June 29, 2003
Salmon Pink Robots
Do you know what is just one more great thing about the great new house?
When I pulled out of the driveway leaves came billowing up out of the bed of the truck. Spartacus was thrilled, indeed, to have foilage to shade him whilst I was occupied elsewhere.
Elsewhere being the salmon pink bedroom that Mike and I spent Saturday evening painting a soft shade of brown. Or, should I say, Mike spent an evening painting over everything I painted, due to my total inability to use the roller properly. It looked brilliant and very non-pink this morning despite, when we woke at twelve-seeming-more-like-eight and went to remove the tape from the windows and door frame. Only later, when we moved the bed in (which rolled madly on the hardwood floor, a problem, indeed, which I am sure some of you could deduce the nature of...) and put up the newly scrubbed blinds, did it feel just about right. We fitted the new white sheets his mother bought for him on the mattress, folded the blankets up, adjusted the pillows, and then proceeded to muss it all up again...
I took a strange sort of pleasure from cutting contact paper to line the cabinets, unpacking his boxes of books and magazines ( Food and Wine, PC Magazine, Computer Gaming) and fitting them on the small black book shelf that we placed in the corner of the room. There was a companionable silence between us as we worked, the strains of Sheryl Crow being played in the next room causing the two of us to sing softly (me) and tunelessly (Mike) along. I feel better about myself when I've given him the time and space to appreciate me, which I really think he must be feeling with my aiding him so in the move.
He'd do it on his own, and he has. Sometimes I think I just swallow up that need of his with my own.
But the new house feels good. We've tracked our footprints through it, and let our voices carry into each room, and wadded up newspaper and thrown it all over the floor. Wadded up clothes, too.
My dream of zombies will perhaps linger in the living room, where we were forced to sleep last night due to the wet-paint state of his bedroom. Also, maybe, the lovely sleepy look of his eyes this morning was bright enough to imprint upon the paint. His words, however, are mine. The sun is not so much streaming as easing its way across the carpet, like a creeping child on Christmas morning, taking care not to wake the parents but unable to keep from shaking and stirring as it goes.
"You're so beautiful."
I laugh, rolling my eyes. I wonder if I have pillow streaks on my cheeks.
"I always thought I looked like hell in the morning, but I guess that could just be me."
He shakes his head, tucking a wayward curl behind my ear.
"Well, you are."
astera at 10:55 p.m.