mi casa es su casa

this fine, fine thriving garden of mold was my latest discovery, found just yesterday morning. that is our bed, that bit of laminate gorgeousness to the left. so we've been sleeping just inches away from an abundant patch of biological wondrousness. i was kind of relieved in the background of being completely freaked out, because i've been obsessed about the musty-ass smell that dominates one corner of the bedroom. i've washed the bedding repeatedly and i air out the room all day long despite rather cool temperatures outside. at one point i found scant amounts of mold under the windows in the same room, but it didn't seem to warrant such a strong stench. so now i know.


not sure if this normally happens, but when i set about cleaning this mold up, the stucco plaster that textures the wall was wiping away. kind of dissolving. so our wall, while it looks better now and seems a good deal less moldy, is sort of covered in a bizarre paste of plaster, mold and laundry detergent solution.


we are locked into this apartment until next october, but T is pretty wigged out by my mold discovery (in addition to our leaky sink, a broken toilet, and a bathroom ceiling that is determined to collapse in on us) and wants to ditch our deposit (about $900 USD) and get a new place. oh yes, and our rat visitor, who has since been murdered, can't forget him. 


i'm not sure what to think. i'm feeling a little better now that i've located the nasty ass mold patch and can keep an eye on if should it choose to rebound. apartment prices are sky-high now, post-Expo, so a new place is going to cost at least $1500 USD/month. at LEAST. that's what one of our friends is paying now, after months of looking. rents in shanghai are not what they used to be. we're in a good location, just a block away from the subway line 9, which T uses to go to work. BUT, we could be doing better, as he likes to phrase it. he's worried about my lungs, as he should be, and i guess i should be concerned about that, too. and mold spores... well, they aren't any good for anyone.

refined is a 7-letter word

having two people and one bathroom sucks. as my mom - who largely subscribes to the belief that there should be a greater or equal to number of toilets to people - would say, "two butts! one toilet!" to summarize what could go wrong.

my people are potty mouths. my sister and i grew up cursing roundly whenever and wherever we felt the need - my parents pretty much set the standard there. my mom routinely refers to her children as "you assholes" and identifies certain individuals in society as being, "one of those, you know, jive-ass motherfuckers."

we also like to talk openly about daily bowel movements, what stops you up and what doesn't, why my dad is unhappy when my mom eats daikon or kimchi (watch out below!!!!), and laugh roundly about farting. oh, and there is lots and lots of fart referencing.

trevor comes from a more proper folk. bodily functions are discreet and taken into different rooms. they don't really exist in that no one discusses them, so there is no there there - the big fart cloud in the room, so to speak. so, in preparation for spending 2 weeks with my family over xmas, i stood poised and ready to see if his head was going to spin around and take off. i was slightly afraid and highly anticipatory of him meeting my closest cousin, who would routinely sit on her phone receiver and rip nasty ones in my ear mid-conversation, and talks openly about laxatives and shit nuggets.

our funniest family stories almost always involve some sort of bodily function. when i was about 10, my dad bought me the fart book for my birthday because i was notorious for falling into hysterics when anyone brought up that particular subject. or issued one forth. or even talked about forts, which my mom tried to do on one occasion, referencing an actual fort somewhere, but was unable to continue because her mindless child was rolling on the floor and shrieking.

we can't ignore what plainly smells. everyone in my family calls a spade a spade, because, well, they can smell that it's there and what's the point of pretending it's not? my mom once advised me to stay away from the corners when shopping at ross dress for less, because old ladies sneak into the corners and release tensions there. she waved her hand in front of her face and wrinkled her nose to augment the effect. "stinky! so stay away from them!" that has to make you laugh. who else's mom on the planet would first, even notice that there was a consistency with the corners in ross dress for less, and then second, pass the wisdom on to her kid like some rare gem falling from her lips? and in such a conspiratorial manner?

regardless, trevor survived the two weeks. he's even surprised and delighted me with a few bodily function references here and there. and frankly, anyone that's spent more than a handful of weeks in china has gotten seriously ill in the gastro-intestinal area, so it's not like he's never had to face the issue. (see photo above. those nasty bitches are enough to make you jump on the first plane home.) i also think he noticed that nothing makes me laugh harder or more genuinely than when a person verbally recognizes the wisdom of taro gomi: everyone poops.

