Sunglasses & Architecture
I'm on a poetry blog in Canada today!
Katherine, the founder, producer, curator, etc. of How Pedestrian (the afore-linked Canadian blog) had the dubious honor of getting to live with me in my quasi-squat (I should name it--the home--"it"--easier than quasqua--) for the first ten days of April, since we had brought her down here to contribute her massive poetry skills to O, Miami. And then, she needed a place to live, and it--the house I live in--has all kinds of bedrooms. I just had to do some basic up-sprucings, like borrowing a mattress from a friend, purchasing sheets for said mattress, pillows, replacing the broken toilet seat, buying a couple garbage cans (for the kitchen and bathroom) buying a hot plate (which didn't get there till halfway through her stay, alas); you know, generally scrambling to get it--the place--to a level that's livable for humans not quite as self-negligent as myself.
She was a super patient guest, and really understanding, and happy to be in Miami (she's from Toronto). So, thankfully, it worked out.
I eventually had three visiting poets/artists living in its three bedrooms (I drove around town in my rental SUV borrowing mattresses from two other friends (one of them was actually a former futon of my own that I sold over the summer for a six-pack of Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA (how I've grown...)). I slept on the floor (on a yoga mat on a Thermarest lightweight camping mattress (the one that's been bloodstained with my noseblood since Temagami in, what was that, 1996?)) in the main room. Like a guard dog ("actually, all was not well, what was I doing there at one o'clock in the morning?"). Kind of awesome (since I'd been sleeping on said mat/tress combo in the main room since January anyways, it wasn't really a change for me).
It was really great living in a house with several other awesome creative humans. I miss having roommates.
Now I'm back to being in it--quasqua--by myself. And still sleeping on the mat/tress in the main room. I slept on one of the borrowed mattresses for a few days, but had to return it (and one of the others as well). There's still the DFH mattress in one of the bedrooms, but in that same bedroom there was also a drip bucket that was in place to collect the water from the hole in the ceiling (leak in the roof), and some pesky mosquito decided to lay eggs in it while I wasn't paying attention, so that wing of the house is overrun with bloodstrawmouth bugs right now. Which I'm unwilling to go in and actively kill (I killed one, but it just felt so futile, given how many insects were clouding me for the few minutes that I attempted to lay on the DFH mattress (which, incidentally, is the futon that I brought all the way to Miami from Boston (with a layover in Pittsburgh), which makes it also half-Zac's, who also probably would have appreciated that I sold it for a six pack of beer)), so I'm guessing that if I leave the room alone for a few more days, the mosquitos, with nothing to drink, bloodwise, will fail to live much longer. But, by then, I'll have to return the futon.
Boy, have I got work to do today that this is helping me avoid! hOmestretch, Miami!
Katherine, the founder, producer, curator, etc. of How Pedestrian (the afore-linked Canadian blog) had the dubious honor of getting to live with me in my quasi-squat (I should name it--the home--"it"--easier than quasqua--) for the first ten days of April, since we had brought her down here to contribute her massive poetry skills to O, Miami. And then, she needed a place to live, and it--the house I live in--has all kinds of bedrooms. I just had to do some basic up-sprucings, like borrowing a mattress from a friend, purchasing sheets for said mattress, pillows, replacing the broken toilet seat, buying a couple garbage cans (for the kitchen and bathroom) buying a hot plate (which didn't get there till halfway through her stay, alas); you know, generally scrambling to get it--the place--to a level that's livable for humans not quite as self-negligent as myself.
She was a super patient guest, and really understanding, and happy to be in Miami (she's from Toronto). So, thankfully, it worked out.
I eventually had three visiting poets/artists living in its three bedrooms (I drove around town in my rental SUV borrowing mattresses from two other friends (one of them was actually a former futon of my own that I sold over the summer for a six-pack of Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA (how I've grown...)). I slept on the floor (on a yoga mat on a Thermarest lightweight camping mattress (the one that's been bloodstained with my noseblood since Temagami in, what was that, 1996?)) in the main room. Like a guard dog ("actually, all was not well, what was I doing there at one o'clock in the morning?"). Kind of awesome (since I'd been sleeping on said mat/tress combo in the main room since January anyways, it wasn't really a change for me).
It was really great living in a house with several other awesome creative humans. I miss having roommates.
Now I'm back to being in it--quasqua--by myself. And still sleeping on the mat/tress in the main room. I slept on one of the borrowed mattresses for a few days, but had to return it (and one of the others as well). There's still the DFH mattress in one of the bedrooms, but in that same bedroom there was also a drip bucket that was in place to collect the water from the hole in the ceiling (leak in the roof), and some pesky mosquito decided to lay eggs in it while I wasn't paying attention, so that wing of the house is overrun with bloodstrawmouth bugs right now. Which I'm unwilling to go in and actively kill (I killed one, but it just felt so futile, given how many insects were clouding me for the few minutes that I attempted to lay on the DFH mattress (which, incidentally, is the futon that I brought all the way to Miami from Boston (with a layover in Pittsburgh), which makes it also half-Zac's, who also probably would have appreciated that I sold it for a six pack of beer)), so I'm guessing that if I leave the room alone for a few more days, the mosquitos, with nothing to drink, bloodwise, will fail to live much longer. But, by then, I'll have to return the futon.
Boy, have I got work to do today that this is helping me avoid! hOmestretch, Miami!
1 Comments:
Very nice reading, Pete, and very nice video work by Katherine. I've enjoyed her stuff from Miami as well as some of her earlier stuff that I've watched through (I dig the Dean Young readings in the Toronto subway stations).
Your descriptions of your day-to-day Miami existence remain evocative, too, even if they sometimes make me think of what would have happened to Ratso Rizzo if he'd managed to finish that bus ride to Florida. More seriously, I feel your point about existing among creative people.
And I'll add that I, too, have my Thermarest from the Temagami trip, although it's free of noseblood and hasn't served as my primary mattress since a few days early in 2008.
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