lunch brake
Mar. 22nd, 2011 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceI've been meaning to do this meme (most recently seen on the lj of venivincere) for a couple of weeks now, and somehow it just hasn't gotten done; but now I have two hours and a little space, and BY GOD I AM JUMPING THIS TRAIN. Memes are important! I know you agree.
March 2011: I am living in a late-Victorian Queen Anne Freestyle cottage built on a center-hall plan, originally six rooms but with extras added on haphazardly to the back of the house, the whole of which sits on just under half an acre of land and is surrounded by trees and is covered with peeling paint and, just at this moment, a thick layer of pollen. In this house, I am a good citizen. I have an ordinary nine-to-five computer-ninja office job, I pay my bills, mostly on time. Two dogs and a cat live with me, but only one of them was actually sought out and planned for. We don't believe in spreading out, in this house: whatever room we occupy, we occupy together, preferably touching, even more preferably curled up together in manner of small rodents in a chilly cage. It is just how we are. We like it that way.
March 2001: I am living in my hands-down favorite apartment of all time (a teeny two-bedroom garage apartment with its own half-acre yard; the main house is owned by a physics professor and a doctor with the most beautiful and best-behaved golden retriever -- who my husky HATES OMG -- on the planet; I have pool privileges and a little vegetable garden and housesit/dogsit for them when they're away, which is quite a bit). I am living there on borrowed time; I was laid off my job in Baton Rouge at the beginning of the year, and now I am commuting to my new job in downtown New Orleans, and I really should move there, but I'm sticking it out in this place for as long as I can bear a three and a half hour commute each day (for another four months, as it turns out) because I don't want to leave it and I am happier than I've ever been, with the apartment and with my life. There are two dogs and a cat in this place, as well. They're all different ones, though, from the 2011 pets; they're older by now, and I will lose them all by 2007 and still miss them in 2011.
March 1991: I am a senior in college, living in a ramshackle (remind me someday to tell you about the saga of the electrical wiring) postwar two-bedroom frame house with a roommate who in some ways is the best friend I've ever had and in more ways is pretty much the worst, on a street called Lovers Lane. This house, and this neighborhood, have seen better days, that is undeniably true, but it is filled with strange characters and eccentric academics. I have lived in houses I've loved more, because let's face it, this house sucks sweaty balls, but I don't think I've ever loved a neighborhood more than this one. We live there, my roommate and I, with her two kittens and my cat and my dog (both featured in the 2001 census). We are crowded. The walls are hung with dry-rotted canvas-backed wallpaper; the kittens like to climb it and just hang there, like spiders. The dog, still a puppy, thinks she is a cat. We have a lot of fun together. (Um, At least, if I'm not living here quite yet, I'm about to be; I can't quite remember the timeline here.)
March 1981: I am eleven years old, just starting my incredibly awkward adolescence, living in what I consider to be my childhood home, even though technically it is only one of several homes I have lived in or will live in before I reach adulthood. It is a terminally ticky-tacky little box on a suburban hillside. Four bedrooms, brick, utterly unimaginative, almost exactly like the houses surrounding it. I live with both my parents and a younger brother who is of course an out-and-out pest, though I'm secretly pretty fond of him; his best friend is my best friend's little brother, and thus it's a good thing that we actually get along pretty well most of the time (although in 2011 my friend and her little brother will still talk about the day my infuriated brother hit me over the head with a rake -- I don't remember what brought on the attack, but I have absolutely no doubt that it was deserved). We run in and out of each other's houses until dark, and have allocated cups at each other's houses. There's a dog who loves my mother best, and a Siamese cat who loves me best, and my brother and I will joke later that we didn't know then that we were the Huxtables. Our friends' families are just like ours, for now, and it won't be for a couple of years that we will realize that not all families are built like ours, and that not all happy families are happy forever.