the answer is, probably

"i don't need a guy to get my shit done, to get what i want out of life," writes my friend, d. "so where is a guy going to add value? i need a guy who's going to partner with me and share the work. not someone who i have to take care of in addition to myself."

d and i were chatting today, catching up as she finishes her third year at a top law school, and as i flounder in a strange city, looking for work and questioning my direction. co-habitation was a common thread for both of us when we worked together nearly three years ago, she in a solid long-term relationship that was going well, and me in an unhappy, burdensome relationship that could attribute its longevity more to the american visa complications than any actual emotion on my part. now, as she has navigated her way around the dating scene in the limited pool of her law school, summer internship locations, and now a european exchange program, and i have (bravely, or foolishly, depending on the day) resigned from an amazing and overwhelming job in shanghai and relocated back to america to a strange city in the name of love and a future, we continue to commiserate.

two independent, intelligent women, we have always seen eye-to-eye on gender roles, simultaneously incredulous at what was expected of us as women in domestic partnerships or society in general, disgusted and critical of the apparent doubling of work for women in the doubling of apartment occupancies, instead of the division of labor that you one would predict mathematically, if somewhat naively.

we have sussed out that the type of male doesn't seem to matter. metrosexual, designer grooming product-using, french cooking technique-deploying boyfriends displayed similar feints at helplessness as the sports-loving, indiscriminate beer-swilling types. arrogant or humble, well off or deeply embedded in school debt, open or emotionally stunted, the results were always the same. when chores are split, say by the common i-cook, you-clean technique, we females seemed to create more work for ourselves. after meals are cooked and consumed - during which the majority of the pots and pans would be generously washed by the cook - the rest of the dishes would be blearily found the next morning to still bear traces - or outright remnants - of the meal from the night before. re-wash the dishes, sigh with annoyance. after a handful of these episodes, inquire politely about the dish-washing technique of the household male. dish soap depletion has accelerated, so it can't be that not enough soap is used. perhaps soaping the sponge and washing each item with the water shut off instead of throwing the liquid around and creating an ineffective and wasteful foam party would work better? snip, snap, the female is "nagging." the male doesn't believe that the dishes he washes require a second go-round. produce the proof and again we are nags. so the choice now is either to continue to inquire/guide/snap/nag, or to silently fume and re-wash dishes in silence.

i, for one, am not a martyr. he will learn to wash dishes properly so help me god. wanting a cereal bowl to be clean and not encrusted with last night's rice is not unrealistic. i am not going to compensate for his laziness and therefore add to my existing workload when he is the one that can correct his behaviors like the adult he is. ok, so perhaps it doesn't help that i frequently ponder aloud if he was raised by a pack of wolves, or just a single wolf. does he open cereal boxes with his feet or hand it to the nearest tasmanian devil for assistance? how many mornings will i stumble into the kitchen for a coffee mug and come away with grape nuts embedded in the soles of both feet?

interpreting the cleanliness level of the house is also an on-going discussion. at this point in time, i am the sole house cleaner (floor sweeper and mopper, laundry washer and dryer, bed maker, toilet scrubber and disinfecter) for the reason that i am unemployed and have nothing better to do, and the household male is in law school. i tell myself that when i find work, there will need to be a schedule mapped out and more guidance on what makes a sink disgusting and what makes it clean. how often a toilet should be scrubbed and why it is important. how to sweep hardwood floors where the dirt is actually captured and disposed of, and not just stirred around. call it nagging if you want, but we will not live in the continuation of a college frat house.

in doing this, in telling myself that the division of labor will be righted again when i have my own gig going on, i am soothing the equalist in my head. i am promising to her, no i am committing that i will not perpetuate gender oppression and will continue onward with my values and ideals. but every day is a compromise. now that studying for finals is upon us, i feel like an outright servant some days. i resent it, and being me, i let it be known. to be fair, he recognizes how dependent he is on my daily work, and how much more work i do than he, and how i feel about it, and even claims to feel badly. but how long will that last, and does that guarantee that the work contributions will change?

if i do procure a great, stimulating, career-forwarding job and the household male does the same, and we then outsource the domestic duties to someone else (who will likely be both female and of color), am i failing what i've promised to myself? am i perpetuating the oppression of another woman?

