Moved Out/In

Well, tonight I'll finally be spending the night in my new apartment, a little less than a month after I moved my things in. Monday we moved out of Fairfield, after a serious morning of cleaning, a pleasant lunch with Sarah's dad, and a supercool episode of mattress surfing down the stairs, which Carla missed because she was off doing serious things at the study abroad office. Our goodbye was in many ways sadder for me than saying goodbye to our general group of friends, or even to Fairfield itself; Carla was leaving for Italy, Sarah was going to D.C., and even though Meredith would be the closest geographically, it's not like living in a house with your friends. Townhouse 31 was also the last place I ever saw my mom alive, and where I was when they told me she was dead. Even though I felt like I didn't have a home after she died, the townhouse was another home, and I was sad to leave even that bit of security, small though it was, behind me.

Now that I'm here and really on my own, it's scary. It's amazing how many ways our parents are still taking care of us at an age when most of us assume ourselves to be completely independent. I went food shopping and had to buy everything I needed, because there's no one to remember to buy the ketchup or the butter if I forget, and there isn't a pantry at home over-flowing with stuff I can help myself to. I didn't know where the post office or the grocery store or any of that was until today (I did find that I'm a block away from the library, which ROCKS). Shelton seems to be a pretty OK town. It's not as pretty as Windsor, but it's a good deal livelier. Right now there's a carnival going on a couple of blocks away; the voices of people who parked on my street are drifting in the window and making Rocky bark--I'm babysitting him for a while until Sean gets back from the movies.

There are no streetlights on my street, which is weird. It's a very quiet residential road behind a school, but the JTD-voice in me is on high alert in these new premises. For example, it bothers me that there's a window in the den that opens directly onto the deck, which has stairs up from the ground. Someone could easily come up, spot my computer through the window and break in. I also have to break the habit, acquired in the townhouses, of not locking the door behind me when I come in. JTD definitely would not approve.

The End

I graduated college this morning. It seems freakishly surreal now, as if it already happened months and months ago. It was good, as ceremonies go, and the weather was cooperative. I had a tense moment after the ceremony trying to find my aunt and uncle in the crowd without the benefit of a cell phone, but we located them at last and had a great lunch with Sean's family. As casual as our family can often be, I was happy to have family members present. Of course Sr. Sally and Sr. St. Henry were there as well, as I couldn't help but feel that with them in attendance, my mom was really there watching.

Our house is in a shambles; we all have to be out by noon tomorrow. It's so strange to think my roommate is moving to Italy in three days, and I might not see her for years. Literally. Sarah's staying on the continent but she'll be far away in D.C., too. It's not really as sad as high school graduation was, because this time I have the benefit of knowing that you do stay friends with the people who mean something to you. Also, I'm probably in some kind of shock, because for the first time in my life this is not just a summer break I'm beginning; it's the start of 1.5 years of regular workaday schedule. Sean and I agreed that we have rather ambiguous feelings about it, because it's not like we're going back to school right away, but it's not like we're launching into careers we plan on continuing indefinitely, either.

Tonight we honored our group tradition one last time, and gathered in the Zen garden on Bellarmine hill for a toast. After our sappy individual toasts, we raised our glasses to "family," and I felt like I was in a Lifetime movie, for serious.

I can't believe it's time to say goodbye to Fairfield. What is there to say, besides 'breaking up is hard to do...'

End of an Era

The sale of my house closed on Friday afternoon. Sean went with me, and we sat there as the buyers signed a thick stack of papers. I only had to sign four, one of which was an agreement that no money would be exchanged between us beyond the actual terms of the sale--which of course was the entire reason for my presence at the closing! That bit of illegality took only a second, as I slipped the check into the buyer's hand after everything was signed, and then it was done.

Everyone else was in a good mood during the proceedings. The buyer's husband, who is a Nigerian immigrant who speaks eight languages, including French, engaged in a lively debate with their lawyer about things like the existence of happiness and of freedom--neither of which of the husband believed in. The lawyer was obvious a very intelligent and interesting guy, and under other circumstances I would have been delighted to listen to their conversation, but under the circumstances I just wanted everything to be over, and mostly didn't even look up. After all the time and energy and sheer frustration that had gone into getting this deal done, I hadn't anticipated how sad it would make me to actually sign the papers. I thought of my parents, and how that house was in many ways the symbol of their hopes and dreams, the place that they made a home for us, the place where we were all together...and here I was, having to sign it away to a new family. Once again I felt, hopefully for the last time, the anger and sadness that it was my responsibility to do all of this.

Despite all of my prior resentment towards the buyers, I recognized later, when I was calm, that they were very friendly and polite during these proceedings. I had to laugh to myself, though, when the wife mentioned to the lawyer that they would indeed be having a lot of big parties because they have a big family--the thought of my neighbors' faces when that happens! Oh, they'll be missing us even more that day. Of course I also thought of the paint cans, and laughed to myself again.