March 1971: I am not quite two years old, and an only child for another year. I live with my parents and a (different) Siamese guard cat, in a little house across the street from a park and next door to a church in which parking lot, in two years' time, I will learn to ride a bicycle. There is a fig tree in the back yard whose figs, to my mother's frustration, I love to squish. There is a little boy next door named Jason, and I love him more dearly than anything except my parents and maybe books. There's a carport with a gold Plymouth Scamp. And all of these things -- the parents, the pet, the church, the park, the tree, the boy, the car -- are things that I remember better than the house itself, which I barely remember at all.
venivincere) for a couple of weeks now, and somehow it just hasn't gotten done; but now I have two hours and a little space, and BY GOD I AM JUMPING THIS TRAIN. Memes are important! I know you agree.March 2011: I am living in a late-Victorian Queen Anne Freestyle cottage built on a center-hall plan, originally six rooms but with extras added on haphazardly to the back of the house, the whole of which sits on just under half an acre of land and is surrounded by trees and is covered with peeling paint and, just at this moment, a thick layer of pollen. In this house, I am a good citizen. I have an ordinary nine-to-five computer-ninja office job, I pay my bills, mostly on time. Two dogs and a cat live with me, but only one of them was actually sought out and planned for. We don't believe in spreading out, in this house: whatever room we occupy, we occupy together, preferably touching, even more preferably curled up together in manner of small rodents in a chilly cage. It is just how we are. We like it that way.
March 2001: I am living in my hands-down favorite apartment of all time (a teeny two-bedroom garage apartment with its own half-acre yard; the main house is owned by a physics professor and a doctor with the most beautiful and best-behaved golden retriever -- who my husky HATES OMG -- on the planet; I have pool privileges and a little vegetable garden and housesit/dogsit for them when they're away, which is quite a bit). I am living there on borrowed time; I was laid off my job in Baton Rouge at the beginning of the year, and now I am commuting to my new job in downtown New Orleans, and I really should move there, but I'm sticking it out in this place for as long as I can bear a three and a half hour commute each day (for another four months, as it turns out) because I don't want to leave it and I am happier than I've ever been, with the apartment and with my life. There are two dogs and a cat in this place, as well. They're all different ones, though, from the 2011 pets; they're older by now, and I will lose them all by 2007 and still miss them in 2011.
March 1991: I am a senior in college, living in a ramshackle (remind me someday to tell you about the saga of the electrical wiring) postwar two-bedroom frame house with a roommate who in some ways is the best friend I've ever had and in more ways is pretty much the worst, on a street called Lovers Lane. This house, and this neighborhood, have seen better days, that is undeniably true, but it is filled with strange characters and eccentric academics. I have lived in houses I've loved more, because let's face it, this house sucks sweaty balls, but I don't think I've ever loved a neighborhood more than this one. We live there, my roommate and I, with her two kittens and my cat and my dog (both featured in the 2001 census). We are crowded. The walls are hung with dry-rotted canvas-backed wallpaper; the kittens like to climb it and just hang there, like spiders. The dog, still a puppy, thinks she is a cat. We have a lot of fun together. (Um, At least, if I'm not living here quite yet, I'm about to be; I can't quite remember the timeline here.)
March 1981: I am eleven years old, just starting my incredibly awkward adolescence, living in what I consider to be my childhood home, even though technically it is only one of several homes I have lived in or will live in before I reach adulthood. It is a terminally ticky-tacky little box on a suburban hillside. Four bedrooms, brick, utterly unimaginative, almost exactly like the houses surrounding it. I live with both my parents and a younger brother who is of course an out-and-out pest, though I'm secretly pretty fond of him; his best friend is my best friend's little brother, and thus it's a good thing that we actually get along pretty well most of the time (although in 2011 my friend and her little brother will still talk about the day my infuriated brother hit me over the head with a rake -- I don't remember what brought on the attack, but I have absolutely no doubt that it was deserved). We run in and out of each other's houses until dark, and have allocated cups at each other's houses. There's a dog who loves my mother best, and a Siamese cat who loves me best, and my brother and I will joke later that we didn't know then that we were the Huxtables. Our friends' families are just like ours, for now, and it won't be for a couple of years that we will realize that not all families are built like ours, and that not all happy families are happy forever.
March 1971: I am not quite two years old, and an only child for another year. I live with my parents and a (different) Siamese guard cat, in a little house across the street from a park and next door to a church in which parking lot, in two years' time, I will learn to ride a bicycle. There is a fig tree in the back yard whose figs, to my mother's frustration, I love to squish. There is a little boy next door named Jason, and I love him more dearly than anything except my parents and maybe books. There's a carport with a gold Plymouth Scamp. And all of these things -- the parents, the pet, the church, the park, the tree, the boy, the car -- are things that I remember better than the house itself, which I barely remember at all.
the kittens like to climb it and just hang there, like spiders.
Date: 2011-03-22 09:00 pm (UTC)Re: the kittens like to climb it and just hang there, like spiders.
Date: 2011-03-22 10:05 pm (UTC)I do know what you mean, though. This has been one of my all-time favorite memes, both to fill out and to read.