Boxing Day

Self Portrait @ Beach, originally uploaded by camille94019.

My tiny room is full of boxes. Some of them are semi-permanently stashed in the unreachable part of my closet. Corners are full of those awful Rubbermaid stacking boxes (the same boxes that landed in my last closet that I didn't touch for five solid years). I don't know what is inside them. I vowed when I moved that I wouldn't let that happen again. That my new room would be a minimalist's vision. I dreamed that art supplies would live on a pegboard and never have to be put away and forgotten. Books would live peaceably on bookshelves. That I would have a sweet little loft bed that I could climb onto at night and pretend that it was my very own tree house.

I keep reminding myself that these things have to grow. Its frustrating, my room isn't turning into a 10'x12' paradise by itself.

That Awkward Transition Stage

I always wonder how other people manage to make warm, functional, inviting spaces for themselves. Is there a gene I am missing? Can I blame my parents for not making me clean my room all those years? Is there some way I can make it not my fault? If I seek the proverbial hill-top hermit earnestly enough, will interior-design enlightenment come down from her organized Hibernia and give me all the right furniture? Will I understand when I am 40? Is there a shopping solution, such as IKEA or Urban Outfitters? Does it really boil down to money? Should I spend more time in my room? Maybe I should get off the computer. I am not even sure what I am looking for. Should I get therapy? I keep thinking that I am smart and creative enough to figure this out eventually (if only I don't give up first).

I took this photo of myself at Bean Hollow Beach. It was a rainy, late summer's day. I propped the ancestral Nikon on a rock and tried to arrange myself in such a way as to fall in the view finder. There was a woman walking a gigantic white mastiff, she was wearing a black silk suit and a red scarf. It was a beach scene that only Edith Head and Alfred Hitchcock could have cooked up.