sunny and 60s

feeling low this morning. or slow. often they are one and the same, or just difficult to distinguish from one another, or one begets the other. i didn't realize that there were midnight trains that ran through denver, or that they were within earshot of our apartment, but ran they did last night. noisily.

after a double-workout sunday, the exercise slate is clean today. the apartment, however, is not. trevor is ever so fond of the falling leaves of autumn, and demonstrates this by leaving bits of twigs and leaves everywhere. they fall from his cuffs when he sits on the futon, dangle from his bike tires, fall from the hoods of his jackets. it's from riding to and from school every day, but sometimes i don't wonder if he makes a pit stop on the way, leans his bike against a tree, and rolls in piles of leaves when no one is around. after a few beers, maybe.

i'm new to the fallen leaves phenomenon. i think every bay area neighborhood had a couple of trees here and there that shed leaves, but nothing like the piles that accumulate under trees, on my car, in my apartment here. at the risk of sounding grinchy, autumn is leaving a very messy impression on me. so i suppose the agenda today will consist of standing up from the futon and the endless job search (and resulting soul search) and sweeping this joint down. i'm finding bits of leaves on my bath towel, for the love of god.

sharing space

living with someone is always tricky. i've had a few roommates in my time - not many, thankfully for both them and me - and most of the time i spent at home was furiously cleaning up after them while i muttered constantly under my breath. i'm sure they were being normal people in terms of neatness and general hygiene, but i enjoy the rituals of unrealistic expectations.

i've lived with boys a few times, also. some were fine, others were less fine. i've made the discovery over the years that the more metro a guy is does not equate to a similarly high level of cleanliness at home. some dudes wear fancy clothes but are unrepentant slobs. living with trevor has been fine so far - he is pretty messy naturally, but pays a lot of attention to what pisses me off and doesn't do repeats. most of the time. it's admirable, actually. if someone told me one of my habits irritated them, i doubt i would spin a 180 that quickly, if at all.

i've always had a very specific set of notions for how things are. both my sister and my parents are bewildered at this 1950s stepford wife mentality and from where it came. some of it is an offshoot of my ultra uptight, stepford wife grandmother. others involve the fact that expensive things should be treated nicely. i have a number of textiles and home accessories that ostensibly cost an arm and a leg, even if i got them for $5. regardless, it all snowballs into an ocd-inspired set of values and procedures, my internal set of guidelines, how things are. you don't wait until the next morning to wash dinner dishes. you fold towels in thirds. you scrub your ears with soap and a washcloth every day. beds have hospital corners, not to mention you always use both types of sheet, plus a blanket, plus a comforter, when you make your bed. the flat sheet cuff is turned over the blanket and pinned in place. sheets and towels are washed every week. anything containing lycra does not go into the dryer. a meal must be accompanied by napkins. you take your shoes off when you step on the bath rug. you don't wear outside clothes on or in bed. it goes on.

as trevor has made many concessions for my sake, i've made a few of my own. hospital corners are completely unrealistic and essentially ensure that i will be kept up all night, with the possibility that trevor will earn a black eye. i don't know if he was frustrated egyptian royalty in his past life, but he has issues with tucked-in sheets and feeling bound. he now gets the flat sheet to himself to do as he pleases; often i wake up and he has fashioned a rather dashing sheet scarf that wraps around his upper section and dangles on the floor. this i do not understand. he apparently believes that comforters are 5-cornered stars, because he pulls only corners towards him, which explains why everything is sideways when i inevitably wake up at 3 am, uncovered and exceedingly irritated. i bash him on the back a few times, then straighten the comforter to proper plane vs. angle positioning. bathroom rugs are for complete fools, especially if they are light colored, or god forbid, white. the first day that my parents arrived, i unpacked a white-patterned bath rug and put it on the floor. about 30 minutes later it was trampled, embedded with leaves and twigs, and shoved into a corner. i repeated the shake-out and straighten for 14 more of these days before giving up, something i rarely do. we do not have bath rugs on the floor. they are clean and folded nicely in thirds in what i like to call the linen area.

i don't know by what miracle of fate or what odds exist, but i have found likely the single person on earth who finds these "quirks" - i.e. how things should be - endlessly amusing and not a problem. it's strange - sometimes i feel that he actually wants to learn how civilized, rigidly unbending people live. it's more puzzling to me that after receiving a few kidney punches in the middle of the night for a crime of which he is not aware, he takes to giggling before falling asleep again. anyway, i don't know but i'll take it.

