Wallpaper Dreams

(Copyright of image belongs to me! Corrie)

Peculiarly enough while I sit here trying to figure out how to start writing this week's blog post, fragments of Van Halen's version of Pretty Woman are running through my head. Now that won't sound so random when I say that every morning while I'm getting ready for work I listen to a rock station out of Green Bay, WI on the Internet and subsequently get one song or another played during the time I'm listening stuck in my head for the remainder of the day.

This leads me to a side note, while I was at school during the last spring semester one of my roommates kept complaining of songs she heard getting stuck in her head. So one night while we were sitting in our cramped living room eating dinner together I told her she has a "radio in her head", and since then the term has stuck and she uses it occassionally. Now I'm starting to think I have a radio in my head! I mean, do any of you have that same problem where you hear songs in the morning - or anytime during the day - and then they're in your head all day replaying over and over again like a tape stuck in the tape deck of your car? And it doesn't have to be a song you know either, I've gotten songs I don't know stuck in my head just the same, and those are the worst because it'll be the same refrain replaying, like a roll of film that is actually the same segment of video for four hours straight, and there's nothing you can do to turn it off, or remove your behind from the seat.

Well, that was an interesting diversion wasn't it? You're probably wondering what that has to do with the title of today's post, not the mention the picture, and I promise you! I'm getting to that. In my meandering way, I'm getting to it.

You see, since I first realized I love Victorian homes - and therefore flamboyant, oversized prints - I've been fantasizing of the type of wallpaper prints I can layer my future Victorian house with. And, ta-da!, this is where the picture in today's post comes in! But just as quickly, another diversion. You see, I have this nagging, impuslive habit to buy things according to their color, print or style instead of their functionality, Which, I'm learning, is why I should never go shoe shopping alone. Because I'll just end up with a pair of oh-so-cute strappy, wedge-heel green and tan flower-adorned sandals that are in fact ruthlessly murdering sandals that cut into the insides of my feet beside my big toes and rub  the skin raw there. I've even put those non-slip rubber pad things on my sandals but those don't seem to help either. Well, I didn't start this rambling diversion to complain about a pair of murderous sandals that I bought - although do beware the next time you're in the mindset to buy a pair of cute, summery sandals - I started it to talk about the picture in today's post, which is actually the print on my wallet I got from Target roughly two years ago, or maybe a year? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I not only bought the wallet because it was one of those flat ones so I didn't have to fold my money and spare myself the embarassment of pulling it all out and unfolding it just to see how much I have, but also...because of the print! Like I said before, I've selected many an article of clothing merely because of its print or color - and yet, with that said, I still have no red clothing! - and thus was what drew me to the wallet I still have today. In fact, I believe the moment I saw it I thought what a beautiful wallpaper it would make. Now you might be thinking, isn't it a little dark with the black background? And I would say...no! Because for some inexplicable reason the darker the woodwork, and the darker the wallpaper...the happier I am!

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not any "Victorian gothic" offshoot or anything like that, I simply like deep, rich woodwork and dark wallpaper. And I also know that the darker the wallpaper, the smaller a room feels, but frankly? Whenever I picture my future Victorian house I don't imagine pristine white walls or Heaven forbid! white painted woodwork! I picture sinuous Victorian-era couches and wooden furniture with deep cherry wooden trim and plush, deep red cushions, or maybe a rich purple or golden yellow. I don't care much for white...in general. Except in my future kitchen would I make an exception with the color of the cabinets, but only off-white or cream. I can't stand pure-white cabinets.

Yet, as my fantasies become more indepth where my future Victorian house is concerned, I fear that the interior designer in me will prove to me much like my mind in the way of my writing habits and just go on a whim, constantly riding the edge of that crumbling, narrow country road, head flung back to a great Peter Cetera tune, unawares of the car's haltings and skiddings as it eyes the perilously tilting shoulder rolling and bouncing away from the relative solidness of the road's asphalt in mockingily gay tumbles of rocks and dust. Then again, if that mindset has worked for my novella writing - well, that could be debated now couldn't it? :) - why couldn't it work for my interior design pinings? I mean, no one but myself might find it interesting and that it works as a whole, but I believe there would be something endlessly exciting and mesmerizing about funneling random, tumbling ideas into the glaring, unblinking light of life.

