A Bizarre (Baroque) Confession

James and I had a unique Thanksgiving, together with the other 41 invited guests, at the home of the owner of Indigo Bridge Books (who obviously knows orphans when she sees them), where we learned about the 2010 Global Health & Innovation conference, at which Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) will speak.  Kim's house backs up to a huge common green area--a golf course, in fact--and 22 of the guests split into teams and played football.  It felt like the Kennedys or something.   I do not golf.  The house has the most amazing views.

Thanksgiving is always hard for me.  Not only is it another holiday I didn't grow up with and don't really know how to do (no warm associations from years past), but it's like the whole culture publicly fetishizes family togetherness, which has always been problematic in my scattered, shattered family.  (At least at Christmas, there are little twinkly things to distract me from the whole synchronized social chant of family, family, family.)  So it was nice to be a guest at someone else's Thanksgiving do. 

I was thinking that maybe from now on, I'll throw a big Thanksgiving dinner at our new place (since it's walking distance from campus) for all the graduate students who can't afford to go home or maybe don't have a congenial home to return to.  With a cracking full bar, damn it. 

As I've looked ahead to moving into our gutted apartment, I can't stop thinking about the little area that's going to be my own study (once we can get the walls put up--by summer, maybe?).  For the first time, a room with a door that closes!  Heaven. 

But what's odd is that, as I visualize how I'd like it to be, I keep being seized by this sort of Belle-Époque madness--visions of curlicued chandeliers and gold gilt and ridiculous little curvy chairs.  (The study will be only 6' by 8', so not too many chairs.  Not too many anything.)  Think I'm kidding?  Go here to see my recent fantasy world.  It's as though my inner princess, now granted a tiny territory, is roaring out. 

The strange thing is, I didn't even know I had an inner princess.


A little backstory:  through roughly equal parts chance, choice, and necessity, I've never been a recipient of diamonds or other real jewelry, or furs, or a cool car, or exciting travel.   (As if you didn't know.)  The homes I've lived in have generally been cramped, drafty, falling apart, and far below the standard American standard, at least as exhibited in a million suburban McMansions and shown on HGTV.  (Our current apartment is miraculous by comparison.)  I have always loved them, though, and found them beautiful in their ways.

I try to dress nicely for work and do have a few relatively expensive things that I wear and re-wear to the office, but at home, I wear ten-year-old men's flannel shirts from a yard sale and jeans that rip and fade and fray the old-fashioned way:  because they're worn out.  No one has ever accused me of being a diva; in fact, good friends have chided me for failing to expect (read:  demand) more for myself. 

But I can't help it.  Watching HGTV this past week (it was recommended when I told someone about the apartment, and now I'm practically an addict), when someone says, "I am just not feeling these tiles," or "This whole kitchen would need to be ripped out," I just laugh.  Like:  It works, right?  The oven works?

So it's funny to watch this little streak of princess flare up.  She's remarkably greedy and opinionated.  Who knew she lurked within, like some dormant virus? 

Well, she'll have to wait her turn, and she may be only a phase.  We need to get Grey graduated, and that's not until May.  By then, her imperious little scepter may have faded away.  And I'll be more than content with a door that closes and a window that opens.  (Even if it opens onto a multi-story parking garage.  Downtown real-estate purchasers can't be choosers.)

I guess, reflecting back over the years, there's only one way that I've ever really been princessey:  wanting a prince. 

And a prince I am lucky to have had, and to have still.  Seventeen years and holding; handsome, clever, and kind.  A true Mr. Knightley--who doesn't mind a girl in an old flannel shirt.

Which is worth giving thanks for.