Gracious Living

I started reading Sloane Crosley's book I was Told There'd Be Cake, which I really want to love but don't think that I do. I liked the first essay, though. The author discusses her worries about what will happen if she dies and people have to come into her apartment, which I worry about frequently, because sometimes I just don't get around to cleaning the bathroom for a while or there's too much chick lit on the shelves and I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Sloane specifically mentions the hazard of beginning a big reorganization project that doesn't get finished because of the need to stop and watch old sitcoms in a prom dress, which I also completely understand.

There was this one day when I'd recently moved into a new apartment in the ghetto. I was going through some of my things, when I decided that I needed to wear one of my old college formals, because it has a swishy skirt. I put it on and decided that I also needed to wear my boots, because when is it not a good time to wear boots? They always make me happy. And this was the year that I had a roommate who owned these goblets that made me extremely pleased. I drank all of my beverages out of a goblet that year. Orange juice from a goblet is just divine. AND if you're living in a ghetto, it's much easier to pretend that you live somewhere gracious if there's a goblet in your hand. So I was sitting in the living room, watching a talk show at 4:00 in the afternoon in a floor-length gown and boots, sipping a goblet of juice, when there was a knock at the door. I hesitated for only a moment before deciding that I wouldn't look like a crazy person by answering the door in my dress. How many people come to the door who don't know me anyway, right? Yeah. It was a man questioning everyone in the building about a recent theft. Did I mention how I was living somewhere a little bit dodgy? The police were there every few days and there was at least one big bust at the abandoned building across the street with 9 police vehicles including the k9 unit. And there I was living graciously in my formal wear on a Thursday afternoon.