when i start working, i'm sure my tone will change, since i won't have the leisure time that i do now to ponder the bath rug struggle, or the retirement of hospital corners. i'll probably resort to alternating grumbling with yelling, as i am known to do. we'll see.

our apartment

let's get down to business. despite the fact that i am not yet employed and trevor is in school, it continues to deeply bother me that we still have our tv / vcr / dvd craps on the floor, and that we are sitting on a red futon that is actually broken besides being very ugly.

yesterday i took the second step towards civilization by ordering this:





from west elm. yes, i used to work for the company that owns this brand. anyway.

i bought the one in the front - as it was the one on sale - with the idea that we will put our old 25" tube tv on it, with components to the side. it is not a media stand in any way, mostly because it is a shade too tall for the idea tv height, about which i don't give a shit. i care that it will give our electronics a home, plus i can put the cable modem and wireless router and all that other crap a place to live that is NOT a stack of old new yorkers on the floor. and have some cubbies to spare for some of my own shit, since trevor has DOMINATED the shelves in the living room with such worthless titles as, if it pleases the court, civil procedure, and administrative law. i had to bully him into a 18" space for my cookbooks and a framed photo of a japanese horse. don't ask.

i dragged trevor to the brick and mortar store yesterday to see if the 'rolling storage' is strong enough to support a heavy-ass tv, and we think it is. unfortunately, this version on sale is not available at the store, so i had to blow an additional $54 on shipping surcharges and the shipping itself. i try not to be bitter because i know for a fact that companies - concerning furniture - do not make money on shipping. they usually lose money. but shipping sure is damn expensive when you don't have a 40% discount on everything any more.

i digress.

of all of the unexplainable forces in nature, denver does not have an ikea. the entire fucking state of colorado doesn't have one .utah has a goddamned ikea and colorado does not. i really don't know where to begin on that one so i won't, but suffice to say it's an incredible bitch. say what you will about ikea, but it really is the place to go for people on an incredibly tight budget. anyway, so i have to be creative and open-minded about things. we went to this horrific store called american furniture shithole warehouse for a cheap couch and ended up fleeing in horror. trevor couldn't identify what exactly he found wrong about the place, just that it was filled with ugly and scary things: "why is that leather couch two-toned?" "wow, they make couches in turquoise pleather?" "are those CUP HOLDERS built into a couch?" and etc. you COULD purchase a sofa for around $300, but, as i pointed out, you would then want to shoot yourself in the head every time you came home and saw it. so, we ruled out daily suicide and continue to sit on the red futon monster. it does make your ass fall asleep after an hour, but it was free and from a reliable source - thanks, fagas! - and, what's more, it was already sitting in the living room when i arrived.

on a random note, when i first arrived here in d-town and started shopping around for home decor ideas - as i will do even though i have no job - i discovered that west elm has knocked off the niche modern lights that i (and the rest of the world) love:





each of these babies costs about $1000, so i guess i see why, but i won't do it. i will wait until i can afford the real deal. those and one of the george nelson bubble lamps... one day.

dark room

never mind the beetlejuice reference, but my whole life is a dark room. ok not really, but i do spend an awful lot of time butt-down on our ugly red hand-me-down futon in the living room, which is damned dark as rooms go. it's a rainy saturday afternoon and i'm taking stock of my sitch. not nearly as melodramatic as it sounds, fortunately. trevor just left for the bars to meet with one of his friends who has called at least 5 times since i arrived to hang out, and whom he has turned down each time. we agreed that it was time to show his face. ideally i would have been sunshine cheerleader and cried out, 'YES! that's exactly what i want to do, babe! let me go put on my face and grease up my hair so i can sit on my can in some rank-smelling dive spending $4 per beer to pour into my inert listless body!'

