Pet Sounds

Today, an amazing thing happened: my bed was delivered.

There I was, having some lunch in the kitchen when the buzzer rang. What luck! The men from Bedding Experts had arrived to deliver my mattress, box springs, and frame. One minute, I'm letting them in and showing them where I want the head of my bed to be and the next I'm looking at a whole bed, put together and so far off the ground.

The air mattress I'd been sleeping on for 29 nights sat very, very close to the ground. In fact, it was actually right ON the ground. Now, I'm sitting up so high I can hardly believe it. My room looks like a real place, not a storage room for boxes and plastic drawers.

There's a part of me that feels rather silly, being so enthralled with a new bed. I could wax poetic about how this is the first bed I've bought, the first that is truly mine, but here's the thing: a room doesn't look right without a bed. Now, things look right. This is my room, and I can show it to people, and they can think, "Wow, that Beth really has it together."

I think this sense of room accomplishment is simply building on the fact that I spent Thursday night painting this tiny place all by myself. Looking at this gray paint, you can tell I was a first-timer. You can also tell that I didn't have a stepladder, because there's an uneven inch or so at the top that still shows the white underneath. I decided, being cheap and lazy, that this inch is "spunky" and so it's staying. It's staying, and it's amazing.

I also patronized the cool local record store today, buying the Beach Boys's "Pet Sounds" and the New Pornographers's new "Challengers." The Beach Boys album is to get me ready for life, and the New Pornographers album is to get me ready for their concert in a few weeks. Though I think I was born ready. Then, I went to Best Buy and bought "Knocked Up." What's a successful day without "Knocked Up?" It's Saturday night, and I'm blogging in my new bed, listening to the Beach Boys. It doesn't get more successful than that.