Which is why I really want to pick up a house designing game that I spotted at Best Buy a couple years ago, only problem is it's a hundred dollars, and unfortunately I don't have cash like that just lying around! For many years I have been trying to put the vague designs in my head onto paper, whether it be through drawings or novellas. And let me tell you, the novellas have been far more successful than the drawings! I love drawing houses, but I have major perspective issues, and until I can either A) Take some drawing classes on specifically houses or buildings or B) Get a drafting table I believe the problem will never be fixed. And perhaps my yearnings to translate interior room designs through my stories by way of rambling, dilapidated Victorian - and sometimes non-Victorian! homes - is part of the explanation for why I habitutally insert so much detail into my novellas, because I yearn to communciate every detail of every room to my readers. But of course I'm writing like that for myself, not for them, or for you either!

So, you might ask, are these blog posts for us, the readers? or for you? the blog poster? Well essentially I began this blog because I had to, continued it because I wanted to, and write about what I do because I enjoy putting my ideas out there for others with shared interests to communciate, and also to see what others have to post in their own blogs. Because blogs, like houses, are highly personalized and reflect so much of their owners, whether they know it or not. Which - insert another self-reflective question here! - is perhaps why I love houses, and old houses at that, so much? After all, historical houses have had many centuries to collect and absorb the good and bad of many personalities, and like an old favorite coat of your grandpa's in the mothball closet, it too carries memories and stories with it, some blatant on the surface, and others buried deep, waiting for you to discover, to step over the threshold, whether it be real or figurative.

Every old house has a story...I wish I knew yours

(Copyright of image belongs to me: Corrie, 6/12/11)

Tonight's blog post regrettably will be short, seeing as how apparently I woke up this morning destined to feel terrible after my break at work at 11:15. But, it wasn't anything a nap - which is a rare occurence I must tell you! - couldn't fix, at least for the most part. A faint headache is still lingering at the nape of my neck like stubborn nighttime fog laying low atop the pointy tips of a dense, blue-green forest even though the faintest of morning light is weaving its thin, sparkling strands into the brightening sky like yellow-white paint leaking slowly onto an all black tapestry, making slow but deliberate progress.

Well, all of that aside, let me tell you the story behind this beautiful, abandoned house I had the luck of stumbling upon! I believe it happened about two to three weeks ago, although the first time I came close to it, I wasn't even sure if it was there and only confirmed its existence later on Google Maps. Which, by the way, is an amazing tool! Whenever I'm bored I can just hop on Google Maps and peruse the dilapidated streets of any place I want! One particularly boring day I cruised around Brooklyn - which for some reason my mind has fixated on as this awesome place, much in the same matter as it has with Oklahoma - and found one of my most beloved architectural icons: the Brooklyn Bridge! And yes, I know what you're thinking. For a woman who claims to love the countryside and balk at city life in general, why is she rambling on so lovingly about New York City? Well because it's New York City! How can you not love it? I dream about some day carrying a professional camera and strolling those ambling, labyrinth-like sidewalks and streets, snapping a picture every few seconds because there would be so much to capture! Plus, I've always had a fascination for decreipt old factory buildings or abandoned hospitals. Creepy? Perhaps, but like approaching the abandoned house in the picture above, I'm positive I could overcome any fears I would have strolling about NYC's abandoned industrial buildings for the sake of that precious photograph my eyes can later wander to again and again when I feel my heart yearning to be in that place again.

So, what was that fear you spoke of earlier? Well, I'll tell you that for all the abandoned houses I've taken pictures of over the years, and regrettably there are few I have actual photographs of, all the others are either crisp or gradually fading inside those vast corridors of rusty, overstuffed filing cabinets in my consciousness, the one in the above picture is the only one I've deliberately approached on my own, and within such close range!

