Thursday, July 10, 2003
What I like about blue
A by-now tradition, the blue room. Just finished another one. This one, my bedroom, is a sunny sky blue. The curtains and trim are white, the duvet is blue, soon the floor will be dark blue, the dresser will be blue as well...I've decided to fully embrace it. Because one of the daily revelations I've had since my return to Halifax is that I have a mild mental illness the cure for which is the sight of blue things. Bottles, boxes, bowls, whatever. I have surrounded myself with so much blue it's become a cliche. Thing is, though, the colour, in most of its permutations and combinations, keeps me calm and happy. And so, the perennially blue bedroom.
The first bedroom I painted blue was the one at 414 and a half Spadina Avenue. It looked out over the flashing neon sign of the Chinese restaurant on the main floor, and I painted it a colour called Milano, which everyone eventually came to call Stellah Blue, because the sight of it would put me in a happy trance. I lived with Vacation Boy, and he gave me a hard time about the paint job, but didn't give me any pointers to fix it. It would prove a perfect metaphor for our relationship as roommates. When he moved to Boston to live with his boyfriend, Constance Snacking moved in. Thus began the summer of The Sweater, Steak and Eggs Ed and Dannyboy.
By the end of that summer, I'd moved out of that apartment and into Dannyboy's house. Big mistake. Didn't paint that room blue or anything else, or if I did paint it, I don't remember doing so. Of course, I don't remember much about living there, except that it was awful. All those jazz musicians, and not one of them with any idea how to do the dishes. Oh, I remember all of us piling into my bed to smoke a Cuban cigar I'd somehow procured. Someone gave it to me, and we took turns passing it around, hauling on it. I remember being a very unhappy homemaker, but pretending to be deliriously happy. I remember the way the walls moved with cockroaches the night Dannyboy took possession of the house. I remember the kitchen sink becoming a water bong. I remember abandoning my beautiful art deco table there, since it was wrecked by jazz musician all night dope and scotch and chess parties anyhow. I remember Upstairs Steve and Downstairs Steve, and how one day, Upstairs Steve just disappeared, back to Grimsby I think, without telling anyone he was leaving, never to return to the big city, as far as any of us knew. I remember The Room, the second-floor kitchen Dannyboy was supposed to renovate into a bedroom. The Room eventually became a symbol of all that was wrong with us living together, and a day shy of Valentine's Day, I moved out, taking the shreds of my heart along with me in a small blue box.
On Palmerston, I painted my big room blue. I remember the feeling of bliss I had as the walls drank up that paint. It was the happiest I'd been in some time. Clean, fresh, blue start. Dannyboy be damned, and all the rest of them too. That room had a stained glass panel, giant windows and room enough for two beds, all my weird furniture, plus a Christmas tree that December. That was the room I brought The Neck home to, and the room I got chased out of when that bird suddenly appeared in it. I spent the day in my skimpy nightie on the couch till Dannyboy came over in the late afternoon to chase the bird away for me. Though by then, it had left through the open window of its own accord.
In Halifax, I didn't paint a room blue for many a year. I can't remember what colour the room was on South Street, though it may have been light green. Also, I didn't know how long I'd stay, so painting seemed a waste of time. On Creighton I was simply too poor to paint. Same with Falkland, and the apartment was too big and by then, I'd had all my stuff sent and it was too big a job to paint. On Creighton again, the walls were white. Maybe we weren't allowed to paint? I don't know, but none of us did. Great apartment, but living with Tombag and his ex-fiancee, and then, when she moved out even worse roommates, well, it was enough. So I moved next door, to Timmy's old place. Before I moved in, while he was in PEI, I spent night after night painting that vast room Stellah Blue. As I rolled the paint on late into the night, somewhere in a hospital in Toronto, my brother was getting the bad news about his gut. They opened him up, saw the damage done and sewed him up again. Nothing for it but to wait for death. I lost myself in blue, blue, blue. Painted the bathroom blue, too, come to think of it. A really, really pale blue. Barely blue at all. I wasn't sorry to shake the dust of that place off my heels. With Slow Glen as my neighbour ("The worst people in the world, probably are the Lebanese." "I'm half Lebanese, Glen." "That I can't believe. You seem so nice. Well, the only thing worse than the Lebanese are the Italians." "I'm half Italian, too, Glen." "Well, whaddya know, people are people after all." Ayep.) and Classy Lady and her brood downstairs, the weird little dudes from the corner carefully, lovingly packaging their compostables in clear plastic bags, tying them up neatly and throwing them in the composter, and Dianne, who burned wires on a hibachi to get the copper out so she could sell it, it was no great loss to leave that blue room behind.
Which is how I got here. Just north of the common. I own the joint, so if I wanted to paint every room blue, I could. Of course, Kravitz would have something to say about it, so I've contented myself with the kitchen (Stellah Blue, natch) and my bedroom (this sky blue, a giant departure for me). In this room, I've had tentative long distance phone calls with Rainman, many many drunken late night chats with Kravitz, sweet dreams and scary ones, and the beginnings of a tryst with The Paramour. I've woken up laughing and crying and gone to sleep full of hope and full of dread. Now, I lie on the bed and gaze out the window, and only the white of the window frame separates sky and wall. I bob peacefully on a sea of the colour that cures me of everything that has come before this moment.
