5 Minutes (Reverb10, Day 15)

December 15 – 5 Minutes
Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. (Author: Patti Digh)

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Much like Sara and Greta, I'm lacking the original spark I felt for Reverb10. I'm not sure I'm the right type of blogger for this project. Nevertheless, here are the top moments of 2010 I'd never want to forget.


Getting the new job

Mary's return home from the Peace Corps

Moving out

My dance team placing 2nd in MN State Tournament

Landing my first freelance project

This moment in my relationship with ex-BF

My trip to Nashville to see Joel

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Home

H is for Home.

Right now, I kind of have 2. One is the new apartment- I already feel like I’ve lived there much longer than 10 days. The other is my parents’ house, where I lived for the past 2 years and of course before college.

I have yet to drive subconsciously the wrong direction on the freeway, which is always the clearest sign that one’s sense of home is muddled. The other is when you have conversations like the one I had with my mother today. It went something like this:

Mom: “So, we could meet halfway tomorrow if you want. Where would be a good place?”

Me: “Actually I’ll be close to home so I can just stop by or we can meet somewhere over by you.”

Mom: “Sorry, you’ll be where?”

Me: “I’m not going home after work, I’m driving south anyway, so I could just meet you at home... Er, I mean, well yeah, home but... Shit. Your residence. I’ll be near there.”

Time and the creation of memories in my new space will eventually lead to me having just one home. For now, aside from the ridiculously confusing conversations about my whereabouts, I’m fine feeling like home is best defined by two very different buildings, in very different places, with very different things on the dinner menu.

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Bonding

B is for bonding. J and I aren't exactly waifs, but we realistically deferred to boyfriends, dads, and brothers for the heavy lifting of oak dressers, oversized chairs, and our 2-ton pull-out-couch during the move-in process. This would be commendable on any day, but it was especially impressive on the hottest day of the summer so far. Post-schlepping, there were many adorable handshakes and pats on the back. Meanwhile, our moms were also assisting and mostly just commenting on how cute everything was.

"LOOK at that painting. Just look at it. It was made for this apartment. I just can't get over it. Sheila, come look at this."

"Oh my GAWD, Dianne. Can you believe it?! Oh you girls, you're just going to have so much fun here. Don't you wish you could live like this again?! Oh my word...." Etc. etc.

The dudes held the furniture together, and the moms held each other together. They're both pretty sentimental and I think otherwise would have been crying about the loss of their only daughters to the big bad city.

Then, J and I bonded by unpacking and assembling crappy Target furniture for 3 days in 90-degree heat, without air conditioning. It was one of those "Ain't nobody gonna break my stride" kind of weekends, where we were too excited to dream of complaining that we might get heat stroke and pass out in the comfort of our own home.

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A house is not a home

I'm pretty lowkey, so my previous roommates have always set the tone when it came to what we needed to buy for our apartments. Aside from the foodies I lived with in that came bearing garlic presses and avocado pitters, my flats were pretty bare bones. When I heard a friend was being required by her college roommates to purchase a new, full dinner set, I was happy that my paisley plastic crap from Target was acceptable to the 4 other girls on my lease.

I didn't know how low maintenance you could get. Until now. My future roommate is the most talented bargain shopper I know. Every weekend, I get texts from her that read something like "Scored a $4 microwave." and "Pull-out sofa, free. Yahtzee!"

Before I'd seen any of her merch, I was beginning to think that our apartment might resemble a crack den. I pictured a couch with a slash in it that came with a free knife block with one eerily missing, a table with one leg just a bit shorter than the others that rocked back and forth when you closed a door.

Of course, I should have known better. A protege of her talented garage sale-ing mother, J is bringing her A game to her first-ever apartment furnishing. So far, she's sniped:

• 2 armchairs, a pull-out couch, and a silk tree (somehow, the couch was dependent on taking the tree, God knows why) - $10 total
• Microwave- $4
• Iron- $2
• Blender- $7
• 2 end tables- free
• 2 lamps- free
• Kitchen table w/ chairs- free
• Coffee table- free
• Crock pot- $2 (Bence, I'm looking at you for encouragement on this)
• Vacuum- free
• Pots, pans- less than $6
• Dresser- free

I've put myself in charge of the VERY important task of wrangling up all the frames necessary to create a wall of frames a la Shannon. I thrive on irrational decorating projects.

In all my thrift shore shopping for frames, I hopped unknowingly onto the bargain bandwagon. J called to tell me she bought a $25 bookshelf at Target, and we were both a little 'meh' on it. We're starting to get greedy. I know she had half a mind to say to the clerk, "Look lady. This crappy bookshelf is exactly 2.5x the amount I spent on all the furniture in the rest of my living room. I'll give you 3 bucks for it."

It was probably time to come back to reality a bit. I was extremely excited when my step-grandma offered to buy us new dinnerware, glasses, and Tupperware. If I can at least offer people new plates to eat from, they might still want to come to our apartment after reading this post where I basically admit that we're one step above homelessness.

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