The way my work schedule works out, I only work Tuesday-Thursday, leaving Monday and Friday free. So naturally because it's summer - at least it was, stupid Wisconsin had to go and have a memory lapse and think it's Fall again, but I shall leave the weather rant for another day! - and I don't want to be one of those people who sits on my rear all day holed up inside, I decided to go for a bike ride! Now normally I'm content with traveling the same old paths on my bike, because A) I like going to the places I normally bike to and B) Once I bike beyond the familiar areas my navigational skills take a back seat to my curisoity and "old-house-lookout-mode", sorry but I couldn't think of a better name for it! But lately I've discovered that the same old paths just won't cut it anymore. So a few weeks ago on Monday I decided to go beyond the familiar sidewalks and roads and bike further, I was out for an hour and  half! Thus is how I stumbled upon the narrow country highway the abandoned house above silently sits next to too.

The first time I came across this road I ended up turning down another road leading to a residental area because I wasn't quite sure where I was! Before I turned off of the rural highway I noticed a Cream City brick farmhouse down the way but couldn't make out much more. Of course my heart tugged me in that direction, but one look at the virtually nonexistence shoulder - and crumbling shoulder at that! - of the highway and I opted for the less traveled residental road. However, thanks to Google Maps I ended up discovering that the Cream City brick farmhouse was in fact abandoned, so of course I counted down the days until I could return, and snap some pictures!

Which leads me to the "fear" I mentioned earlier. And it wasn't all just the fear of biking down a narrow country road where the shoulders look like old, dried up pie crusts left to rot and flake away in the sun, it was the mere fact of parking my bike at the head of the overgrown gravel driveway, straddling it while I fished for my camera inside its case, taking it out and holding it before me, and framing the slumbering, blinded farmhouse within its mechanical eye while cars rushed by behind me. Now perhaps it's irrational but the whole time I was there snapping pictures hurriedly, I imagined - and feared - someone would pull over in their vehicle and demand to know what I was doing. Afterall, there were two metal posts set on either side of the driveway with an ominously creaking chain between them bearing a metal sign that said "no trespassing". But I didn't go beyond that, I simply went far enough in so I wouldn't be in the way of the cars flying up and down the highway.

Still, I know I underestimated how it would feel being so close to an abandoned house. I mean, think about it, it's kind of like parking next an unfamilar cemetery and deliberately walking amongst the graves, even though you know no one buried there and the only sounds are the ones you and the wind make, everything else is silent but yet it lives, watching you behind eyes wide shut. And that's a funny phrase isn't it? "Eyes wide shut". When I first heard of the movie with the same title starring Angelina Jolie - albeit I've never seen it, just like most movies unfortunately! - I thought to myself "what an oximoron! How can eyes be wide shut?" But of course now I understand, and I think it's a brilliant phrase! Hence of my use of it just a few sentences before.

Later on, after proclaiming that I had gone to the house and taken some photos, I told my parents that the boarded-up windows reminded me of cataract eyes struggling to see the world shifting slowly like a book whose pages are read by the wind which blew in occassional gusts and funnels that flapped the pages both backwards and forwards, sometimes getting nowhere, other times jumping ahead to nearly the end. All of the house's windows were boarded up, which was a smart thing to do considering what time and nature can do to both painted wood and glass. And the house can also count its blessings that it's made of brick, instead of vulnderable wood which can sag, rot and be stripped of every last shred of paint like a dead animal being skinned for the pleasure of its fur adorning someones bedroom so their feet can swing from their warm bed and find refuge from the chilled, stiff floorboards.

Maybe I had that thought because I've read too many Stephen King novels - of which there is no such thing, right? :) - or maybe it's because I have an overactive imagination, or my fear was just itching for a way to solidify itself in a metaphor so I could get a handle on it.Whatever the reason, I found the metaphor intriguing, and all the more reason to return to the house! Although, I don't know how many more angles I can take pictures from, seeing as how I've stood to the right of it, to the left of it, and in front of it. Obviously I don't want to go beyond the "no trespassing" sign , although there is a part of me that yearns to feel the time-worn brick underneath my fingers and gently touch the brilliant orange poppies that have bloomed along the facade and shadow-laden left side of the house. I also wonder what lays beyond the catract windows with their smooth wooden boards fitted tightly over them. Are the windows the original two-over-two wooden? Are the glass panes intact and wavy? Are the rooms lined with luscious wallpaper or modest paint colors? Is there furniture still standing squat and tall, layered with decades or years of time?