predictably, i instead opted to give him the silent treatment until he tried that tres annoying tactic of cheerfully suggesting wholesome activities i could engage in while he was racking up a bar tab. oh no. i told him not to bring up yoga in all of its sacredness just to assuage his guilt. if i felt like sulking, bored out of my mind, in a dark room, listening to gen y suicide-inducing grunge tracks while cruising dog-rescue sites, i will do just that. if i want to drive myself to cherry creek mall to inhale the smell of commerce (no, not in the morning, but you already knew i was heading towards that mallrats reference), then i will do that. if i felt like going and twisting myself into a pretzel, i would do that, as well, but i sure as hell don't need captain america to suggest that shit to me. i'm alone in a strange city where i know no one but the eternally reliant person i am directing my insults towards. i will be sulky if i fucking feel like it.

thankfully, trevor is acres more cool than i am - i just make up for it by being articulate and clever, and he overlooks the bitchy part, what a good deal - and feels guilty and bad for ditching me for a bar, which fulfills my goal of making him feel shitty for abandoning my ass on a rainy saturday, while i secretly distract him from my outrageous childishness by stating all of the above out loud. cleverly, of course. (it's really funny and somewhat sad and terrible how well this tactic works to detract from your less-than-perfect personality.) anyway, i send him on his way amidst promises of text messages from bar stools while hanging out with people who wear patagonia fleece and crocs. ok, ok, the patagonia fleece is just a guess, i've never met these people, but i know about the crocs for sure, and that's worse than the fleece. they sound very nice, but i'm just not in the mood to hide the horror in my eyes when i see their outfits.

i need some friends. i need them so badly that i am too emotionally immobilized to contact the friends that i do have. what a conundrum. anyway, all my lazy bitches over there spread across a couple of continents do is read my blog for updates, anyway. it's a one-way valve, this blogisphere. alright, i guess that's not fair. i do get comments now and then. those are nice. i'll stop feeling cynical and somewhat sorry for myself. i knew what i was getting myself into.

on another note, isn't it a BITCH that knowing what kind of shit you're headed towards does absolutely nothing to temper the shittiness level? shouldn't recognition count for something? all it really does is make me look out at the pine tree next to my window and think, 'for fuck's sake! this really does suck as much as i thought it would!' i wish i could be a habitual drinker or dope smoker to sort of complete the pathetic-ness of the picture, but i never really took to either very well. free-flow at launch parties is another thing altogether. drinks go down so much more nicely when you're in heels.

trevor and i mention every once in a while (translation: daily) what we miss about china. trevor, being the fob that he is, misses not only his friends, but china itself, its language and surroundings. (i know what you're thinking - what surroundings are those?) i don't miss stupid china at all, but i miss my friends. i miss having a group of people around me full of ideas and energy who always have something interesting up their sleeves. maybe new york is different, but where i'm from and where i currently am don't have that same dynamic. there is something about being a transplant and needing to get something out of being in a foreign place. the fuel of temporariness, i suppose.

otherwise, things are going well as expected. i actually am not being as much of a brat as i was today. i've been making some damn saucy dinners, too. and yet, i don't feel like the brat description is accurate, really. it's not horrible to me that i don't feel obligated to go out and be in some stank bar in the middle of the day for the sake of getting out of the house. i really don't begrudge trevor ditching my ass (i just like the ring of the phrase) to sit in a bar with croc-wearing friends. it's just that the reality of it is that i am essentially in a city with no friends and no family. the one person i do know is great and supportive and fair and sunshiney to the point of needing a xanax, but i require more than one person on earth to keep me stimulated and happy, and more than one location, and more than one task. it's just how shit be.

halftime

kimchi ramen in an unfamiliar place restores faith in mankind. makes the scary and new a little less threatening. granted, colfax avenue's got nothing on the haight - or downtown oakland, for that matter - in terms of sketchiness, so i shouldn't be weirded. safe and benign is supposed to be good, right? is it wrong to feel reassured to see a crack ho wandering down the street? and double points if she's not white?

the apartment is working out - it's a building that was constructed in the 1920s, and some things are still original. like the kitchen sink. and the tile in the bathroom, which i actually like. i'm managed to cram my clothes into the bedroom closet plus half the hand-me-down wardobe, plus outerwear and sporting equipment in the front closet where trevor has his more modest accumulation of clothes. i bought shoe racks and a hamper at the container store. a mattress pad at bed bath + beyond. i am adjusting to being in the states, i think. slowly.

