Menopausal Stoners Temporary Headquarters in the 'Hood

I've made a diagram of the new apartment on graph paper. The furniture is made from scraps of paper from a lavender gift bag that I got yesterday from one of the kids. There used to be a jar of chocolate chip cookies in the bag from Sarah Beth's Kitchen. There are a few cookies left, and the jar itself is great for cotton balls or something - so that was a great little present for the teacher.

I'm not quite sure how to arrange the furniture yet.  I had planned on using the front room as the living room, but I think that the way the furniture would need to be arranged would fuck up my plan to have the sunbeam falling across the sofa for perfect winter afternoon naps.   If the sofa is on the east wall, the sunbeam will hit the sofa in exactly the same way that the sunbeam here in the marital residence hit the sofa before somebody built a dang 15 story building in the path of the sunset.

Now that I made little purple squares to represent all the furniture, it looks like Buzz Kill's Barcalounger is going to be in the sunbeam if it's going to be situated so you can kick back and watch TV.  This chair is significant because it's written into the divorce that I have to keep Buzz Kill's Barcalounger in good condition until such time as he had a place for it or we sold the apartment - which ever came first.  The minute we close on this apartment, I could put the chair in the dumpster and be within my legal rights, but everyone agrees that this is one comfortable chair.  Everyone except my mother.  She hates that chair.

I don't know, it may be a better idea to make the front room my room. Then the sunbeam would fall across my own beautiful new bed.  It's a little public because it is off the main living area which will be my library/dining room/office. There's a solid wood door, however, so it's really no bid deal.

Here's the reverse view - looking from the room that may or may not be my bedroom toward the hall.

The front door is just through the arch.  It's a nice sized room, like 14 x 15, and Dad will put a ceiling fan in there to pull in the AC from the front room.  I think my table will go into that sunbeam there.  It's a white 45" round table and matching chairs from Crate & Barrel.  It won't be centered under the fan since I've got to fit my office stuff in there, too, but I don't care.  Much.  I still have to get a new desk, though, since right now, my office is built into a gigantic hall closet.  I've loved this little cubby, but from a Feng Shui stand point, the boxes   on the shelves over my head are oppressing my creativity.  The whole point of the new Library space is to create a room of my own where I can write that book I've been threatening to write all these years.  I'll probably do The Menopausal Stoners Guide to Parenting first, then tackle the memoir.  I find the idea of writing that memoir alarming on many levels - but now that I'll have all my money from Buzz Kill, I don't have to worry about him giving me a hard time about my writing anymore.

About a year ago he said something about me saying shit about him on the internet - and I promptly said I hadn't said a damn thing about him on the internet.  PENolan may have said something about Buzz Kill, but that is also well within my legal rights. Besides, I'm pretty sure rambling on a blog doesn't count as Publishing anyway.  In my mind, if you're not getting paid, you haven't been published.  Not really.

If I make the front room into my bedroom, then I'd make the back room into a den.  There's all kinds of room in there, so the Barcalounger would easily fit.  Velvet thought he might like that room for himself since it has a "smoking porch."  It's really the fire escape, but since there's a door leading out to a large landing, friends can  sit on the stairs to the roof when they feel like smoking cigarettes.  I imagine that if anybody's smoking weed in there, they'd just open the door.  That pipe by the fire escape door is the radiator.

Then Velvet would go in the middle bedroom which has the smallest closet.

I was going to use this one for myself since it has the most flexibility for furniture arranging - but the good thing about me being in the front and Velvet being in the middle is that there would be no privacy issues when Cupcake sleeps over.  And we all know that Cupcake will be sleeping over.  Now that I think about it, if we set up the apartment that way, it would sort of be like the front is my space and the back is his space, with the kitchen and the bathroom in the middle.

I'd still rent his room out to traveling actors and production assistants when he's away at Tree Hugger, and the den could be an additional guest room.  And it will be just that next week when my dad is here.

The kitchen is minimal.  The appliances are nice enough, but there are limited cabinets and virtually no counter space.

The good news is that the opposite wall is totally empty.  I suppose the landlord believes it's an eat-in kitchen.  I'll be putting the dresser we pulled out of the trash some years ago in there.  Once my mom cleaned that dresser up, it was perfect for storing my table linens and silver, and now it can provide additional counter space since the dish drainer will have to go on the counter by the sink.  I'll put two tall sets of shelves in there, too, for open storage.  Soon, I'll get one of those little rolling carts with butcher block top to go in the space between the stove and the window so there will be a place for one of my vintage oscillating fans.  The way I cook, there totally has to be a fan in the kitchen.