When I see the roof and its relatively unaltered state I wonder how long the house has been abandoned. And thus comes in the title for today's post: "every old house has a story...I wish I knew yours". And I do wish I knew the story of this particular Cream City brick farmhouse. My heart is bursting with the triumph of discovering and returning to an abandoned house on my own, but yet it breaks while still holding together at the thought that it is abandoned and may never be lived in again. The grass in the yard is long and untended, fluttering and undulating in the wind like the tangled mass of a Mustang's mane and tail, the orange poppies stand out in marked contrast with the Cream City brick as a backdrop, there's a long ago fallen down barn in the back, of a smaller size, while another wooden storage shed still stands strong and square, like the house itself.

While perhaps no more pictures may come of this recent and most intriguing discovery, it may come that my mind cannot simply file away the thought of its being there and immortalize the farmhouse into a story, where the boards will peel away from those beautifully preserved windows, the chipping, light gray roof shingles will become a solid, sparkling black, those orange poppies will no longer sway amongst an undulating sea of grass but find it cropped short by the whir of a mower, perhaps an old-fashioned one and the gravel drive will once again feel the crunch of tires or the uneven pounding of feet upon it, all blessed signs that life is returning, and the unblinking stares of time and nature have been hooded for another handful of years, maybe decades, perhaps even centuries. Even as every old house I have encountered crumbles in this life, it can rise strong and steady on its uneven, fieldstone foundation and welcome the new life sketched before it as if it were slumbering all those years it had laid empty and is awakened by a gentle tug and opens its cataract-clouded eyes to a world brimming with color and motion, a world it had almost forgotten, but had stored away in a diligently marked filing cabinet along the most sagging and narrow corridors of its consciousness, where its weight could be felt like an old cat curling into its familiar spot at the foot of your bed, and even after its long since passed you still feel that weight, knowing somehow its still with you, only not in the physical sense but somewhow it feels just as close, it feels right.

Will these fragments ever make a whole?

Yes I know, I haven't written a new post in probably close to three weeks, but the more I thought about it - and pushed my guilt away, actually - I realized that perhaps all those Wednesdays that came and went with me sitting at my computer - at some point during the day, but mostly during the night! Because after all summer is for being outside, isn't it?? - and not opening Blogger and writing a new post, I just wasn't ready to write a new post. And what do I mean by that? Well, it could go several ways. One, and perhaps the most obvious, is that I just couldn't plum think of anything to write about! Now sure there's always that ol' standby well in the back of my mind, where old ideas and shells of others ruminate, generally stinking up the whole place and irritating the fresh, full-bodied ideas huddled away from that mysterious black hole while they simultaneously try to muscle their way through to that breaking point where I snatch them up. But sometimes I guess I don't feel like dropping the dented and rusted bucket into that smelly well and just plopping something down, I want it to be something substantial, and that doesn't mean either that it'll necessarily be one of the 'full-bodied' ideas sitting eagerly on the edge, watching me move about here and there through the cracks in the sagging floorboards beneath.

And another reason why perhaps I choose to wait three weeks to write a new blog post, is that I was waiting for all those fragmented ideas holed up in my mind to make a whole. And ta-da! Here comes the explanation behind the title for today's post! Didn't think I'd get to it so quickly did you? Well, even I have the power to surprise, even myself sometimes. :) Well anyway, lately it's seemed - well lately is a loose word, let me tell you, it's really been all my writing life! - it seems that I no longer write novellas or even stories, somewhere along the line the all-important folder in Microsoft Word on my laptop demoted itself from the catchy Corrie's Stories - Corrie, by the way, is my nickname - to simply Story Thoughts. Oh yes, I know what you're thinking. "Story Thoughts?" I'd insert the confused face I use for Facebook chat but then I'd feel like my texting lingo - of which honestly, since I've gotten a phone with a full keyboard treat it like so and type out full words - is infiltrating my normal, civilized speak and thus would feel honestly freaked out as if I were deep in the troughs of Stephen King's book Christine, of which I am actually, and it's just as amazing as the first time I read it!

