THE LIVING ROOM OF ASSUMPTIONS: A DESCRIPTION
You may think you understand my living room in a single
glance: an oriental rug, brown fake leather sofa and loveseat, mismatched
lamps, an antique trunk doubling as a coffee table, covered in books and
notebooks, and all of this overwhelmed by six, tall and brimming full, dark
wood bookcases, the space between the shelves and the ceiling made narrower by
stacks of oversized books. Rarely does a visitor come within a foot or two of
the shelves. They choose instead to look away, perhaps stating, “You like to
read, huh.” I count on this. Hidden there, for all to see, is everything.
As required for a library-themed room, there is a
milk-colored bust. Only it is not Beethoven or David. It is a phrenology bust
from the Victorian science that mapped the oddities of the skull to divine
personality traits. Ha. There is a small, pre-Columbian bowl, colored by human
blood and stolen from Costa Rica, if the man who lovingly gifted it to my
mother was to be believed. A massive, antique brass bowl hovers on top of the
book cases. It was my Uncle Vic’s, a charming rogue who only a small child (and
a foolish aunt, for a short time) could love, specializing as he did in
gambling, racing and baking lemon meringue pies. He died of a heart attack when
the IRS was literally knocking at his door, thereby avoiding their displeasure
and a possible prison sentence. I believe I was his only mourner.
Disappearing between tall books is a piece of World War I
trench art made from a 75mm shell casing with the words ‘Argonne, 1918’ an
eagle and stars punched into the reshaped casing. I’m adverse to touching it
but like it even less when others do. The pain, boredom and violence of war,
along with the time-consuming and painstaking persistence in creating the art
is all there, compressed into one tall piece of brass.
A reproduction of a medieval painting shows a monk writing
while the Virgin Mary holds Jesus in the heavens. Of more interest to me is
bottom of the painting where a small dog yaps at Titivillus, the patron demon
of letterers and printers. His job is to collect misspellings and take them to
hell to be weighted against the offender’s soul. Next to this is a full helmet,
rusted, missing bits of its chain mail, but purported to be from the 1340s. Its
story is that at the end of World War II, Germany museums determined to sell half
of all their collections in order to rebuild. This is believed to be one of
those pieces sold to a US collector, and was purchased for me in an estate
sale. The 12th century reproduction nasal helmet next to it is relatively
new, being made a few decades ago for students to try on during school
demonstrations.
Inspection of a basket high on a shelf reveals the head and
neck of a chocolate Easter bunny, a half-year old but still flaunting a yellow
ribbon and scary sugar eyes, in a plastic sandwich bag. It shares space with random
pencils, felt-tipped calligraphy pens and a check register holding some cash in
case of the zombie apocalypse or, far more likely, an emergency order with
Scholastic books. (They still haven’t cashed a check I wrote before the Easter
bunny was just a gleam in a pot of melted chocolate.) Honestly, a flashlight, a
sword and a spare pair of glasses are the sum of my crisis readiness here
although an axe, 12 packages of emergency food and bottled water are stored in
another room because no matter where I move, I land in earthquake country.
A jewelry box, surrounded by medicine boxes from the early
20th century, holds things of my father: his memorial folder, a
business card, his Navy ring. A letter. Above that is an honest-to-God, small
academy award. It is surprising how no one notices it with its shiny, iconic
shape in the midst of the historical pieces. Then there are the books that mask
all else, they themselves silently holding hope and history, shame and
chivalry. Gothic Art and Beowulf share space with Uppity Women of the Middle Ages and 1066 and All That (a collection of bad
student essays on the Norman conquest). An entire section on disease in history
has Born on a Rotten Day (a humorous
look at the dark side of astrology) stuck in the middle, just to lighten the
mood. Works on religion and fairy tales bookend each other. Books on
what-to-write, how-to-write, how-to-sell-what-you-write, and
why-in-the-hell-are-you-writing sit bravely upon the tomes on death, funerals
and famous last words.
Small children are permitted into the house despite the fact
that the shelves hold titles such as The
Hellfire Club, The Evolution of
Desire, and Your Duties as an Estate
Trustee, simply because no one looks. Most of the fiction sits in another
room, but books signed by authors such as Anne McCaffrey, Robert Heinlein and several
lesser-known authors stay in this room. The Heinlein is by far the most
valuable, but it is the Medieval Calligraphy
book signed by Marc Drogin that always causes me to smile. The poor man had long
retired when I hunted him down for a magazine interview, resulting in a
frenzied round of book signings for those who had long admired his lettering
and scholarship.
Still, some things are visibly not as-all-others. There are
no photographs. The TV is small, sits on a seventh bookcase, and no seat has a
direct view of the screen. DVDs are stripped of their cases, alphabetized and
stored in boxes. The clock can be heard but is only seen from one seat. The
room is a work room and wasn’t meant for entertaining, but perhaps this does
meet your expectations, after all.
WORDS ON AN AGING CAR
I tell you it was love at first sight. It was twilight on a
mild fall day and a group of us had gone out for dinner. There he was, sitting
in the parking lot: a black, shiny PT Cruiser, the first one I’d seen. Was he a
kit car? I wondered. His build was reminiscent of the 1930s and he was
gorgeous. But I didn’t buy one. You see, I’m of the “buy a used car and drive
it until it is dead” school, and I had a perfectly good car. In 2007, that car
died an untimely death due to sodium poisoning. Sadly, salt had been sucked
into the engine on the salt flats (say that three times fast) when the air
intake cover broke.
When I was car shopping, a black PT Cruiser was there but I
avoided him. He wasn’t sensible for snow country. After depression began
creeping in over the other choices, I asked to test drive the PT Cruiser. It
wasn’t a commitment. It was just a test drive. I was so far gone in love that I
didn’t even notice for the first 45 miles (after I bought him) that he didn’t
have cruise control, one of my few requirements.
We are celebrating our ninth anniversary this month. He’s
greying now – the cost of commuting in the snow and road salt getting under his
clear coat, resulting in a stubble of white bumps. I maintain that they give
him character. He was wrecked once (and no, I wasn’t driving). The insurance
company wanted to total him but I refused to sign the “do not resuscitate”
order. The repairs resulted in a few quirks. He’s squeaky and one door closes
oddly, but there was another consequence I didn’t learn for a few years.
I was commuting with my friend, Marsha, and we also drove an
elderly lady with dementia into the city to adult day care. Now, Betty was
always cold so I kept a blanket in the car for her. And crackers – Betty was
usually hungry. One winter commute home, Marsha and I were talking when Betty
begins yelling “Cold! Cold! Cold!” I look back to make sure she is wrapped up
when I notice the side panel window is precariously tilted out. I stop. We give
Betty a few crackers to distract her, and Marsha and I try to get the window
back in place, without success (all but one of the valiant screws had been
sheered off in the accident). Finally, we use the only tape-like substance on
hand. So, there we were, on the side of the freeway, taping the window into
place with a mass of band-aids, to the puzzlement of other drivers. We were all
cold but Betty was the only one announcing it because Marsha and I were
laughing so hard that we could barely stand upright, let alone speak. Yes, I
have had some good times in my lovely PT Cruiser* and I sincerely hope we have
some good years left.
*I don’t name my cars. I reserve naming protocols for things
like the cat’s favorite mouse toy, who’s name is Sally.
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