So here it is, a chapter that's almost closed. I haven't deposited the check yet. I still have to get in touch with the probate office and find out if it's OK with them that we skip this silly idea of a trust altogether. In addition to the sale price, there was a deposit check for $5k, and I joked to Sean that Jen would never know if...and then we dreamed about which country we'd choose to go to this time. Egypt is number one on our priority list, but since Sean is so firmly set on seeing Jerusalem and the other sites in Israel, and because they are so conveniently close to each other, we decided that our next trip abroad will be a lengthier combo tour of the two countries. Of course I'm not going to actually steal the 5k to finance it, however tempting it may be.

In other news, I'm into Churchill's third volume, "The Grand Alliance." It covers 1941 as things finally get into high gear after Russia and the U.S. are drawn in. In tandem I've been reading (sneakily, in Borders, because I don't feel like buying it) a book about the complicated relationship between Churchill and FDR, which provides complementary information about Churchill's psychology and the imaginative revisionism of his writing. Basically, it points out that no one is an objective chronicler of their own history. Churchill made his relationship with Roosevelt seem much more evenly balanced in terms of affection than it was because that's the way he wanted it to have been. Roosevelt was always the beloved and Churchill always the suitor, which apparently reflected Churchill's upbringing as the child of parents who neglected and ignored him. Pathos makes good reading!

Sigh

I'm still waiting for my house to close, days later. First they held it up over the pitiful sum of $210 because they forgot to add taxes onto the estimate for the repair of the deck, and then the bank decided not to let them have the whole $13,000 they asked for in closing costs, which would have then resulted in me receiving extra money in the final check and therefore somehow requiring me to send a check for $5700 ahead of time to the realtor so he could make the difference up to the buyer at closing...which is madness. I mean, yes, I do have that much money in my savings, so it wouldn't have been a problem, but most people in my situation probably wouldn't, and plus, who wants to send their money off into the ether on a house deal that has already been twice postponed with no guarantees? Oh yeah, and add to this that the lawyer can't be involved in this extra exchange of funds because that's not the way the contract is set up. Does it make sense to you? If not, don't worry. No one else seemed to understand the necessity for me to be fronting five grand in this deal, even if only temporarily. So after a period of intense drama this afternoon, which involved endless rounds of phone calls with Sean and his mom, my aunt, and my realtor, I decided to just go to the damned closing myself and hand over a check to the buyer at the same time as I receive my check for the price of the house plus the $5700 extra. It's an extra pain in the neck, but better than the alternative. I just want this done with.

In other news, I had my last college classes today. Anti-climactic, really. Actually it should have been terribly climactic because my very last class was History of the Third Reich, and we finished up with the Gotterdammerung, the Twilight of the Gods, when all of the Third Reich went down in an apocalyptic blaze. I knew how the story ends--I've read Speer, I've seen "Downfall," and in about five volumes I'll read it from Churchill's perspective as well--but who doesn't? Hitler goes batshit, everybody jumps ship except for Eva and Goebbels and his sorry brood, Goering tries to seize command and Himmler tries to negotiate a separate piece, then the Fuhrer goes 'poof,' the Russians take Berlin and his smoking corpse and Stalin gets to pretend for the next few years that maybe Hitler escaped and the Allies might still need him after all. It's a spectacular, operatic finish, but when it was delivered by Professor Rosenfeld at break-neck pace in a fifty-minute class, it lost a little of its solemnity. Oh well.

Out

I did it; seven months to the day after my mom died, I moved out of my house and into my apartment. The house is locked up, empty, and ready for the closing Monday. I didn't even look back when we drove away because I was too busy not crashing the Penske truck.

I don't have a home anymore. Funny how I spent so much time trying to get my mom to leave that house, and then trying to leave it myself these past months, and now I'm finally done. For better or for worse I'll never set foot in there again. I used to think, the way all kids do, that I'd always have a room there, that my mom would never make me pack up my things so she could turn it into another den or something. Now that's gone, and my grandfather's house is gone without me ever even having been inside it again, and those were the only two homes I ever knew. Sean promised me tonight that we'll have a home again together, and I know we will, but I can never get back the feeling of security that comes from being in your parents' house.

I won't even begin to catalogue the number of fiascos we had the past two days; they're all over and done with, thank god. Now all that's left is for everyone to inquire politely about how moving out went, and say "oh, good!" when I tell them everything was OK. Sean told me that I can't expect anyone else to understand exactly how hard this was, and I know I can't. I just hate the way everyone seems to think it's been so easy, like it was nothing I couldn't handle. I hate that I had to do this. I hate that I've spent so much time this year just being anxious about my to-do list. I hate that I had to be the one to handle everything because my sister washed her hands of it. I hate that I had to be the responsible one. I hate it that she died and left me here. Most of all I hate that I can't even cry about this in my own damn room, because here come Sarah and Carla up the stairs, laughing about some bollywood movie crap, and if they see I'm crying, I'm sure they'll be very concerned and ask what's wrong, but they won't understand, because they can't understand. And I'm tired of being strong and making it through. I want to be beyond this.