Oh dear, I just acted like William Faulkner in that torture-for-the-eyes-and-brain-book-to-read, Absalom, Absalom! where he inserts a dash and then takes off like 0he's whipping a horse with the same rhythm as his hooves beat half-circles into the ground, and when it stands beneath him trembling he realizes he left something unfinished behind, way behind, but he'll be damned if he remembers what it was, and he just shrugs his shoulders and continues, probably at a slower pace, promising himself he won't do it again, but then another idea creeps up on him greedily like a tantalizingly straight and flat road, and the whip raises again, the thought stopping dead behind him and the horse's rear lowers and dirt flies in its face.

I've forgotten how good it feels to ramble on my blog, truly I have. And perhaps this is exactly how Faulkner felt, and even though I'd like to snap his dusty bones in his grave for writing that horrid book, Absalom, Absalom! that I had to read for my English class last semester, I can kind of find common with him, but that common ground feels like reaching an agreement with the enemy on a lumpy, blood-spotted minefield.

Going back to texting-speak for a while, because honestly? I've been seeing way too much of it on Facebook these days, why do some people - and some of them are related to me, God help us all - feel they can use 'texting speak' when commenting? For instance, someone sent me a message on Facebook and usually where people use apostrophes in words like "i'll" and "we'll", they omitted them completely, leaving me to lean forward like an old woman and cock an eyebrow. I mean, really? Is it that difficult to insert a little apostrophe? If you take the time to write out the word to begin with, please insert the proper...oh shoot, I'm an English/Creative Writing major and I don't know what those things are called. I guess I should be saying "God help me" now right? Well, we're not perfect, so I guess I can't rant about my generation - and even those older than me - about using "texting-speak" when they should be using, good ol' fashioned English. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of you that find it vexing as well. Now maybe I feel so strongly about this because I've never liked texting-lingo to begin with. I mean sure, I'll admit I overuse "lol" so much it's like a deer killed out on a busy highway in Milwaukee during rush hour, pretty soon it's lost its meaning and has become something along with the million other 'somethings' ground deep into that amused and cracked asphalt. But I would never go as far as to omit apostrophes so abbreviate words so much you have to sit there deciphering it like it's some damned code on Lost. Texting has killed the English language, and although I'm not really doing that much of my part to sustain it other than refraining from using 'texting-speak' in my own texts, and ranting about it here, I find it interesting how when something is invented to make something else easier, there's always a repercussion, sometimes building over several generations until we stand here today, scratching our heads while we read Facebook comments, or watch some teenager struggle to sign their name in cursive. Speaking of which, I won't even go there. Whenever I have to sign my name, my left-hand cringes and just tightens up so all I can do is write out my first name and the "D" in my last name and then scribble the rest in a vague line of ups and downs like the water line lapping against a boat, hinting at something.

Can one achieve hindsight within the same blog post? Because I feel like I did, just now, while my mind rummages over the multi-topic rant in the above paragraphs. But, I don't feel bad about, because like I said, it feels good to rant in my blog again, it's like sitting inside your car, the doors shut tight while you blaze down some long-dead country road singing screechingly to some song at the top of your lungs, perhaps beating the dust off of the steering wheel or the dashboard like its a slumbering, ancient relic of a piano and with just the right slap will come to life and pound the tune out with you in all the same awkwardness. It's a familiar place, a place where the seat is shaped like you, smells like you, and even bears the myriad stains of when you thought you could eat that meatball marinara sub from Subway on your break, or drink a McDonald's Frappe without it tipping over in the cup holder while you navigated those narrow, city streets.

But I guess, in my usual rambling, loosely-organized way, I'm coming back to the topic of today's post, which as always, bears a rhetorical question! Which conveniently happens to be in the title itself! "Will these fragments ever make a whole?" As a partial answer to that question - I know, I know, more fragments right? :) - while I was laboring against the wind and fighting the heavy, metal frame of my ill-suited mountain bike while riding out to a beautiful old, abandoned farmhouse I found (perhaps talked about in next week's blog post!) I thought about random metaphors I could use for different points I wanted to get across. Do I however, remember any of them? Of course not! It's like a radio dial spinning beyond your control - perhaps it never was in your control in the first place - in your car, offering up snippets of songs, screams, random laughter, serious political talk or any number of things, and whether you liked them or not, it would keep on spinning, that little red needle doing a dance across the numbers like it was performing a tightly choreographed routine and each step was a number on the floor.

