Tunesday : Situation

Situation

(Moyet, A / Clark, V) Performed by Yazoo

Blue eyed dressed for every situation
Moving through the doorway of a nation
Pick me up and shake the doubt
Baby I can't do without

Move out, don't mess around
Move out, you bring me down
Move out, how you get about
Don't make a sound just move out

I remember only for an hour
Move right through me can you feel the power
I don't know what's going on
It scares me but it won't take long

Move out, don't mess around
Move out, you bring me down
Move out, how you get about
Don't make a sound just move out

Now he's in control he is my lover
Nations stand against him he's your brother
Been a long time, been a long time now
I'll get to you somehow

Move out, don't mess around
Move out, you bring me down
Move out, how you get about
Don't make a sound just move out

As I wrote about last week, when Rob and I left Lethbridge for Edmonton, Curtis offered us a place to stay (on his floor) and our plans didn't go too far beyond that. For weeks, Rob and I just hung out, often drinking in the evening and typing out hilarious short stories on Curtis' manual typewriter (hence the header photo) while he was out working or hooking up with some guy, and eventually, Curtis began to wonder when we were going to start looking for jobs or an apartment of our own; we were not only stretching his resources (he was feeding us, too) and his patience, but it was cramping Curtis' style that he could never bring a hookup back to his own apartment while the two of us camped out there. As for the song this week: I loved Alison Moyet and Yaz/Yazoo around this time, and while most of the tunes I could have chosen for today were unrelated love songs (I loved Don't Go and Only You but couldn't find a way to use them this week), I got a giggle out of the chorus for Situation:

Move out, don't mess around

Move out, you bring me down

Move out, how you get about

Don't make a sound just move out

Eventually, our incredibly patient friend Curtis got to the point where he told us it was time to move out (don't mess around). 

We didn't have a lot of seed money, but Rob and I did find an affordable two bedroom apartment a block away from Curtis' place and we moved out, at the beginning of December if I'm remembering it right. We had very little furniture -- it was Curtis who pointed out that Ikea sold thick foam pads and sheets to fit them as pseudomattresses, and we each bought one -- and we were happy enough that the former tenants of the apartment left a large credenza behind in the living room that we used as a TV stand (for my tiny, portable black and white television/cassette player combo). Fancy living. And still we didn't worry ourselves about getting jobs -- I have no idea how I thought life was just going to work out for us, but we had just enough money to feed ourselves with, and as the beginning of the next month (and the paying of rent) approached, we neither looked for work or thought too much about it. I can't explain this.

Around this time, some other friends of ours moved to Edmonton, and when they found a five bedroom house to rent, they asked Rob and me if we wanted to move in with them in January. Sure did! A few days after the first of the month -- after successfully dodging the rent-seeking landlord -- we packed up all of our belongings (which still all fit into my Honda Civic) in the middle of the night, and we moved to the new house. (And I have to admit that I have zero recollection of how we paid our share of that first month's rent. Maybe Rob's parents gave him cash for Christmas? I remember that I met Dave that February and that I still hadn't received "my big" Christmas present from my own parents by that point; I remember little else about that first Christmas on my own; there may have been a pine branch decorated with cigarette package tinfoil balls?) Rob and I had to pretend to be university students in order to be put on the new lease (as we weren't working), and it was stupid to need to keep up this lie as the manager for the house lived in a basement apartment beneath us (and Bernie was a weird dude --like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys -- and he would make us gifts of his homemade wine, hit on the homely girl who lived with us [Joyce; as if he even had a chance with her], and go tearing out to scream at his German Shepherd that was kept chained in the yard).

Some random memories from this time: Curtis would buy a cheese sauce mix and bulk noodles to make us homemade Kraft Dinner, and it sticks out in my memory, still, as some of the best food I ever ate.

I said that Rob and I would type out hilarious short stories, but the talent was really all him; he was just one of those naturally funny and clever people. And if I had ever before thought I could write a book, seeing an actually creative person throw out random brilliance cured me of that delusion.

Rob had oral surgery while we were in our apartment and he was miserable as he had to take his meals through a straw for  few weeks. He was so miserable that I surprised him with a kitten for his birthday, and he loved her.  He ended up naming her Badaboum (we for some reason had a French language children's book -- La Petite Chat Qui Ne Pouver Pas Descendre [about a kitten that was always climbing up things and getting stuck there] and "badaboum" was the sound she'd make when she'd fall).

As I mentioned, my mother took her time sending me my "big gift" for Christmas this year, but I do remember that when she asked me what I'd like for Christmas and I replied, "An iron", she sent me a folding travel iron from Consumers Distributing (a cheapo catalogue storefront where you'd go in, flip through the catalogues on display, fill in a form for what you'd want, hand it to the clerk, and wait for someone to bring it up from the back; a really cheapo way to shop). My takeaway from this was that my mother didn't really believe that I was gone from home for good; why would I need to own an iron?

Badaboum on my camera strap. Don't fall!

This week's Tunesday doesn't progress my story by much -- it has the feel of a placefiller -- but I needed to transition to next week, when my life really started to take shape. No regrets sharing this song!