Uplift

I wasn't wrong; it has been an extremely stressful period since my last post. I did find a new apartment last Wednesday, in Shelton; this past Sunday I went by to pick up my keys and put down a deposit. My roommate is in her 30s, I think, and a professor of counseling at the University of Bridgeport. Her name is Cicely. We haven't even met yet, but the landlord, Jamie (who's cute, but as his mom mentioned Sunday, has a girlfriend) said she's one of the nicest people he's ever met. I liked the apartment, as it was all recently redone inside when Jamie bought the house, and what especially drew me was the extra, empty room that Jamie said would work well as a den--which was awesome, because I have my giant desk plus six boxes' worth of books to put somewhere, and they're sure as hell not fitting in the actual bedroom. Plus this apartment is only 20 minutes from my place of work and $110 cheaper a month than the place in Meriden. I was sold.

Another huge point of stress last week was trying to figure out what I'm going to do with that damned dining room set. I put it on craigslist, but I could only be there to show it on Saturday, so even though I did get a few people who came over, no one took the bait. I wasn't willing to sell it for peanuts or split the set, especially for the guy who told me that $1000 was a lot to pay for something his kid's just going to beat up. Well, sir, that's why I'm not interested in lowering the price for a bumpkin like you. I had also tried auction places in the area, one of whom offered to come appraise it but only during the week, when I couldn't be there. Finally, I thought of offering it to the sisters to use as a big-ticket item at their yearly tag sale, the sale where I've always found such great stuff. So I called Sister St. Henry on Saturday and proposed the idea; she wasn't sure if they're still having one this year, so I also told her that if they'd just like to have it, maybe for one of the hundred sitting rooms they seem to have spread out in that place, I would love to give it to them. And she left me a voicemail this morning saying they'll take it!

Physically getting is there, however, is another matter, especially since that giant hutch has to be disassembled before it can be moved. I solved this problem by hiring movers for next Saturday, both to move me to Shelton and to drop off the set in West Hartford. If not for the set I really wouldn't have needed movers; I have a total of 24 boxes, a small bureau, my desk, my bedside table, my oriental cabinet, and a TV. Not even my bed is coming, since there's already a bigger one at my new apartment. But there was no way, even with help from the guys here, that we could have moved that set without damaging it, and it really is such a nice set. Everyone asks me why I don't want it "for the future"--well, hello, first of all, where the hell would I keep it, and secondly, if I have a dining room set, I want one that invites my friends and family to use it, not one that's beautiful yet untouchable.

Let's see....crisis number 3 or 4 was disposing of all of the furniture and household items that I'm not taking and which had not been donated to Betty and Alan in January. I was contemplating the ugly idea of making a dozen runs to Goodwill when, lo and behold, I did manage to find their number on freecycle. I marked all the furniture they could have, which included my bed and another of my grandpa's desks, along with that giant table with the bench that was our play-table years ago, and amassed a heap of items that covered the whole living room floor. Mrs. Long, busybody that she is, was very suspicious of them, since for two preachers who work as home health care aides, they drive a BMW wagon. In all likelihood someone gave it to them, but she remained sniffy. She wasn't there when Betty came back with her sister and two nieces, when they got ecstatic over the idea that they now had a coffeemaker, a telephone, and a VCR. That was no feigned enthusiasm--these were just people who hadn't had the things we all ridiculously take for granted.

So, as of 9am yesterday when they brought a UHaul for the furniture and Mrs. Long, against her better judgment, I'm sure, let them in, there is nothing left inside the house besides the dining room set and what I'm taking--not a plate, not a towel. Which of course brings me to crisis number 5--the garage. I had secretly planned to leave the garage as is and let the next people deal with it. I had even put in the contract that I was willing to leave everything there--of course the realtor put this in as "negotiable," which really means nada. I just dreaded the idea of having to clean out a garage, especially in the extremely limited time I had left, when I was still trying to figure out where I'd be living, what to do with the dining room set and my mom's van, etc etc. Unfortunately, when I met the buyer--and I did, although I never wanted to--she made clear that she expected the garage to be completely emptied.

Mind you, when I met this woman (and her three kids) I was trying to pack up all my belongings by myself, as plumbers and electricians ranged around me, drilling holes and making mysterious "upgrades" that my realtor had OKed but which Mrs. Long insisted--to the buyer's realtor's face--were illegal. I had planned on a stressful but calm Saturday of packing, and instead I got the Ringling Bros. Circus, and listening to this awful woman tell me that, oh no, we're just going to rip out all those carpets (OK, I acknowledge that I, too, prefer hardwood and would probably do the same when I move into a house, but it's different for me knowing my mom put those brand-new carpets in a year ago, and this little beast is just walking in and changing everything. Can you tell I hate her?) The other realtor knew all about my "situation" and I hated my realtor for telling him. Hello, then they had a giant green sign that said "SHE NEEDS TO SELL!" Of course they knew they could play hardball then. I wish we could have sold the house to Alan and Betty, even though I doubt they could have ever afforded it--they were always so openly admiring of how beautiful the house was, and even though I don't think it's such a prize, I was flattered. The buyers, they don't deserve that house. Sean and I were joking that maybe, if we're lucky, my dad will haunt them.

