I handed in the keys to the old place yesterday.







Katie did a walk through with me and I showed her all the water damage from the leaking roof and the still un-repaired tuck pointing under and over several windows. Also we looked at the badly repaired bathroom tile falling into the tub and I explained where to send my deposit as none of these issues are my fault. I am still coughing up little bits of moldy basement as I actually swept the whole thing out – including all that glitter that Mitchell left behind in his studio corner.



I have a few random chemical burns from a variety of cleaning solutions fighting for dominance in my dermis and I am sore from wrestling two dead dryers and a dead washer out to the curb, but otherwise I am none the worse for wear. A random stranger offered to help me in exchange for the chance to take and fix the washer. He just bought a house in Bevo by Mary. People tell me that St. Louis is an unfriendly city. That just hasn’t been my experience, but then I tend to meet people fairly easily. I’ve thought about where this ability comes from and I think it has something to do with moving a lot as a child and having to repeatedly start my social network over again. I am sure there are lots of factors and the moving thing is just one of them.

We’ve had a few parties to attend this week. First Bethany was in town from KC and arrived with a chocolate fountain for Chris and Vanessa.







We had a roasted pork loin and much good conversation. We also got chocolate everywhere. I am told we will attempt a repeat performance with this modified croc pot on New Year’s Eve.

Last night Jes and I went to a white elephant party hosted by a friend of mine from high school, Rebecca, and her husband Tim. Jes got a bar of sandalwood soap and a Camille Paglia book. I got Survivor the Home Game for the P.C. It’s going to Good Will unless you want it. I might read the Paglia book, though the essays were compiled 1994 and are fairly topical to that cultural moment.

It seemed as though half the guests at the party – held in Sunset Hills – we from a two block radius around our new place in the city. I think this area offers a great deal in that it is a very liberal section of the city. It’s architecturally attractive, has many very good restaurants, and is affordable for people with our level of education and employment. My old place was really beyond my means.

St. Louis is a small town when it comes to socializing and Jes and I both knew an assortment of the people at Rebecca’s party from other contexts. When R and I first split she moved in with a mutual friend from college, Ann, who also works with Rebecca; Ann and her new roommate Nicole were there and they live just a stone’s throw from us.

Tim is actually a good friend of Jerry’s (history professor from the ville) ex wife. Mike, a film guy from Webster, knows Mary H. and he swears he and I have met before. Jes knew a guy named Tom who used to work at a clay wholesalers and is dating a girl that I knew from my old job at the H.A.C. Parties in the peer group can get to feeling a bit incestuous but in a sense we all have academics and art practice/education in common and many of the people there were teachers of one stripe or another. Sharing professional interests, I suppose it isn’t surprising that the connections overlap.

Many of those guests will bolster the ranks of our own looming soirée, we are both a stop and a final destination for many folks so we will see just how many people this place can hold.