I mean, it's not like I'll always have a pen and pencil with me to write the darn things down, you know? So why do they come to me? The feeling is sort of like rushing past in a vehicle and spotting and a deliciously dilapidated house sulking way back in the woods, and realizing you neither have your camera, nor have time to stop, and might never see the house again, and all you'll be left with then is a maddening wisp like cigarette smoke lingering in a bar long closed down, and even though the windows are gutted and the roof is a thinning scalp of shingles and beams, the building still retains its smells, although its not solid anymore, but like the wind that weaves between the things it has stilled, something that lays low in your mind, clinging to an invisible, mental spiderweb woven there by time.

Well, I guess there's your metaphors for you, although their not exactly the one's I thought about on my bike ride. But, like I said, it doesn't much matter, because I'll think about other one's anyway, as was just exemplified!

Perhaps its the whole 'no-fences' mentality I have towards writing my novellas that keeps me from finishing anything, or approaching any writing idea - whether it be a novella or a blog post! - with a solid frame already laid solidly in my mind like the deep-set foundation already marking its place in the ground, patiently waiting for the walls to press down around it. While I can remember whole houses I've spotted over the years and haven't seen in person for probably several, when it comes to sitting down here at my desk and writing on this laptop, stepping onto the first crumbling steps of another house, another world waiting beyond the threshold, I don't see a solid foundation, I don't even see a crumbling one. It might just be a distinguishing feature, a cigarette pulled away from the lips, an old Ford wagon ambling down a narrow country road while the driver listens placidly to the fields whispering back and forth to each other, or maybe it's a house itself, but it'll only be the decorative capitals at the tops of the soaring, two-story columns or a delicate three-story turret rising importantly above an equally striking but dilapidated Victorian. Each novella I write is like an unassembled stained glass window and somehow, without fences, without trails of lead, without a sturdy, richly-hued cherry wood, carved window frame, I have to put those random fragments of deeply-colored glass and fit them into an invisible frame, so when I write that last word, I can step back and find that it all fits. Of course, I'll have to make minor adjustments here and there, but as a whole it must fit, and look beautiful when the golden, full-bodied light of evening tumbles through it like a Friesians mane billowing in the wind, the wind itself seeming to get tangled in its silken depths and pulse within the black depths like sunlight sparkling beneath the gently ebbing waters of the coast.

See? Why was I so worried, and frustrated at that, of having random, juicy metaphors flitting in and out of my mind when all of those just came tumbling out? Anyway, I believe another one of the things that lead to me renaming that folder in Microsoft Word Story Thoughts is because when I start on one story, I may be standing solidly on that first step, but that doesn't mean I won't step off to do other things and suddenly...down this road and that, sitting in the hollow of a valley, or atop a balding hill will be another house, sometimes more tantalizing, sometimes more imposing, both are compelling to me. But again, it will be just a fragment, and obviously I have discovered that is all I need. Now, don't get me wrong, just as my heart goes out to any abandoned house I've stumbled upon, so do the novellas I've 'left-behind', so to speak, sit silently and waiting in the back of my mind, some gripping the edge of that well, others far from it, but none of them forgotten. I often thought it amusing and quiet peculiar that all of the characters in stories both new and old reside in one place...my mind. I like to think of it as all of the dilapidated farmhouses they live in - and believe me, they all do live in such houses! - all crammed onto a single country lot, forming one of those hideously added-on-to historical homes where the current owners and the several before them paid no mind to the house's heritage, to what the outside of it looked like even though they were gaining perhaps much-needed space on the inside. Now, granted, the particular old house I'm referring to, wouldn't undergo such monstrosities, after all I am an old house fanatic far more than probably even I realize! After all (I apologize for using that word again so soon!) most of my metaphors pertain to old houses don't they? Why do I feel like I have a knack for stating the obvious?

Well, there you go, if I may abruptly switch gears while you tighten your seat belt against the lurching of the vehicle around you and the grinding of the gears in your ears, that's what three week's of pent-up ideas will do to a person. I think the creativity outlet is smoking by now. Then again, it's better than not plugging into it at all, right? ;)