So now I've enumerated all the reasons that I wanted to rip my hair out this past week. Of course, in addition to all this house business there's always school work, too, and that only added to the insanity. But it's all looking up now. I'm done with two of three final papers, and tomorrow will present in Buddhist art class, thus officially ending my participation. Friday Sean and I are heading up to clean out the garage, take everything to the dump, pick up the moving van, and bring my mom's car to New Haven where we can donate it to the Easter Seals. Saturday morning at 8am sharp, two guys from "2 Young Studs Moving, LLC" will be moving my things and the dining room set. Monday the 30th is the closing--I've cancelled all our utilities for that date, and I'm evilly hoping they forget to arrange for them so that they have no power. Muaahaha.

Everything is working out. I'm thankful.

Everyone Makes Fun of the English Major, But...

Actually I don't have much of a comeback for that. Anyway, last night was the English Awards night. I didn't win either the poetry or lit crit awards (although I have to acknowledge that the girl who won the poetry award is an excellent writer), and for some reason I was about the only senior who was inducted into the honor society, Sigma Tau Delta (or STD, as Sean helpfully pointed out)this year instead of last year. That was kind of an embarassing oversight; it's supposed to be the top third of all English majors in each year, and I have about a perfect GPA in my English major. I didn't even think about it until they named all of last year's juniors who were inducted and I realized it was virtually everyone else. Embarassing.

Anyway, so yeah, this was all made good by the final award, which went to me and Lauren as "Best Senior English Majors of 2007." It wasn't the award itself, but what Dr. Bayer and Dr. Bridgford said about me that was a definite boost for a slightly deflated pride--my favorite snippet was Dr. Bridgford saying I was the "ideal student" and one of the best students she'd worked with in 25 years. I seriously considered asking Dr. Bayers for a copy of the remarks to read to myself when I'm depressed. Haha.

Oh yes, in other news, the housing deal is going through, but I have to move out by April 30th. Um, awesome, except that's two weekends from now, and I'm finding a different apartment to live in because the house in Meriden was going to be way too far away from my job. Sigh. Going up this weekend to work on boxing stuff up, but there's still the dining room set to dispose of, and the car, and all the furniture I can't take, and of course I lost Betty and Alan's number. It's going to be an extremely stressful couple of weeks.

Another Fifteenth of April

Here it is, year number seven; not much different than the others, really, except I'm more alone now than I was last year. Today is our induction to Phi Beta Kappa, and though I'm now not the only one whose parents aren't coming, due to the awful rain, I wish so much that I could look out at the audience and see their faces. Out of the wedding picture I keep on my desk, they're all gone--my parents, my grandparents, my nana that I never knew anyway. It feels like there's no one left to call anymore. No one to be proud of me who's not my friends or Sean. There's Jen, of course, and she tries, but it's not the same.

Today I miss them both so badly it hurts. It's just not fair.

Looking Back

Wow, I just looked at my posts for the month of April last year, JELOSO! April was such a fun month! Heather came, and so did spring, and the big cart blew up on Easter, and we went to Siena and Cortona and Ravenna again. God, it was such a good time. I miss the four of us cooking dinner in our apartment, the long, leisurely meals together because we had nothing else to do.

On a more ironic note, in one of my entries I mentioned how sad I was that my mom was alone around this time of year. Little did I guess that she wouldn't live to see another of his anniversaries. But they're together now. It's a happier thought.

Why Don't I Update More Often?

I always forget, or I'm too tired when I do remember. Luckily right now I feel perky and energetic--there's so much going on, but a lot of really good things have been happening, too. Probably most important: I got a job! The only one I had interviewed for, actually, at a law firm in Stratford. I'll be an administrative assistant. Not something I would ever want to do long-term, but it'll pay the bills until I go to grad school. When I applied they asked for a salary requirement and I said $32,000, because it seemed like an OK figure, and they said they'd pay me $33,000, so good deal! Best of all, besides the two weeks vacation, is that I don't have to pay anything extra for medical insurance. That'll save me a ton.

So I will be living in Meriden and commuting about 45 minutes to Stratford. I have to get rid of the Tahoe, alas...briefly I considered backing out of living with Rachel and trying to find somewhere closer to Stratford, but for $750 a month all inclusive, in a nice little house with friendly people, can I be sure I'd find anything that sweet in New Haven?

It's also award season, and everyone has been racking them up like candy canes around here. I'm proudly sharing the Art History award with Meredith! I'm also sharing the English award with someone, I don't know who, and I found out today I'm getting the Women's Studies Alumni award for a paper I wrote on why Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique idea really doesn't hold water. Sweet. This weekend is the Phi Beta Kappa induction, which I missed last year due to being blissfully abroad. Sigh. What a lifetime ago that seems.

Meanwhile, the deal on the house seems to be going forward; we're entering the final stages of haggling. Fingers crossed. Over the Easter break I stopped by to try to pack up some of my things, and it was just so ennervating to be in that empty, listless house by myself. My room is really the only room that still has much in it, and it was depressing to try and pack that into a box. But on the plus side, I spent a couple of fun nights with Sara, and had breakfast with her, Heather and Cody at Dom's (their first time)--the last time we'll see each other before emerging on the world as freshly graduated adults.

