Distracting? No—inspiring

[sovay]

With the exception of some fragile items being stored at my parents' house and a file cabinet of papers I never moved in March, all of my worldly possessions are now at derspatchel's for the next month. There were as usual more extraneous things than expected. The vinyl cover for the futon mattress was less durable than hoped. (My father patched it with garbage bags and duct tape.) I left the keys on the kitchen table for adrian_turtle's new housemate and closed the door on my bedroom for the last time. As I had done in New Haven, I wrote my name and a short message on the wall with my finger. No one will see it, but it's there. And then I was gone.

In about half an hour, I am leaving to wait in line for the HFA's Noir All Night. Because I got all my stuff moved by this afternoon and it was my reward to myself. Even if I fall asleep at the four-hour mark, I don't care. I will see what there is before then.

My poem "Defixio" has been accepted by Not One of Us. I wrote it in February, after my parents' house was broken into and several small items of emotional value stolen; it's a curse. I like to think it worked and the results just didn't make the news.

Now I'm here.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

As I had done in New Haven, I wrote my name and a short message on the wall with my finger. No one will see it, but it's there. And then I was gone. reminds me of a thing that happened at my high school after I left, which is documented in our wikipedia page (I was surprised to discover we had such a thing).

To quote the article: The school's gym has recently been renovated, replacing the original tile flooring with hardwood. Instead of just taking out the old floor and putting the new one in, the school ran into a dilemma. The old tile flooring was literally the ceiling for the basement. So instead, they placed the new wood flooring over the old tile flooring making it look as if they did in fact remove the tiles. Once the school found out they were putting the new floor over the old, students and teachers came into the gym at random times throughout the day, and drew messages to a late student, Alex Vlach, who had died from cancer earlier in the year.

I often think of people discovering the messages in a few dozen years when the floor wears out, and I wonder whether wikipedia will still be documenting it then.