A by-now tradition, the blue room. Just finished another one. This one, my bedroom, is a sunny sky blue. The curtains and trim are white, the duvet is blue, soon the floor will be dark blue, the dresser will be blue as well...I've decided to fully embrace it. Because one of the daily revelations I've had since my return to Halifax is that I have a mild mental illness the cure for which is the sight of blue things. Bottles, boxes, bowls, whatever. I have surrounded myself with so much blue it's become a cliche. Thing is, though, the colour, in most of its permutations and combinations, keeps me calm and happy. And so, the perennially blue bedroom.
The first bedroom I painted blue was the one at 414 and a half Spadina Avenue. It looked out over the flashing neon sign of the Chinese restaurant on the main floor, and I painted it a colour called Milano, which everyone eventually came to call Stellah Blue, because the sight of it would put me in a happy trance. I lived with Vacation Boy, and he gave me a hard time about the paint job, but didn't give me any pointers to fix it. It would prove a perfect metaphor for our relationship as roommates. When he moved to Boston to live with his boyfriend, Constance Snacking moved in. Thus began the summer of The Sweater, Steak and Eggs Ed and Dannyboy.
By the end of that summer, I'd moved out of that apartment and into Dannyboy's house. Big mistake. Didn't paint that room blue or anything else, or if I did paint it, I don't remember doing so. Of course, I don't remember much about living there, except that it was awful. All those jazz musicians, and not one of them with any idea how to do the dishes. Oh, I remember all of us piling into my bed to smoke a Cuban cigar I'd somehow procured. Someone gave it to me, and we took turns passing it around, hauling on it. I remember being a very unhappy homemaker, but pretending to be deliriously happy. I remember the way the walls moved with cockroaches the night Dannyboy took possession of the house. I remember the kitchen sink becoming a water bong. I remember abandoning my beautiful art deco table there, since it was wrecked by jazz musician all night dope and scotch and chess parties anyhow. I remember Upstairs Steve and Downstairs Steve, and how one day, Upstairs Steve just disappeared, back to Grimsby I think, without telling anyone he was leaving, never to return to the big city, as far as any of us knew. I remember The Room, the second-floor kitchen Dannyboy was supposed to renovate into a bedroom. The Room eventually became a symbol of all that was wrong with us living together, and a day shy of Valentine's Day, I moved out, taking the shreds of my heart along with me in a small blue box.
On Palmerston, I painted my big room blue. I remember the feeling of bliss I had as the walls drank up that paint. It was the happiest I'd been in some time. Clean, fresh, blue start. Dannyboy be damned, and all the rest of them too. That room had a stained glass panel, giant windows and room enough for two beds, all my weird furniture, plus a Christmas tree that December. That was the room I brought The Neck home to, and the room I got chased out of when that bird suddenly appeared in it. I spent the day in my skimpy nightie on the couch till Dannyboy came over in the late afternoon to chase the bird away for me. Though by then, it had left through the open window of its own accord.
In Halifax, I didn't paint a room blue for many a year. I can't remember what colour the room was on South Street, though it may have been light green. Also, I didn't know how long I'd stay, so painting seemed a waste of time. On Creighton I was simply too poor to paint. Same with Falkland, and the apartment was too big and by then, I'd had all my stuff sent and it was too big a job to paint. On Creighton again, the walls were white. Maybe we weren't allowed to paint? I don't know, but none of us did. Great apartment, but living with Tombag and his ex-fiancee, and then, when she moved out even worse roommates, well, it was enough. So I moved next door, to Timmy's old place. Before I moved in, while he was in PEI, I spent night after night painting that vast room Stellah Blue. As I rolled the paint on late into the night, somewhere in a hospital in Toronto, my brother was getting the bad news about his gut. They opened him up, saw the damage done and sewed him up again. Nothing for it but to wait for death. I lost myself in blue, blue, blue. Painted the bathroom blue, too, come to think of it. A really, really pale blue. Barely blue at all. I wasn't sorry to shake the dust of that place off my heels. With Slow Glen as my neighbour ("The worst people in the world, probably are the Lebanese." "I'm half Lebanese, Glen." "That I can't believe. You seem so nice. Well, the only thing worse than the Lebanese are the Italians." "I'm half Italian, too, Glen." "Well, whaddya know, people are people after all." Ayep.) and Classy Lady and her brood downstairs, the weird little dudes from the corner carefully, lovingly packaging their compostables in clear plastic bags, tying them up neatly and throwing them in the composter, and Dianne, who burned wires on a hibachi to get the copper out so she could sell it, it was no great loss to leave that blue room behind.
Which is how I got here. Just north of the common. I own the joint, so if I wanted to paint every room blue, I could. Of course, Kravitz would have something to say about it, so I've contented myself with the kitchen (Stellah Blue, natch) and my bedroom (this sky blue, a giant departure for me). In this room, I've had tentative long distance phone calls with Rainman, many many drunken late night chats with Kravitz, sweet dreams and scary ones, and the beginnings of a tryst with The Paramour. I've woken up laughing and crying and gone to sleep full of hope and full of dread. Now, I lie on the bed and gaze out the window, and only the white of the window frame separates sky and wall. I bob peacefully on a sea of the colour that cures me of everything that has come before this moment.