Actual Easter was a great time too--I spent Saturday and Sunday nights at Sean's. Saturday we went to Linda's friend Phillip's condo, which was absolutely magnificent: if I ever had lots of money and a decorator that's what my house would look like too, except I could never keep it so neat. Phillip is gay, I'm sure that has something to do with it. :-) We played an interesting type of poker where every hand was dealer's choice, and Gary seemed to know every game ever invented. Surprisingly, no one really was familiar with texas hold'em, which is the only type of poker I know, so it was a learning experience for all. We played with quarters, and yes, I lost. Easter dinner was a good time; Sal and Alice, Gary's parents, were there, along with his brother Joe. Sean has such a mixed family, whereas mine was always just DiMarzos...there was just a certain flavor about our family get-togethers that I really miss.

Last night in the mall I mentioned to Sean how much I missed my mom, and he said that he really misses her too. It's so comforting to know that he knew her, the real her, like I did, and that even when I forget he'll be there to help me remember.

Backwards/Forwards

On Saturday I found a place to live after graduation! I'll be moving into a little white cape house in Meriden. I met the owner, Rachel, and looked at the house, which is great. My room is on the ground floor, definitely bigger than the one at my house. She has three dogs and one adorably fat cat. Two of the dogs are teensy lapdogs, although admirably well-behaved ones, and the third is a placid labrador that reminds me of Heather's Bailey. Their current fourth, Greg (who had the neatest room of any male I've ever met outside of Sean) is moving out in April. This piece of information became even more pertinent after yesterday's events, when I tentatively agreed to sell my house--the potential buyers want to close by April 30th if everything works out. My fingers are crossed, I know real estate deals are never sure until everything's been signed and sealed. Apparently they're first-time homebuyers, currently renting somewhere in Windsor. I'm happy to think of my home becoming someone else's first home.

Sean reminded me yesterday that tomorrow it will have been six months since my mom died. Six months, and the world's still turning. Meanwhile, this Saturday, the day my sister incidentally flies to Aruba for vacation, would have been Captain Donut's 57th birthday. And of course, April 15th, the day of our Phi Beta Kappa induction, will be his seventh anniversary. My parents got a shout-out in my bio for the ceremony. The least I could do.

Amusing recently: Sean and I contemplating what would happen if people could meet the younger versions of themselves, and laughing imagining little Mrs. D. speaking of her enemies: 'What do you mean we haven't danced on their graves? What do youMEAN we went first?!". And little JTD: "Hm, so you say all those Table Talk pies were a bad idea? What about our nightly Haagen-Daz?...Ah...I see." Hahaha. If only they were around to see the way we make fun of them.

It's a beautiful day outside. Perhaps spring has come.

Revisited

So I had originally started posting my diary entries from our Greece trip onto this blog, but I decided to delete them. I am way too lazy to transcribe the thirty-or-so pages I've got written down, and honestly, twenty years from now, what's more likely to have survived--pixelated text swimming out there in the ether, or the hard-bound journal that will shortly find a home in a storage container? I ask you.

Anyway, Greece was fantabulous, driving around was a blast, Sean and I didn't kill each other, and seeing the Parthenon was much like seeing the Colosseum--bigger than it looks in pictures, but somehow anti-climactic. Climbing around Mystras was much more exciting, even if it lacked the cache of visiting the Acropolis.

I just spoke with Rachel,a 24-year-old who owns her own house in Hamden and is looking for a roommate. Her email said the rent is $750 with all utilities, including cable and internet in the bedrooms. She has a fenced backyard with a pool, plus a finished basement with a built-in bar and a big-screen tv. All this sounds amazing, and she even said she was willing to wait till May for someone to move in if she clicked with them. Originally, though, I thought it was just her in the house, which does in retrospect seem ludicrous considering the price of the rent. As it turns out, she shares with three other people, and I would be replacing the lone male who is moving out. The house is four bedrooms, and I would have one on the ground floor. There's apparently a full bathroom on each floor.

So we chatted, and I said I would drive up this weekend to check out the house and meet her roommates. Part of me wishes I could just be moving into a place with only one other roommate--fewer toes to worry about stepping on. At the same time, though, this house does sound like an incredible deal, and if they're nice, it could be a great opportunity. Rachel manages one of her father's insurance-business offices, another girl is in a master's program, and the third is a waitress. Rachel also mentioned she loves movies and isn't a huge party person, so that's encouraging. The last thing I'd want to do is move into Animal House.

However, I've gotten some other messages from Rent.com, including another woman with an apartment in Hamden, and the girl from Minnesota who's flying out here to look for apartments in April--we agreed to meet up if neither of us has found a roommate or apartment by then. So we'll see how it all goes.

Hm

Blogger Dashboard has informed me that one of my blogs, 'veritas,' has been moved over to new Blogger--that's cool, except I never had any such blog, I can't find it by searching, and when I try signing into New Blogger it says it can't let me yet because this blog is too big. Wtf.

Sara just left on the train a little while ago, back to the W.H. for her spring break. So much fun having her around. I love my Fairfield peeps (yes, I am legit using the word), but four years of college...it gets a little old after a while. Sara and her roommate Jen bought tickets to Europe for their 42-day monster excursion, which starts the week after we graduate. I am jeloso, indeed.