the co-habitation thing i am taking a day at a time. i think it's going well, never mind the nearly-lost house keys yesterday, and the door left open and unlocked while we were out. i have to get used to the fact that not everyone - ahem - is as obsessed with checking that the housekeys are still on their person as i am. and that the door is indeed not only closed, but locked. right? erm... right...

anyway, i've been watching more football than i've ever watched in my life, and beer has become a food group. sigh. i've only been here a week.

vermin

one of my favorite topics that i've touched on in the past posts is the gender divide; between trevor and myself, specifically. i write about it a lot because sometimes i'm incredulous about how eye-wash boys can be - as opposed to my every-single-iota detail focus, aka OCD - and other times it's just hilarious. trev roars with laughter when i start pointing out his more bizarre habits, which just makes me laugh, too. it's good he's so good natured about things, seriously, because there are a lot of habits and i am nickity pickity. and by gender divide, i am aware that i am generalizing - there are more than enough dudes who do NOT do as he does, and plenty of girls who are nothing like me. i refer more to our specific dynamic, but the 'trevor-carolyn' divide is too long to type.

so he gets the keys to our new place in the C-to-the-O tomorrow, and per our agreement based on my boxes of stuff, my particular tastes, my particular aesthetic, his particular lack of boxes, his particular disinterest, and his penchance to defer to me for the interior decor aspect of life, trev will be living without any dishes, glasses, flatware, linens, and very little furniture until i arrive in denver a month from now. he will sleep on a hand-me-down futon and watch a hand-me-down tv, but other than that the apartment will be empty. most people would find this unliveable, unbearable, sub-human, but you, ladies and gentleman, do not know trevor. in his words: "i'm like a cockroach, baby. i don't need anything to survive. i just exist."

truer words have not been spoken. an amazing talent for surviving on basically nothing, as long as he is relatively warm and there is food that is edible, this boy will survive. edible is also a negotiable term. as cyn puts it, "he can eat newspaper." he likes good food but tends to err on the side of cheap. it's of the deprive-now-for-later-benefits mentality. when i would fly up to beijing on weekends, he would frantically ask around for decent food spots from his more upper crusty friends (or i would arrive armed with places i wanted to see / experience / eat at) and he was always happy when i was happy. and now, the philosophy is much of the same - save money as much as possible until carolyn arrives with stuff and opinions. it sounds one-sided, i know, but if you know me and you know him... it makes sense. one of the things we like about one another is that we can do street stalls of ghetto dirty chinese, or martinis and steaks. he likes that i seek out nicer things and prettier, cooler spaces, but that i enjoy cheap hotpot or 2 am egg pancakes in front of parking lots. i like that he strikes a balance in me, lest i get too fancy or too wrapped up in materiality as i have the capacity for.

should i have saved this post for valentine's day?

muggy

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=04b9e97c4ed5ef60&ex=1213502400

just finished this article in the ny times magazine. been interested in the media coverage on gay and lesbian marriage dynamics since the very very recent ruling on gay marriage in killa-cali. experts believe that same-sex marriages make good role models for hetero marriages (mixed-sex marriages?) whose members are concerned with equal roles in the house. this particular article is about equally shared parenting. have a read, it's worth it.

guess this has been top of mind because i'm coming up on a move-in with the bf in a few months. i know from past roommate experiences that i'm super partics about things, and trev is, well, trev. he thinks water coolers are great for hanging your coat on, and doesn't bother to check which toothbrush he happens to be using. a toothbrush is a toothbrush, and it's located near him, so he'll use that shit. when we first started dating, he tried sitting on my bed with his jeans on. uh uh. he learned about that one real quick.

most people reading this who know the extent of my OCD about cleanliness and hygiene are shaking their heads. no way, girl, you trippin if you think this relationship is going to last through co-habitation. but in imagining my future apartment strewn with law books and coffee cups and holey socks, feel like things might be alright. trevor, being a big picture kind of guy, is pretty concerned about how i like things done. he learned the no-outside-clothes-in-bed rule with a rapidness that impressed even my mom (who's been struggling with that one for over 35 years). we've had successful tutelages on his weekend shaving kit - aka plastic grocery bag - and where his items go on the bathroom counter once the trevor tornado hits the placid peaceful calm of carolynville. trevor is much less stubborn than me and my kind. it's a good thing - a somewhat foreign thing - but good nonetheless. we thinks we might be able to work with this material.