I just got back from a whirlwind tour of the NY Metro area. That actually is just a day visit with my mom, who is staying at a hotel near Grand Central Station and an overnight and a day at my MIL's on Long Island, where my mission was to rehabilitate the most undesirable room in the house for use as our headquarters (bedroom) for the next two months.

This room is called alternately the chimney room, for the chimney that runs along one of the walls, and Bill's room, for Steve's brother, Bill. When they were kids three boys actually lived in this room. A student of Steve's father built triple bunk beds in it and Steve, his twin Dan and younger brother Bill all slept in there. I guess Bill had it by himself later on. Before Steve's family bought the house, it was a boarding house and this second floor room held a small kitchen. My job has been to clear out everything in it, which is considerable. I threw away a bunch of desprate looking furniture and sorted the rest of the contents into piles: old school papers in Steve's dad's office, clothes in another bedroom, clothes belonging to people who are no longer alive in the attic, toys culled and organized, books consolidated on one bookshelf instead of two, and photographs in a colossal pile.

Then I started on the structure. The whole room has been in such a state of deterioration for so long that the whole thing has at various stages just been covered up. Whenever I asked anyone what was underneath it all I got big sighs and rolling eyes. Apparently when they were little, the floor was hidden under a layer of circus themed linoleum. Unfortunately, it is no longer there. About the same time, Steve's mom put up wood paneling on the walls. She confessed to me last night as I was interviewing her about what lay beneath that the whole project had been traumatic for her and once she was done she decided that home renovations were just not her thing. As young adults, the brothers completed the cover-up by installing a drop ceiling and pegboard around the chimney. I was told that this was a tremendous improvement over what it looked like before.

The first thing I did was buy a lead paint test. I was relieved and actually surprised to find no lead in the five places I tested. I noticed that one piece of the pegboard was falling off. I tore it away, preparing myself for the terrifying sight that I had been told would greet me from underneath, but the first thing I saw was big hunks of plaster fall off of the bottom of the chimney, revealing the brick. The whole thing had been covered with mortar and then plastered over and it was indeed a terrible sight, but the mortar was coming right off in chunks - and the chimney looked great! I spent about half an hour working on it and got fully half of the chimney exposed. Then I started on the panneling - it had been glued and nailed, but the glue had long since dried up and it peeled right off, but was stopped by the drop ceiling. So I pulled out all of the acoustical tiles and snipped most of the wires holding up the grid. That was about all I could do by myself, so I called Steve to consult. I was excited to tell him about the brick, but was a little nervous that he'd be upset about the scope of the job that I was creating for us. He was excited about it of course and we talked about all of the cool things that we could do with that room.

That got me thinking about how well we work together on things like that. And why the hell aren't we renovating our own house? But maybe we'll be building new housing. We've been thinking straw bale lately because it's cheap and can go up quickly.

So then while I was driving home I was listening to WBAI and they were broadcasting the Obies and it got me really nostalgic for theater. But is theater really for me? I think I've been pretty happy in my life without it, and I certainly don't have those "I coulda been..." kind of regrets, because that's not really the kind of theater that I admire anyway. Maybe I just need something as powerful as the theater in my life. Just as I was thinking about how hard that is with a kid, an actor accepted his award and talked about his 14 year old daughter in his speech, as if to remind me that having kids doesn't excuse you from living passionately.

But what the hell am I supposed to be doing? I like quilting and web design and color and photography. I am interested in politics and social justice and the media. I love music and performance, good magazines and good radio. I totally love and feel at home being a mom. I am interested in land use and sustainable building and development, but maybe this is only because I need a home right now. Sometimes I think I should go back to school, but what on earth would I study?

Once I lost WBAI's signal during the drive, I started to fantasize about hosting my own arts and culture radio talk show. Today I would interview John Flandsburgh from They Might Be Giants who is in a musical that he co-produced called People Are Wrong. I would restrain myself from gushing too much about how thrilled I was to be interviewing him. I'd tell him how I always thought that TMBG should write a musical and that this was almost as good. We'd talk about how 90's popular music had no sense of humor. Except for Beck. I'd tell everyone to go and see People Are Wrong at MASS MOCA on Saturday, June 21st. I'd ask him if he know anyone like Xanthus in real life.

Then I thought I could have a talk show based on Killing the Buddha - discussions of spirituality that eschew religion for wonderment. But maybe that could be part of the arts and culture show. That could work, I think.

So what do I go to school for? Or is school for suckers?

Well, I have a blog!

Here's what I know, I'm about to turn 30, and I'm finally feeling like I fit into my skin. Like this is the age I've been waiting for, where I don't feel like a kid and I'm not so ridiculously self conscious and I can order a drink in a bar without feeling like a silly nervous girl. Okay, I'm not really there yet, but I'm starting to see the possibility of it, and to have a sense of being powerful.

Long drive home alone in the dark + a little caffene = big heavy blog entry