But on the plus side I'm going to Greece in four days. Hah. I still can't believe that we're going to drive around the Peloponnese, just the two of us in our little Hyundai Accent that cost a ridiculous amount of money to get the automatic version of. Greece has the highest rate of car accidents of any country in the EU--whoot! We're still debating over who gets to drive where, because he thinks I drive too cautiously and I think he drives like a crazy person.

And now for our itinerary, because ten years from now I probably will have forgotten where we went if I don't have copious amounts of photographic and written evidence (as we know, this blog serves as my alternate-memory source, replacing the faulty parts bestowed upon me by Nature):

Friday: we land in Athens, pick up the rental car, and drive about 90 miles to Nafplio, a cute port town in the Peloponnese. Crash from sheer exhaustion.

Saturday: Visit Mycenae and Epidavros, both nearby.

Sunday: Pack up and drive down to Sparta, except we're not going to Sparta because it's lame (being "spartan," they failed to decorate in a way that would actually survive the millenia). We're going to Mystras, an abandoned Byzantine city on a hilltop near Sparta. It's going to be supercool unless it rains, and then it will be supercrappy. After this, we drive north to the little village of Dimitsana, where I hope to God we actually have reservations, because I had to call and talk with someone who didn't speak English, and as you might guess my Lonely Planet phrasebook Greek is not all it should be. They certainly don't have my name right, because I kept repeating "Michelle" and she kept saying back something else. So we'll see how that goes.

Monday: Visit the famous water museum that is the reason we're staying in Dimitsana on Dr. Schwab's advice. After that, we're driving west to hit up the Temple at Vasses, which is apparently one of the most complete Greek temples left around, so complete they built a giant tent around it to protect it from the elements. Finish in Olympia on the coast.

Tuesday: Check out Olympia, then drive up and cross the water at Patra to get back on the Greek mainland and to get to Delphi.

Wednesday: Poke around the Delphic oracle, treasury etc etc, then head towards Athens, possibly visiting Marathon, and drop off the car.

Thursday: visit the Acropolis so that when we meet up with Dr. Schwab for dinner we'll actually have stuff to talk about.

Friday: I hear they have ducks in the National Gardens.

Saturday: Departure, alas--we get back to JFK at 9:30 at night, and Mike, Meredith and Sarah get back from their Mexican cruise at 9:50, so we may be traveling back together, which would be one big jet-lagged bucket of funness!

So as you can tell, I am both excited and well-organized. We're talking Excel spreadsheets, people. And yes, I am an early packer, having already done a dry run to ensure that I can get everything I need for eight days into a carry-on suitcase (no checked luggage for me, bitches!). Everyone makes fun of me for this, but hey, screw you guys.

Randomly, I did make a will before I went to Italy, just in case I sort of died there, which I knew to be unlikely but I wanted to be prepared for contingencies. It was a valid will at the time because I signed it in the presence of three witnesses (Sara, Heather and Rae, naturally). Ironically I left everything to my mother, so not only is that moot, but also since I now actually have assets (read: her assets) a homemade will doesn't cut the mustard. In the absence of one Jen would get everything *gasp* Talk about unfairness. :-)

NYC

I spent a few days in New York this past week to see Heather and attend a day of the 2007 College Art Association conference, the annual meeting of all the art history professors and graduate students. It was held at the super-fine Hilton in midtown Manhattan, and I went the day after the snow had left incredible amounts of slush and mud all over the city's sidewalks, which meant I had to wear crappy sneakers on the subway and in the streets, only to change into my heels inside the building. Which was fine, until I had to wait around in the main concourse for Dr. Escobar before we went to lunch; having already put the ugly shoes on, I got quite a few looks of "oh, dear" pity from the well-heeled attendees. Nothing like a little soujourn in New York among the Carrie Bradshaws to make you feel completely rustic and unsophisticated.

Dr. E had recommended I go to the conference just to see what the field is like, to view "the madhouse," which was by no means an exaggeration. He estimated about 3,000 people attend every year. It was definitely eye-opening--in more ways than one, at $150 for a single-day ticket! At least I didn't stand out when I was actually wearing the right shoes. I talked to a few people who assumed I was a grad student, including one very nervous girl who was interviewing for a job teaching painting at some college and who thought I was an interviewee as well (Dr. Escobar later observed that she ws probably thrilled to hear I wasn't competition).

I was most nervous about going out to lunch with the members of the panel on Phillip IV that Dr. Escobar was going to be chairing in the afternoon. It was strange to see him there; he's on sabbatical and will never be my professor again, so there was less of a teacher-student thing going on. Before the conference he had given me his cell phone number in case I got lost, and while we walked to the restaurant, a Spanish place called Tintol, he told me that the reason he had warned me not to give the number out wasn't that he was worried about crazy college kids pranking him, but that he didn't want the other members of the department knowing he had a cell phone. Apparently he's kept its very existence a secret, which seems almost impossible in this day of constant connectivity.

