every once in awhile...

I decided that, like it or not, my introvert batteries need some serious recharging. I've been on the go constantly for two months, and my resources are significantly drained. So, starting Friday, I began a period of a recluse, hermitish existence whereby I go nowhere except the grocery store and hang out with virtually no one. And it's been splended so far. I'm not sure how long this period will last -- hopefully I'll be ready to rejoin the social world again by Sunday, since I'm supposed to host Sunday dinner.

Chris Pipkin coined a term last weekend: "socially hungover." And I've had it bad.

So this weekend I did nothing but sew my curtains. I finally figured out the darn sewing machine, and I spent a good period of forty-eight hours kneeling on the floor sticking pins in seamlines. I used no pattern but the ideas in my head, which fluctuated every hour or so. And by eleven o'clock last night I was finished. And they look awesome.

They're made of panels of a dark red, plush-ish fabric and a cream faux linen fabric. As I have three windows in my living room, two of which are in the same wall, I tried a little organic-type design, so that each window has a different kind of curtain. The outer windows have the red at the outside, the cream at the inside; the middle window has the red at either side and the cream in the middle. I sewed tabs on them from which to suspend the curtains, and then tied the panels together into a knot at the very center of the window.

The result: phenomenal. I wish I had a digital camera to share.

I've also been losing weight. I don't know how much, since I don't have scales, but the belt I couldn't buckle a month ago now fits comfortably at the second hole, so that's at least an inch gone. And that's good: After the Summer of Existential Despair, I started porking up like a pig for the slaughter, and I reached again the weight I was in college (v. bad). But now I'm feeling more comfortable with myself (and my clothes are more comfortable too -- it's so freaking expensive to replace a wardrobe), and another five to ten pounds should do the trick admirably, so that I'm at a healthy, attractive poundage.

My second home decorating project has been the appearance of my walls. I've forestalled painting them (again), but I've begun collecting old postcards at the antique stores in Edwardsburg, and this weekend I purchased a lot of cheap-yet-interesting picture frames, and have been arranging them in the corners behind the entertainment center -- heretofore a vast empty space of sterile white, now a pleasing array of strategically placed pictures. I even figured out how to hang some of them IN the corner, so that they face out and bring the two walls more smoothly together.

Some of the postcards are of local places, some of places far away; and some of them are postmarked with notes -- one of them from 1910, and another rather nasty one from some crotchety-sounding Aunt So-and-So, who wrote to her niece, "This warm weather must be rough on fat people like you. Got your postcard. I was forgetting some of the childrens' names." Others are funny, or rather sweet -- one from an apparently ten-year-old kid to his sister on a trip to the Alps, with a picture of skiers on the front and a note on the back reading, "Dear sister, I had some of those snow shoes on at the top of that mountain, but I couldn't slide with them on. John."

I love old correspondence.

So yes, my self-imposed isolation from society has been doing me good, and given me a chance to work on some nest-lining projects that are turning out well (now I just need to clean the filthy apartment).

Most of this year I've felt like the Anti-Midas, but every once in awhile, the things I touch turn to gold. Or at least cool, red-and-cream curtains, and nicely pictured walls.