"Hoarders" - The Play At Home Game

When I was running my vintage clothing business, particularly between 2008-2010, I turned most of our apartment into a storage facility.  I stopped taking pics of the place until a year or two ago.  I had never been a hoarder, but the thrill of the hunt left me with tons of clothing and accessories.  I had too much to photograph and sell.  Every Christmas I hired an assistant.  The right hand living room window was completely blocked off by massive storage bins.  I had three racks of clothing in the gallery, every surface had stuff on it.  I had put together an expensive shelving system, planning to use it as an all-in-one.  But it got covered in more stuff.  All of our closets--except Jeff's--had my clothing in them.

Those of you who've seen my apartment know that by NYC standards, it's huge.  We had a cleaning lady come in every two weeks, so it was somewhat under control.  Mostly she helped me organize the clothing etc. and then cleaned the rest of the place.  We worked with an organizer, but everything kept going back to crap.  Here's some pictures from 2006.



My custom-built shelves.  I used the ironing board to de-lint and pack clothing.  The area on the far right later had bins stacked to the ceiling.



Our living room.  By 2008 huge storage tubs went all the way to Jeff's desk on the left by the window, and the right-hand window was almost completely blocked off.



Our gallery.   It also got way worse. In the back you can see my beloved plus-size mannequin, Bodicea. She was donated last year to the Shirley Chisholm Foundation to be used at a home for at-risk teens.

I sold on Ebay for nearly ten years.  After the economy bottomed out, I was selling at a loss. I closed my store, sold off all of my vintage and donated much of the contemporary stuff, or gave it to plus-sized friends.  I sold up to size 10X in contemporary, as large as I could find in vintage.  I put ads in Craig'sList for free hangers and packing material.  Every piece of bubble wrap that came out of my supply closet HURT.  I've been cleaning and purging off and on since then.

Recently I discovered I'm a paper hoarder.  A month or so ago I had a shredding company take out an industrial size container of paper, and there is still tons more. (Gaahhh...)  BUT!  Our apartment is cleaner than it has been in years.  In fact, it's so clean it makes me a little anxious.


Living room

We had the built-in metal bookshelves moved into the living room, and donated the Ebay shelves to Materials for the Arts. And 85% of the bins, particularly the huge storage tubs with wheels. The Victorian fainting couch belonged to Jeff's mother.  We got it when she moved from Nyack to North Carolina in the 1990s. The armchair and ottoman are also from my mother in law, when she moved from North Carolina to the Ass-End of Nowhere.



Living room facing the gallery.  Above the couch hangs a painting of Pittsburgh by my mom.



The gallery.

My mother painted the ocean scene, which is what you could see from our late lamented beach house.  The gallery is 20 feet long, so you can't get a feel for how large it is. On top of the bookcase is a sculpture that my mother did in the 1940s. The red bag contains my dad's ashes, and the top hat I brought back from London for him.  It's so big that when I put it on, it drops to my nose.


Other side of gallery.

Note marble "cane stand" on the right.  My sister did the painting of our first cats c. 1975.  The antique chest is from my mother.  You can't see it, but on the left is an antique German table that my other sister gave me, and an antique monastery chair (or a good copy) that I got from Sarah Lawrence college while my dad was president.

The rest of the boxes are in a corner of the dining room.  I moved them there before a dinner party for my sister Tessa.  Eleven people, including my mom and the rest of the family.  It was a whopping success. 

Yes, it is an episode of "Hoarders."  We've been in our apartment for many years. But it wasn't until I started the business that things got so out of hand. 

When my brother posts his pictures of the dinner party, I'll put some up so it REALLY is an episode of "Hoarders." 

Frozen

I'm sitting at my desk, using Twitter.  I'm in my shortie polka dot nightgown.  I need to take a shower.  "Classic Rock" is on MusicChoice on television.  The Doors's "The End" starts.

As soon as I hear the first chords, I am frozen in place.  Inside my head, there's a simultaneous clunk and "oh, shit".  I have my right hand on the mouse, my arm is leaning on the desk.  My legs are slightly drawn up, resting on my toes, at angles to each other.  My left hand...rests lightly on the keyboard stand.

I.Can't.Move.Anything.  My eyes cannot look away from the monitor.  I'm hyperaware of my body as the song plays, the pressure on my left arm, my hand resting on the mouse, my toes.  Nothing moves.  I try to move my eyes, which usually snaps me out of it.  It doesn't work.  I move my head--YES!  But instead of getting up, I slump sideways, face down, on my desk, my arms hanging at my sides, my legs still in the same position.

Jim Morrison sings.  My blonde hair is a curtain around my head.  I'm staring at edges of paper.  The desk, once my dad's, smells like pencils.  My entire world is here, my nose pushed into the desk.  I try to lift my head.  I can feel muscles and vertebrae strain, but nothing happens.  The top of my head clenches, but nothing happens.  "It's not a stroke," I tell myself  "I'm still breathing."  Long deep breaths.  I move my jaw and tongue.  I try to speak.  I can't, beyond small noises.  I try to move my right arm.  The whole world has become my body.  Which cannot move.  My legs and feet might as well not exist, although they are getting sore from being in the same rigid position.  I forcibly relax all of my muscles but it doesn't help.

That fucking song is still playing.  It's 15 minutes long.  I have to turn it off. If I manage to somehow get out of this chair, will I fall on the floor and stay there?  Jeff can't find me like this.  I have to move.  If it kills me, I will move.  I pull my head up against what's pushing it down.  I move my head back and forth.  My right arm moves, my legs move.  I use my right arm to push myself up, hanging onto the desk.  Holding on to the furniture, I make my way to the coffee table, pick up the remote and turn off the tv.

I sit down, hard, on the couch, hyperventilating, heart pounding.  My teeth chatter.  I can't control myself.  I dial my sister on my cel, and she talks me down.  I had a series of these incidents in 2005, which is when I went to the epilepsy ward at Columbia Presbyterian.  They thought I might have progressive temporal lobe epilepsy.  I don't.  These episodes are emotional, I know that.  My body once again in service to my mind.

As I talk to my sister, I still can't walk straight, but my relationship to the physical universe is changing back to normal.  She's the one who uses the word "hyperaware." I lie back and my bed and realize I'm in a large room, the blue ceiling above me, everything seems far away but this is how it's supposed to feel.

My heart is still hammering.  I take a shower, balancing against the wall.  That damn handicap bar still hasn't been installed.  I dress.

I sit to write this down before I forget.

Today, In Embarassing News

We were running late to go to the opera (la-di-da!) and as usual my hair refused to do anything but look wrong, I was stressing out on what to wear on a freezing night, and by the time I got those issues straightened out, I realized I hadn't put any makeup on.

Those who have met me personally know that I don't often wear makeup, but going to the opera calls for makeup.  I squirted this Almay stuff that says it will magically match your skin tone.  Mine was "light to medium." I think I got a mislabeled bottle. It was a strange greenish color out of the tube, and as I rubbed it vigorously on my face, it turned...deep tan.  Like raven-haired sun worshiper in August tan.

For some reason I kept rubbing it, somehow hoping it would change color again.  I've never had a really deep summer tan.  So it was pretty cool to look at.  But with zero minutes to go, I washed my face, slapped on some eyeliner and mascara and we swanned off to the Metropolitan Opera. Of course, when I saw myself in the mirror in the ladies room while on the line waiting for a stall, there was a thick dark brown smudge running from my temples to under my chin.  I'm not sure what I wanted more, for people to think it was weird makeup or if it was a nascent beard.