Lunch was good. When you go to a tapas restaurant with a bunch of Spanish history, art and literature scholars, you can rely on them ordering up some good stuff. I had lamb meatballs, real tortillas made out of potato and egg,and croquetas, which are like a spicy fish stick without fish. The two eminent scholars who were joining us, Jonathan Brown and John Elliott, arrived late, and being older gentlemen were fairly quiet. The other members of the panel were all female, as well as Dr. Escobar's co-chair Amanda--who I realized was the friend he had mentioned as being a historian who focused on costume when we were in our Mannerism seminar. The youngest woman was from Puerto Rico and didn't yet have her doctorate; she's studying at the IFA under Jonathan Brown. Another woman was from Bilbao and moved to Dublin fifteen years ago, so she had a really interesting accent.

The Phillip IV panel was very interesting, since the four papers presented covered a range of topics, not just contained to the art itself, but also exploring Spanish Golden Age theater and the role of Phillip's wife Isabella as a patron. After the panelists finished, Brown and Elliott discussed the joint project for which they both received wide acclaim 25 years ago, "The Buen Retiro: A Palace for a King." Luckily I had read the first few chapters of this book before the conference, so I wasn't in the dark.

I could have stayed for another evening panel and crashed the grad student reception, but I'd been up since 6:30 in the morning, so I said goodbye to Dr. Escobar, who I won't see again till graduation, and peaced out back to Brooklyn and Heather's comfy apartment.

And then we went to have fondue with two of her friends from Paris! My time with Heather is always so lively. I'm still not quite sure if going to the conference was worth the $150 bucks, but I got to spend a couple of days with Flanny, so it's all good.

Sad

I got a thick envelope from my aunt's attorney this afternoon regarding the sale of my grandfather's house. Apparently my aunt Janice accepted an offer for the house on Thursday from a neighbor--the address said Neponset St, which is right next to East Cross. I was really surprised and moreover, sad that no one called me to tell me that the house had been sold. The cover letter of the package wasn't even addressed to me, it was just copies of correspondence between the lawyer and realtor. I had to go through and find the contract to find out exactly what as going on. The lawyer assumed, probably, that someone would have let me know in advance.

It was sad enough knowing his house had already been emptied, that I would never get to see it the way I remembered it from my childhood. Now, depending on how quickly the new owner takes possession, I may never see the inside of it again at all. Somehow I guess I had thought the house would take longer to sell, maybe until Easter when I could go up there, or even summer. I wish my own house would sell so quickly.

Everything in the estate splits among the three families: Donna, Janice, and in the absence of my father, the final third gets split between me and Jen. So, since the house sold for $325,000, that means Jen and I each get about $54,000. I don't even know how I feel about all this money business. I guess I think more calmly think about what I inherited from my mom, because I'm her daughter and that's what children do, inherit when the parent dies, but with my grandpa it's weird--my dad should have been there to inherit his money, or even my mother, but they both went before him, something I knew he never saw coming. Is it strange to say that I feel a greater emptiness from that inheritance, even though I feel the greater pain from my mom's death?

Now that I think about it, according to the terms of his will (which dated from 1987, way to update the legal documents, Pops) if he had died before my mom did, she wouldn't have actually inherited anything. It would have gone right to us. I wonder how that would have worked out? Would I have given her control of the money to put into an investment account? Would she have automatically assumed she would have control? I know my sister would have probably relied on her to figure out what to do, but what about me?

With my mom, these things are never clear. Sean and I like to joke about what she would have done in one situation or another, but in reality it's hard to pin her down. There was definitely a sense of autocracy there, the old "you do this because I said so" attitude. Sean finds all my memories of her ruling with the iron grip hilarious. For example, he's always amused by the story of this frequent occurrence in our household when I was a kid and my mom was cooking:

Me: What's for dinner?
Mom: Food.

I miss her.

One Month and Two Days and Counting...

...until Sean and I leave for Greece! Whoot!

Money Matters

Today was an accounting/bill-paying day, exactly the sort that gets me completely depressed and wanting nothing more than to run away to some tropical island where there's no such thing as a cell phone and gas heat. Among my lovely obligations: a bill for $2,000 to the Probate Office in Windsor, one for $350 for engraving my mom's name on her tombstone, a $70 AT&T bill,a $139 Verizon bill (two months' in one, as somehow I didn't receive my e-bill last month), a gas bill for $190 and $46 for the privilege of being elected into the Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society. Good Lord.

Let's Try Zen

Wednesday night Sean and I made our first foray into Buddhist meditation at a Zen center in New Haven, housed on the second floor of a charming old-fashioned house near the hockey rink. The school is a part of the Korean Buddhist tradition (I'm learning in seminar just how different Buddhism can become as it moves among geographic regions in Asia) and its founding teacher, a monk, lives in Rhode Island but travels about to the various centers so that he can speak with people looking for guidance.

I was quite nervous when we arrived, because it seemed suddenly very foreign and uncertain. There was only one woman there, an older, gray-haired woman named Mary, who was very pleasant. She took us into the teacher's room--which definitely had the air of being inhabited only rarely, and then by an ascetic--and we settled onto some cushions for a general introduction to Budhhist meditative practices.

When meditating, you sit on a small round or rectangular pillow that is placed on top of a larger cushion. You can sit cross-legged, as I did, or with your legs tucked under your as you sit on a pillow or a small stool. You can sit in a chair, too, if you want--it doesn't seem to matter exactly how you sit as long as you sit.

