“Venice!  I just made several bad economic decisions and you were nowhere around to stop me!”
-C.

(Addendum to Desperate Housewife)

Make no mistake, money is a sly thing: the more you have of it, the more opportunities you have to spend it.  Having a job has been a bizzare transition from chronically-going-without-or-being creative-to-make-due (using shoes as hammers, having a mi closet est su closet policy with flatmates, the occasional bouts of starvation to pay for books…) to the ability to buy, within reason, the stuff I’ve denied myself. 

Granted my relationship with “stuff” for the past few years has been very non-committal.  I had a strange expirience going up to university.  My parents dropped me off with my grandparents on their way from Guam to Belgium.  Try Mapquesting that, it’s quite a trip.  Anyway, off they went with a kiss on the forehead and a, “See you at Christmas!”  I got myself registered for classes, across the country to school, set up in the dorms, moved in, etc. by myself.  And I was an anomaly I soon realized, most of the girls in my dorm had been dropped off by parents with cars full of stuff.  I had two suitcases and a pillow.

The trend just sort of continued in most aspects of my life.  I will be the first to admit that my various living spaces at school have been rather…spartan.  The truth is that I’ve looked at my dorm and various flats as little more than hotels (hm, that’s a bit too kind for some of them, hostels is maybe more fair) that I happen to have had extended reservations for, but no real expectation of sticking around in.

Over the first two years I couldn’t accumulate “stuff” because I spent summers in Brussels working at NATO and had to move myself to Belgium entirely and back again once year.  The only exception was the winter clothes that Kays’ family stored for me that I’d bought a mere month after moving from a tropical island to my new home in the Rockies (What was that white stuff falling from the sky?  And what do you mean I can’t wear flipflops for the next six months?!).  Even when I started sticking around school in the spring and summers to work instead of going wherever my family was, I never seemed to gather anything I wasn’t sure couldn’t fit in a suitcase in a pinch, except books which I refuse to justify.

No dishes of my own.  No glass or silverwear.  No iron or ironing board.  No kitchen gear.  No posters for the walls.  No more clothes than I could move quickly.  Too many shoes, but that’s not up for commentary either.

But.  No.  More.

Suddenly, inexplicably I was seized yesterday with the desire…to decorate.

Target was my downfall.  I went in looking for a mirror and came out with not only that but a comforter, two paintings, a makeup case, and nail polish.  But consider!  For two years now I’ve dressed without the help of a mirror (which could explain a lot of mishaps, actually…), slept under a single blanket (without color or character), hung nothing on my walls except a calendar, and kept my makeup in a shoebox in the bathroom.  There is no excuse for the nail polish, believe me I tried! 

 Worst of all, I had a gift card that could have covered some of the expense but in my frenzy I clean forgot to use it.  I lamented this to Marie and she snapped her fingers.  “Oh darn, you’ll just have to go back, won’t you?”
“Are you crazy?  That store is dangerous, I can’t set foot in there again for six months!” I snapped back, my eyes wide with panic. 

I may as well face it: I live here.  Sort-of-permanently.  I have a decorated room to prove it, I’m past denial.  Who knew a reality check would be so expensive?  Then again, if I have to settle anywhere, may as well do it in style!