Due to the Jersey City Parking Authority's increased vigilance for checking car registrations when renewing the parking permit on my father's car, my first day of vacation was home-bound to keep an eye on the car and to avoid getting a parking ticket. I could have put the car in a lot for the day but that seems like a waste of ten dollars when I could just as easily move the car in automobile hide and seek with the meter maid. Ten dollars is... a bottle of wine, an album on the iTunes Music Store, the better part of a new shirt on holiday discount...
Fortunately, I had a to-do list for such a contingency. Number one was that closet--the one that collects junk of all sorts and varieties. The major curse of apartment life is the lack of storage space. Things that have no home: old cassettes, nicely framed drawings from the early years of my artistic journey (kindergarten) that my mother keeps giving to me, a bag of buckwheat for Brian to make a pillow, and a bag of old sweaters that I insist will be used to make pillows one day. Sorting the closet led to under the bed sorting with a small detour to the mystery box over the kitchen cabinets. The box has been in the same spot since moving in nearly two years ago. Heidi thought it would be full of biddles; Brian insisted his VHS copy of The Last Days Of Disco would be in it. (I had a fear of mutant water bugs). None of us were correct: the mystery box contained old fanzines, issues of Sassy and Cutie, and a clarinet. Apparently that box had been packed with neither rhyme nor reason. All contents are dispersed to places elsewhere. Brian told me to do something relaxing for my first vacation day, but, honestly, listening to NPR and home organization isn't a bad way to whittle a day away according to me.
In the afternoon I wandered over to Newark Avenue for some shopping. Stood in line at the 99-cent store with a shower curtain while everyone else spoke Spanish and bought cheap plastic things. The man at the vegetable store gave me a calendar for 2004. I don't have the heart to tell him that I'm only patronizing his shop until my regular one reopens on Grove Street. The sign in the window had insisted they would be open for Thanksgiving. Last week the note changed to read that Confucius is wise but confused, continues with China only had one wall to build while the deli has three.