A certain kind of body alignment is also advised: back straight, but not rigid; head up, earlobes centered over the shoulders; hands in the lap, palms upward, left over right (the right hand is considered to be the more "discursive" material hand and is therefore being silenced by the left, which doesn't really apply in the case of a lefty like me, I should think) and the thumbs meeting about an inch below the belly button. A feature of Korean Buddhism is that its adherents keep the eyes open, cast down on the floor in front of them, rather than shutting them.

After the physical orientation came the mental. Mary advised us either to count our breaths up to ten, starting with one again any time we found ourselves distracted, or to use a mantra. As you breathe in, in your mind you say "Clear mind, clear mind, clear mind," and as you exhale it's "Don't know." Every time you find yourself drifting, which she assured us we would very often, you have to bring yourself back. I was interested to learn that meditation doesn't involve blocking out the sounds that are going on around you, but rather welcoming them; Mary said that when she meditates, she listens to the sounds outside the room, then the sounds inside the room, and then the sounds directly around her as a way to focus.

So after we've been sitting with Mary for about forty-five minutes, we put on robes of pale gray and go with her into the meditation room, where the rest of the people who have come for the evening have already been chanting for a while. The room is completely different from the rest of the apartment, obviously redone with light, highly polished wooden floorboards and columns. A gold statue of the Buddha, to whom you must bow as you enter and exit this room, stands on a pedestal at one end. On the floor in front of it are a circle of cushions with pillows. Sean and I sit down and try to make ourselves comfortable, one of the others knocks a wooden bell, and for the next half-hour we're in silent meditation.

When I say silent, I mean silent. You could hear every tick of the clock, every person swallowing, breathing, and making other bodily rumbles, every rustle of fabric. Er, well, I was actually the only person rustling. Mary had told us if we got really uncomfortable to get up and stand for a while, but I was too embarassed to do so even after my left leg completely fell asleep. It hurt like a bitch. Up until that point, I was doing fairly well, despite having chosen the seat facing the window, so that the movements of the people in the window right next door kept attracting my eye, despite my attempts to keep it focused on the floorboards. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, but I was sure it wasn't longer than fifteen minutes--then the bell was struck again. A half hour had actually passed. Sean's legs had been so uncomfortable that he actually had a little trouble standing at first (at least he didn't rustle in vain to relieve the discomfort!). After 30 minutes of sitting meditation, there's a short period of walking meditation, during which time Mary drew us into the kitchen, as she had only indicated we should stay a half hour our first time.

Meditation is really, really difficult, both physically and mentally. Mary advised us to try only about five minutes a day at home, to get your body used to the idea of it. She also stressed that regularly joining a community is important, because sometimes you don't make room in your daily life for extended meditation. Joining is free; you can leave donations if you want to. When we left, I was immediately resolved to come back the next week; Sean a little more hesitant, but he promised to try it at least once more.

The past few days I've done little five-minute sits in the morning. I need to try out more positions and find one I can comfortably maintain for more than fifteen minutes. It makes me feel good, though, and I want to keep going. Fingers crossed that I won't rustle so much next time.

Sigh

The couple who looked at our house left me a voicemail this morning to let me know they decided not to put in an offer for it; the wife said she decided it was too much to take on a new house when their daughter will be going to college soon. I can't pretend I'm not disappointed--it would have been such a relief to be able to sell the house so quickly--but it really was almost too much to hope for that they would take it off my hands right away. However, I'm glad I signed up with the realtor, rather than waiting and hoping on these people. Also, I'm a little relieved that I won't have to handle the deal myself when it does happen, even if I do have to pay the realtor a commission.

It's ironic--now, when I'm close to selling the house, as has been my objective from day one, I feel rather wistful about the prospect of keeping it.

Signorelli, Lorenzetti et al--

What is this sudden distinction between "New Blogger" and "Old Blogger" one is now forced to make when logging in? Apparently it's meant to make anyone who hasn't switched over the the 'new' version feel like they're sorely missing out...but I like the simple format blogger has. I'm not really interested in dressing up my posts with any fancy-pants-ness, anyway.

Today marked not only my first day of classes, but also my return to working in the slide library after a whole year's absence between Florence and then being Dr. Escobar's nominal research assistant. Filing the 15th and 16th century slides was particularly depressing, since a year ago I could have been standing in the Brancacci Chapel, or in front of Donatello's David instead of squinting at it on a scrap of plastic. I could have wandered into San Marco or the Accademia on my way home this afternoon, instead of fighting the wind up past the townhouses--dull, dreary, homogenous things! But, as I often chide my roommate, dwelling on past glories doesn't help any; it just makes the present seem that much less livable.

Sean remarked a while back that this is our first spring semester spent jointly at Fairfield since we've been dating: sophomore year he was at UMASS, and last year I was gone. Now that we've been triumphantly reunited in the January deep-freeze, we celebrated by entertaining Popham with a grade-A faux-squabble in the cafeteria--he compared me to me a buffalo, I destroyed his new paper airplane, and it all ended in detente when I had the salt shaker raised and he the pepper. Hahaha. Love is grand.