Had a fairly productive morning, though I honestly can't tell you exactly what I worked on. But it took about four hours at the computer, so I'm pretty sure I got something done. I had planned to keep working in the afternoon, but Kevin kidnapped me and dragged me off to IKEA.
It's a scary place. The IKEA stores are just so huge these days -- I don't remember the first one we went to, in Philly, being this huge. Maybe I was bigger back then. Or maybe it was just that all we needed was a dining table, and we went in, browsed a little, found one we liked, and then left. No problems. Took it home, assembled it, and enjoyed it for the two years we lived together there. So nice.
My last IKEA experience was nowhere near as pleasant. Kevin and I went about a year ago, when he first moved here from Utah. I had driven out with him, to keep him company on the drive, and it was a fairly rocky patch in our relationship, for a couple of reasons that we don't need to go into right now. (Maybe when I'm 80. I'll still be keeping this journal, you know. They don't let you stop. If you try to stop, they let out the rats, with their beady little eyes, and their sharp sharp claws... (We watched Dark City on tv last night. Spooky.)) So it was definitely a little surreal walking into the IKEA with him, thinking that if we weren't broken up yet, we probably would be within the week (and just so you know, most of our friends at this point have completely given up on getting anxious, stressed, *or* sympathetic when we talk about breaking up -- so you probably shouldn't either. It's just one of those things). I got a little weepy. In a public place! I hate that. And then after many hours of shopping, we dragged home a whole bunch of heavy furniture, unpacked it, put it together -- and then he decided he didn't really like it after all, and he'd only bought it because I'd liked it. So we undid it all and took it back to the store. I tried to claim that was a metaphor for our relationship and got all upset again, but he wasn't buying it. It was a pretty terrible metaphor too.
Anyway, this trip was much more pleasant -- no tears, for one thing. A fair bit of snuggling on sofas and couches and beds (okay, we didn't actually snuggle on the beds -- that probably would have made people uncomfortable. But we lay sedately on them). Various mushinesses. For some reason, we've both been very affectionate lately. Is nice. And best of all, we didn't actually buy anything, so there was no hauling of heavy boxes into cars and up stairs, and no assembly required! Well, I did buy some picture frames, *much* cheaper than I would have found them at the art store or pretty much anywhere else for that matter. I have a huge one for the U Chicago collage now, and I'm going nuts waiting to really start working on it. (I need some more translucent paper from the art store; Kev's going to take me Monday. I can wait 'til Monday. Sure I can. What bloody fingernails?) And a couple more frames that I haven't quite decided what to do with yet. Possible poem contenders at the moment are:
- Fraying Edges
- Even Arthur Would Forgive
- Tragic Love Song
- Chorus
- Spinning Down
- Return Visit
- Dreams of a Lover
- Letter
- Oak Arching Above Me
- Puzzle From Hell
- Katie's Dragon
- Storytellers
(One of the nice things about these collages is that I can try a technique and *instantly* see what the effect is. It's so much harder to do that in writing; I don't even know how to properly explain the difference. On the other hand, writing doesn't require that you be able to draw.
Anyway, aside from the fact that we somehow lost about four hours of the day while inside the brightly-lit bowels of IKEA, we had a good time. Partway through we stopped to split a plate of swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce. Mmm...I think I might try to convince Kev to take me to Mellow Yellow for brunch tomorrow -- I could go for some swedish pancakes with lingonberries right now. (And a side of corned beef hash. And fresh squeezed orange juice, or maybe a mimosa. They make lovely mimosas.)
We came home, had dinner at Noodles (an eclectic Asian place -- quick, good food, pretty cheap. They just opened a new one around the block from Kevin's place in Hyde Park. This is such a prime location...sigh...). Then we watched Finding Forrester, which had some good lines but wasn't overall as good as Good Will Hunting, I think. And the villain was a pretty cardboard villain. And then we watched Voyager, which we missed on Wednesday. Can't remember why. Season finale next week! I'm actually going to miss this crew...who woulda thunk it?
Okie -- Kevin's not feeling well, so I'm going to go check on him, and then try to wind down enough to sleep. Hope y'all are having good weekends...