Monday, December 12, 2005

Room of the Virgins

I don’t understand my new curtains. But I am in slow-motion right now - my head is full of snot, courtesy of a sinus infection I caught by kissing the charming but infected Scorpio. There is also a virus party at Hotel Linda and the guests, from the feel of it, are frat boys.

I have time to contemplate curtains and it’s an activity that suits my current energy levels.

I’ve always longed to have one of those cool, uncluttered homes you see in decorating and architectural magazines. However, as my ex-husband put it, my own inadvertent and extremely random decorating style is, “Linda’s Curio Shop.”

I am not only a producer of curios, I am a hopeless collector. I have beautiful things: various handmade bowls (filled with stones), a fine ceramic teapot glazed in shades inspired by Monet’s paintings of his garden. My father’s landscape and flower watercolors hang on my walls, along with a vivid framed pastel of my own. I have a black & white section in my hallway – photographs of dancers mostly, from the time when I worked at a dance school. My dining “area” is full of huge plants - and nothing else except stones.

And then there’s the six inch stack of brightly dyed popsicle sticks, tied in flats, which raised a siren call when I walked by them in the dollar store. A rubber Energizer bunny flashlight rests on one end of my bathroom towel rack. I’m addicted to pine and wicker and the kinds of bright, saturated colors manufacturers recognize as beloved by small children. I display blue dollar store bottles and cheap paper fans with the same respect as I do the more exclusive (and possibly more tasteful) things I own. I am utterly democratic when it comes to evaluating the beauty and worth of stuff.

Back to the curtains. The blue-grey ones faded in their middles to a pink-mauve and the other day, I yanked them down. I bought paper-thin, white, gauzy cotton replacements and hung them. I opened the windows and watched them waft. I studied the view outside my window through them.

The next day, I bought two more for the kitchen window and two to hang in the door of my workroom. I needed more wafting white, it seems.

And in a sop to the season, a kind of truce between me and Christmas, I binged at the dollar store. Now, between the white curtains, there are five largish, muted silver and gold Christmas tree balls, hanging in a row at the top center of the window. Above them, I’ve taped and pinned a small arch of white, fabric poinsettias with deep green leaves. I’ve hung smaller silver balls on my umbrella leaf philodendron. No red. Red is banished. We are having an ungaudy moment here.

The room changes utterly with the curtains, especially when it begins to snow. White curtains, white snow, white flowers. And when I look down the hallway at the curtains in my workroom door, I decide that I’ll say to anyone who asks, Oh. That? That’s where we keep the virgins.

Don’t ask me, Lucas. I have NO idea where that came from.

8 comments:

Cate said...

Are you really going to tell the Scorpio that you have a room full of virgins? Don't tell him too quickly if he wants to know why... make him coax it out of you. Now that sounds like more fun than a room full of virgins. Oooppp, did I say that out loud?

LJ said...

Fortunately, the Scorpio is in that rare category of men who like women his own age. So the virgins, even the imaginary ones, are quite safe.

Robert Lukow said...

Well, I think you're making some real headway with your Christmas (and embedded sub-)issues. And doing so with a certain flair, if I may say so.

Room full of virgins? Doing a little subconscious incorporating there? Yeah! I love subconscious incorporating! (Even conscious incorporating works at times!)Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow. Perhaps it's all part of the great collective unconscious? We connect like points of light.

I realized as I began writing this that you have at least one earlier post on curtains, a while back (but I can't go take a look now, otherwise I lose this and don't want to start over). Curtains. Windows. I love windows--all kinds of windows (and not just the ones of glass).

Teri said...

Sounds right purty, Miss Linda! Sorry to hear about your cold. :(

LJ said...

And you know what? Contemplating wafting curtains (which I wrote before checking Jumper's Hole)is not that different from contemplating a dancing bread wrapper, is it? And I'm with you on windows of all kinds.

And thank you very much encouragement on the issues headway. Imagine a gangly curtsey on my part by way of reply.

LJ said...

Is purty, Teri!

LJ said...

I bow to your stuff. My stuff bows to your stuff. Clearly, I am a pretender to clutter. Although my closets do show excellent promise. I offer these items for your consideration: a package of balloons (I might do papier mache). A dollar store doll. Don't know why. Little hairclips with tiny little sunglasses on them. I might make art with them. An exercise ball - large, purple - but not large enough for my height. An entire box of miscellaneous office supplies stuffed too far back in the closet to be useable. A file box of research on prison issues from 10 years ago. A filing cabinet containing phone bills going back to 1995.
Okay. Nope. Spinning my wheels. 15,000 corperate presentation slides and empty bullet cases, alone, win hands down.
You and RC are the champs!

Cate said...

Who said that the virgins had to be young?

I went on a throwing away binge this weekend and tossed 2 large garbage cans full of stuff. On the other hand, it was mostly real trash that has been piling up due to the end of the semester and finals. It still felt good wheeling it all to the curb.

Marko, I bet you can sell some of your stuff on eBay. 15,000 corperate presentation slides should be a real bid magent.