September 12, 2010

•      For the record, no one should ever have to routinely go through the process of carrying two boxes of packing up several flights of apartment stairs. By the second time, I was already regretting my promise to get the work done that day.
       Yes, I wasn't entirely moved in quite yet. It was up and down over and over again through a spiralling tunnel both upwards and downwards of cracked yellow paint surrounding me every painful step. And, of course, those boxes were far from light. Whatever paint had loosely managed to cling to the sides of the walls were quickly dislodged as I ended up attempting to use the walls to hold me up during my rests. Towards the fifth trip up I just tried sliding along the walls all the way up. Seeing how much more yellow the steps got each time I went back downstairs was an amusing game, though.
      Of course, I also chose to do this task when it was boiling summer. It almost made me wish I was younger again, back when I actually kept my hair short. As it was now, it ran down a little past half my back. I could only thank God it doesn't frizz all that much.
      With continual distractions like that, the work just got more and more fun to dwell upon. There was just so much stuff. I had forgotten that I had actually planned on moving in here, as in permanently. And then I had to actually unpack the boxes! I had decided to negate dwelling on that fun little fact by stacking the boxes into a corner. It was neat and technically organized that way. Yet, of course, all that would have to come out. In my rush, I hadn't bothered to question whether all of it would actually be able to fit nice and neatly in the room. I could put my socks and under garments in a drawer together, the rest of my shirts I'd likely hang, put the usual pens and such on the desk with my scissors, and then lamb for the corner, my sheets in another drawer,
      food
      plates
      general kitchen cleaning stuff
      my laptop
      my chair
      table covers
      blinds that actually matched the room
      my eraser holders
      -my thoughts were jolted from organizing as I was sort of barreling down my hall as quickly as I could before my arms decided to give out from the boxes I was holding. It took me a second to realize that it was actually singing. That is, someone was singing. "Veronica..." it immediately dawned on me, my legs quickly coming upon her room on the way to mine.
      As I was starting to pass by, I glanced in through her open door. The minefield of a mess that littered her floor made me stop; honestly, there was several rooms all uniformly littered with random clothes and miscellaneous items (at first glance, I caught a brush and a bowl of chips towards one of the sofas with her Northface jacket just happily strewn over the lamp nearby).
      Veronica herself was sort of dancing amongst all the items, ringing her hair into a towel. From the looks of it, she had just gotten out of the shower, though she didn't feel the need to make sure both her hair and body was dry seeing as she was already in her usual sweats despite her wet hair.
      I stopped and stared for too long, in part from the mess and in part from fatigue. Regardless, she didn't look up. She just kept up that slow dance around the items, her hips swaying beneath the lumpy sweatpants and shirt. As she was finishing up wringing the hair out, passing the dark blue towel a few times through just for good measure, her voice hit a fervored pitch before going down again softly, her eyes tracing the floor.
      "He took me to his parlor, and coo-oo-ooled me with his fan"—her voice ever so lightly fluctuated in her soft and breathy cadence—"whispered low in his mamma's ear, I luh-uhvvv that gamblin' gal..."

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