idea anyway, I wasn't really close enough with him to know the details of his relationships after that, just close enough to hang out every once in a while. And to remember that random piece of advice, apparently.

I thought of this advice when I went on yet another interview last week for a job I didn't really want. Well, I wanted it, just to get some money coming in, but it certainly wasn't my ideal career path. Going into it, I did feel like I was numb to the process, that I was just going to go in and answer as I could and if it worked out great, and if not, oh well, one more experience. But as the interview came to a close and she was essentially telling me that I was on the bottom of their list of people they had in mind for this job, I realized it wasn't true. Sadly, it just doesn't really work that way. Because even if you didn't want that job or that date, the rejection is what matters. You still want to be wanted, like in that Cheap Trick song. Sigh, oh well. Another day, another application.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Labor Day Room Renovations

This is being cross-posted over on my new WordPress space that I've been playing around with lately, because I'm a fidgety person and can't stick with anything for very long.

The household decided to take the Labor Day weekend literally this year by taking on the beginnings of a massive room switching project that pretty much dominated all 3 days. My sister moved out of the bedroom next to mine a few weeks ago. The rooms needed a massive cleaning and re-painting anyway, so I was moved into her old room.

Eventually my dad's office will be taking over my room, and Alice (my step-mom), will get an office/spare bedroom. When I show you the pictures of my dad's office, it will also become apparent why Alice was anxious to get my dad into my old bedroom (which is in the back of the house down a hallway), and out of his current room, which is visible right from the front door and living room. And in order to demonstrate that I don't harbor any judgment of my dad's office situation, I will also show photos of my room in its awful pre-move state.

These photos sadly represent a fairly typical state in my room. Sometimes it's better, but with the wedding last week and the start of classes it got pretty bad. Plus, why put it away when it was just going to be moved soon anyway? Or at least that's how I justified it.

It's like a view inside my head.

I forgot to get photos of what my new room looked like before my sister moved out, but I did capture this photo during the transition.

It's like a set from a John Waters movie.

We made fun of her for it, but to be honest I like bright colors. It shows commitment to a color scheme, that's for sure. Through this whole redecorating thing, being forced to choose paint and bedspreads and things like that, I actually realized I don't really have a favorite color. If forced to choose, I guess I would pick gray, but it depends on the context. Am I the only one like that? I can never use that as a security question, and when presented with a questionnaire of some sort, I'm pretty sure my answers are different every time. I hate being forced to choose. I like all colors.

Anyway, here's one view of the final choices.

Ah, much more soothing. Except for that weird pink spot on the bedcovers. Is my bedroom being haunted by the ghost of the former walls?!?

The bedding was a $50 bed in the bag from Wal-Mart, plus a set of grey jersey-knit sheets. I couldn't tell you what the wall color ended up being. You know how those things are - stormy clouds, ultimate blue, ivory/off-white/pale moon rising. I seriously saw one that was called Stonewall Jackson Gray. I kinda wish I'd picked that one for the name alone. I've still a lot of projects to do like putting up artwork. Also, I would have straightened out the bedspread, but I hate disturbing an adorable sleeping cat.

Yawn. Your consternation bores me.

To show you the rest of the room, I have some before and after photos. First, my bookcase and desk area.

I'm shocked the shelves haven't buckled under the weight, honestly.

Nope, no clue why I have instant drink mix in my room.

(After) Also pictured: a giant rum and coke. Awesome.

Not pictured: the massive amount of books I'm taking to be sold/donated so that I don't end up the feature story on "Hoarders: Buried Under Books". Like I said, I'm still working out some of the details. My dad's going to put up some more shelves for me, and when that happens I'll be able to move some books around and show off the bright blue paint on the back. Inspired by this post on Apartment Therapy, I decided to make that blue an accent color on a lot of my pieces. I've also got some material with a similar color that I'm going to attempt to make into throw pillows for the bed. I'm weirdly crafty lately. I think my new medication has given me a bit of mania/ADD. Kidding. No I'm not. Yes you are. Shut up.

And here's my media stand and such. More organizational aides and cord management to happen eventually in that area.

On the tv: A Bones marathon.

The following is a dresser that I inherited through the family chain of custody at some point. I remember having a bunch of mis-matching, repainted chests around the house during my childhood and this was one of them. Alice and I traded some bedroom furniture back and forth a while back, and I ended up with this one.

Why remove the hardware when you can paint right over it?

I would share with you the photos that accompany the various trials and tribulations that went into the renovation of this chest, but this post has enough photos without that mess. Without any prior experience in the matter, I attempted to strip the layers (and layers) off of the dresser. It was a pathetic attempt that ended with my shoes stuck to the tarp and my gloves stuck to my scraper. I tore all of it off and gave up. So when you see this next photo and you are impressed, the credit goes to my dad, who took over the job with a heat gun and before I knew it had the whole thing sanded and painted, too. I picked out the paint and the new hardware. Oh, and I painted some silver accents on it. Amazing, huh?

Pictured in my old room before the move.

Oh, and something I discovered when I was putting it back together was a date on one of the drawers, probably its manufacture date.

Yup, that's about the date that those handles were last fashionable.

Finally there's my nightstand, which I did manage to do all by myself because it didn't involve any stripping. Thank goodness.

I was surrounded by ugly handles on all sides.

Also pictured: Glee issue of Rolling Stone, Robert Pattinson issue of Vanity Fair.

What's awful about redecorating is you can't just do one thing. You do one thing, and it makes something else in the room look comparably horrible. I love the way the nightstand turned out, but now I want to replace that alarm clock because it doesn't match. I also want to tuck that wooden box away so that it doesn't clash. The mystery box, by the way, is a box my grandpa made to hold all the old Elvis 45s he gave me. They're not valuable by eBay standards or anything, but I smile every time I rediscover that box.

Finally, I'll wrap this up with a preview of things that will be happening around our house in the future. Phase 1 is pretty much complete, but that just clears the way for more projects. Here's what my dad is doing so far in my old room.

Our house is swimming in power strips.

He's making a workspace for his various electrical projects. I inherited my penchant for projects from him. Where I have a page bookmarked on a DIY upholstered headboard, he collected a pile of Altoids tins to eventually make into Ipod charging stations.

This is the site of Alice's future office, with plans to put in a convertible sofa or daybed for company.

I only include this for the purposes of having a before shot.

It looks bad, I know. We just have a lot of electronics and hard drives. In exchange for this mess, we get to live with a great handyman who fixes our computers, has the cords and tools for any device you can think of (finding the cord is another matter) and gets up in the attic to run our cables to the other side of the room when we want to move the tv. A fair exchange, I think.