Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Day of Doneness

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PRAISE GOD IN FUCKING HEAVEN, IT'S //DONE//. (Well, not DONE done. I still need to ritually clean the furniture coming back in, dust'n'polish every book, item and statue before it's returned to its rightful place, clean the backroom that's storing all of our shit, ceremonially unveil the funeral coffin cover which'll be blanketing our bed until Easter and fumigate the bedroom for the last time with a mixture of frankincense, sage and rosemary. <- SORT'VE LIKE A SPIRITUAL VARNISH.)

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Secondary celebration that gets lost behind the super grand celebration of HAUNTED FORESTS and GATED CEMETERIES? I only cried in frustration //once// during the entire wallpapering ordeal. (ACTUALLY, I DIDN'T EVEN CRY //AT ALL// BUT MY EYES GOT MOIST AND I SNIFFLED AND FELT, FOR A SECOND, I COULD COLLAPSE IN A CRYING FIT OF AGITATION AND TIREDNESS.) Thanks to a quick cup of calming tea, some pot and help from Italics I rebounded crazy quick and shot off like a rocket.

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I can't even begin calculating how many (wo)man hours went into this job (from evacuating the room to ritually cleaning it (and its contents) to wallpapering it from ceiling to floor). I've spent the better part of a week climbing, straddling, crouching, kneeling, extending, rolling, hammering, measuring, stretching and sweating my ass off. (STICK A FORK IN ME, BABY, BECAUSE I AM //DONE//.)

A few people have asked where I got the wallpaper and because I'm a notoriously lazy whore I've been copying and pasting the same response throughout the great'n'wide internet:

The first set (SKULL PILLAR OSSUARY W/STONE WALL) we got at a joke/costume shop. This second set (HAUNTED FOREST with GATED CEMETERY) we bought off of eBay.

The only downside using scene setters to decorate a room? The "wallpaper" is actually a thin ass sheet of plastic. One snag and the motherfucker tears like punishment from the devil his-fucking-self. (Which is EXACTLY why I've outlawed wearing heels in bed. <- YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY POTHOLES I CREATED IN OUR PREVIOUS "SCENE" (I.E., DUNGEON OSSUARY) WHEN KICKING MY HIGH HEELED LEGS INTO THE AIR DURING SEX.)

(LOL @ MY REPTILIAN LEATHER CORSET STILL HANGING ON THE EFFING DOOR. Last Friday it was laced up (over fishnet) in the office, worn into town and then taken off - AHEM! - in the bedroom later that day. I've been so busy tacking up fucking wallpaper I haven't had a chance to move it back into the closet.)

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It's been this way since mid-September; when I look upon this mess a get despair stirs in my heart. (It's getting tackled. Today. Fuck Thanksgiving (I'm pushing it to Saturday WHICH I CAN TOTALLY DO IF I FUCKING WANT SINCE I'M IN //SCOTLAND// AND //SCOTLAND// DOESN'T CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING, ANYWAY, SO I CAN BE AS NON-FUCKING-TRADITIONAL AS I WANT), I want my house back.)

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I see a mess, but within that mess - making and creating the mess - I see our life, our celebrations, our rituals and our memories. (AND YOU'RE ALL GOING BACK IN THE BEDROOM //TODAY//, DAMMIT.)

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I can't wait to reclaim this room. There's a communal lounge in the front of the house, but it's usually occupied by my in-laws. We created a little niche for ourselves in the backroom where we eat, watch TV, play video games, watch movies, play records, work on projects, play boardgames and just plain ole relax.

We haven't been able to use the room for nearly two months; I'm REALLY looking forward to getting stoned and playing The Sisters of Mercy and Dire Straits while sitting in winter sun. (<- THE ROOM'S SOUTH FACING.) In a few weeks time we'll be decorating it - in addition to the lounge - for Christmas and this year we decided to chop down a tree for our stoner tree.

(IF YOU AREN'T ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH "THE STONER TREE" STICK AROUND FOR A WEEK OR TWO AND EVERYTHING WILL BE EXPLAINED...PROBABLY WITH PICTURES INVOLVING MY ASS.)

(ME TO ITALICS: "OKAY, OKAY, NOW TAKE A PICTURE OF MY NAKED ASS RESTING ON A BRANCH OF THE TREE BEFORE WE CUT IT DOWN!")

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A glorious mess of needing-to-be-wrapped Christmas presents, half-finished witch projects, dried herbs, berries and foliage that are waiting to be bottled and stalwart houseplants that have taken nearly two months of neglect on the chin without so much as a complaint.

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An unexpected rainbow was the grand finale to my celebratory DAY OF DONENESS photo taking. (I saw my first meteor just above the pine tree beneath the bend of the rainbow on Italics' birthday this year. I'll never forget that blue-white sparkler streak of burning magnesium. Within a month I saw my second in the backyard when standing on the patio in the middle of the night watching/listening to the bats feed.)

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I woke up to a windstorm on the DAY OF DONENESS. The weather alternated from dreary, heavy gray clouds and lashings of rain to abnormally bright light blazing across a darkened horizon. (Hence the weird glow to some of the bedroom pictures.) Gusts of wind shook the house and rattled the branches of trees and bushes outside (where my birds took refuge looking both confused and irritated by the storm).

Above: a female blackbird.

(I call them "Papa's birds". A few years back Papa instructed me to boil the last egg in the house for him and bury it outside. I boiled the egg but sat on it for months and months and months (it sat in a shot glass in the backroom), and it wasn't until the deepest part of my most recent depressive episode that I finally buried it. Within seconds of patting the earth down a male blackbird came racing out of the bushes and immediately sat down next to me stupidly unafraid of me or the danger he was putting himself in. That was the very beginning of my relationship with the local blackbirds; a gift from Papa. <- And that's ALSO how Papa hatched a bird out of an old boiled egg.)

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I woke up to a windstorm on the DAY OF DONENESS. The weather alternated from dreary, heavy gray clouds and lashings of rain to abnormally bright light blazing across a darkened horizon. (Hence the weird glow to some of the bedroom pictures.) Gusts of wind shook the house and rattled the branches of trees and bushes outside (where my birds took refuge looking both confused and irritated by the storm).

Above: a juvenile male blackbird (right), probably another juvenile male blackbird in the middle (it's hard to tell if s/he's BLACK or VERY BROWN) and way, way to the left is a tiny little cheap-cheap bird hidden beneath a drooping branch (I didn't even notice it when taking the picture).

(I call them "Papa's birds". A few years back Papa instructed me to boil the last egg in the house for him and bury it outside. I boiled the egg but sat on it for months and months and months (it sat in a shot glass in the backroom), and it wasn't until the deepest part of my most recent depressive episode that I finally buried it. Within seconds of patting the earth down a male blackbird came racing out of the bushes and immediately sat down next to me stupidly unafraid of me or the danger he was putting himself in. That was the very beginning of my relationship with the local blackbirds; a gift from Papa. <- And that's ALSO how Papa hatched a bird out of an old boiled egg.)