1. Don’t wash the dishes “later”
2. Don’t go near  your bed with your street clothing on
3. Don’t watch t.v. from bed
4. Don’t laptop (I’m making this a verb) from bed
5. If you can’t get an internet connection – give up and move on
6. Don’t eat anywhere near your bed
7. Don’t study anywhere near your bed
8. Stay the fuck away from your bed

Anyway, I’ve been failing on all these points and been going crazy, so today I blew a wad of money and organized my life.

• I disassembled my shelf/desk/file cabinet combo because it was both destroying the balance and aesthetics of the apartment, while never being used and taking up too much space.
• I turned the file cabinet into a night stand, took the shelf and made it into a divider between the kitchen and dining area, and hid the desk top behind my headboard.
• I moved the bed closer to the closet and moved the ginormous tv and entertainment center more towards the window, which creates a living room area at the end of my typical rectangular studio.  Now all I need is a couch!  But it’s nice to not have the goddamned bed in the center of the freaking space, creating this vortex that sucked all the energy out of me.  There’s actually SPACE to move and dance and exercise (like THAT’s going to happen) and just look at.
• I got a clothes drying rack that is pole-suspended and folds down, taking zero room and not junking up some corner, and then I got recycle bins and book dividers for the shelf.
• got a broom with a long handle so I don’t have to stoop over like Yoda while I sweep the never-ending hair fallout.  I also got a duster and a mop – a no frills mop (do you know how hard that was to find?) and a basin to both mop and also soak my feet for a pedicure, since there’s no soaking in bathtubs in these officetels.

Anyway, I actually was able to sit at the dining table and both study a little and do some lesson planning.  Glory hallelujah, I will no longer be a bed-ridden slug!

I wonder what the people at E-mart thought, as I must have been there four times today.

One of the times there, I saw this little girl who got me thinking about adoption again.  She was this little miniature girl, so small she should be crawling.  But there she was walking around and talking and saying so much, so bright, such an individual, and I knew she was the age and size I was when I left Korea.  OK.  Ok.  I was much, much chubbier…  But so tiny.  I think now that it must have been something delightful to my mom, because it’s the natural tendency to infantilize  adoptees as they are starting over again, without any tools or ways to communicate, and because really – they ask for babies but rarely get them.  So a small speechless adopted child is even better, because then you can dress them up in tiny dresses and keep them adorable longer.

No wonder I am so hyper aware of being objectified.

We must, must always preserve our humanity at all costs.