(no subject)

[nny]

Would you do something for me? If you have time, of course. Call it a writing exercise.

I want you to look at the room you're in. When was the last time you looked at it? When was the last time you didn't automatically just think bedroom/study/computer room, and leave it at that? Look around you. Think.

If you have time, I'd love a description of it, in as little or as much detail as you like. How does it make you feel? Why that particular picture, over the computer? I'm insatiably curious. If you don't want to write though, that's fine, but take a look. See what you've forgotten to see.

This room is pretty big. It seems like, if they sealed it up, I could last for a week on the oxygen... and yet, when it's full of people and clattering keyboards it seems like there's barely enough air, like breathing is a challenge. It's strange how perspective can change a place so much.

It's almost a square, but the corner along the wall from me is curved, exposed pipes and slightly uneven bricks making it more interesting. That corner is warm, somewhere to rest your feet, a pipe seeping heat through the souls of your shoes, but the computer there doesn't work at the moment. That's why I'm over in this corner, with an unplugged orange wire and so many plug sockets, cracked paint and the reassurance of hard drives between me and the next person. I say it's 'cos of the porn but in truth I just don't like people watching what I'm doing. It makes me nervous. In the third corner, directly behind me, windows and blinds that are never quite open, never quite shut, twisted up for a view of grey bricks, and the fourth corner has the door.

I'd like to be on a computer by the window, but it's occupied more often than not, and it tends to be the first corner to fill up in the morning. That I have such a long term computer room strategy illustrates, perhaps, how often I'm in here. Too often. Still, it's a home of a sort.

It's starting to go grey outside, and that's how you know that it's daylight. Even on the sunniest days, the bricks will still be grey, but a certain quality to the light lets you know the weather; slightly bluish, today. I imagine low grey clouds, the need for electric lights, rain later. I can't tell, because out of the window is grey bricks, a net to stop pigeons getting confused by windows and nooks and crannies, a green-tinged cherub. Besides, it's behind me.

The walls are magnolia, an institution colour if ever there was one, matching the hard drives and plug sockets. My blue and yellow notepad, brought in so I can get an address so I can send things to someone important, keeps catching the corner of my eye, a bright incongruence. The chairs are grey, as is the carpet, and the desk... if you look terribly carefully, there's pink and grey and white and brown and fawn, but from here it just looks one dull colour. Rather like a room of faces you've never met. Like the computer room, when it's full, and it becomes hard to breathe.

Comments

[indy-go.livejournal.com]

Why, of course I will tell you what this room looks like. Seems fitting, as I'm talking to...you, in another guise. :)

I live in a studio apartment, in a building dating from the 1920s. It's technically got three rooms, though, between the main bedroom/sitting area, the kitchen/dining area, and the bathroom. I'm very fond of the archway into the kitchen. There's only one window in my apartment, but it takes up nearly the entirety of one wall. The white curtains mean that it's never entirely dark in my room, even at night, because the streetlights shine in. I like my window. It's old leaded glass, and you have to crank the panes open by hand. A huge gingko tree grows just outside, making the view of the parking lot beyond much more bearable.

Right now I am sitting cross-legged on my futon, which also doubles as my bed. The walls of my apartment are a heavy cream color, and the floors are white oak. On the wall that I'm looking at now there is a print from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; it is split in half, one part showing a detail of sky and clouds, and the other featuring a field of grain, crows, and a stormy sky. I love it because it reminds of that trip, taken just before college began, and because it has about a thousand shades of blue. A ridiculous picture of my brother and I (making faces while eating ice cream at a cafe) hangs on the same wall, along with a cross.

There's a wicker chair between the futon and the window, as well as an ottoman with a blue cushion, where Fred the cat has currently nested for the evening. Fred himself is a ginger tabby, sweet-faced and good-natured, if a bit dim. When I go to sleep he'll settle down around my feet, occasionally nibbling on my toes if I move around too much.

My computer desk, which I'm staring at right now, is an absolute mess. I have a habit of piling things: books that I may or may not be using for class at the moment, pages torn off my Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar that I think are too funny to throw away, postcards and notes and pictures that I need to file away in scrapbooks.

Living alone is quieter than I'd like it to be, sometimes, so my CD player (also on the desk) has gotten a lot of use this past year. Harry Connick, Jr., is playing at the moment, lovely warm music entirely fitting for this hour of the night.

My bookshelves, which my dad and I painted the same blue that lines the clouds in the Van Gogh, are to my left. They are jammed full, some books properly shelved, but others stowed haphazardly here and there. Some are school texts. Most are books for pleasure. One whole shelf is devoted to my collection of ghost story books that I've gathered on my travels over the years.

It's a full room. Lived in. I like the busy-ness of it, candles tucked into odd spaces and picture frames nailed to strange outcroppings of wall. I like the strange chandelier than hangs from the ceiling above me, but I almost never use it because it seems like it should be saved for a special occasion. One wonders how such an occasion could possibly take place in a studio apartment, but there hangs the chandelier, all the same.

That's not everything, not by a long shot, but it's what I see tonight.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

Walls: Four, yellow.
Ceiling: One, a lighter yellow. I heard that makes the ceiling look higher, which makes the room look bigger, which I sorely need.
Floor: One, not visible under all the crap.
Bookcases: Two, one tall and thin, one short and fat. (They are HASTUR AND LIGUR. Please save me from that thought.)
Dresser: One, dark.
Bed: One, twin, dark, with purple sheets, to complement the walls.
Smooshed bear: One, from Reno.
Unsmooshed stuffed animals: Four, one bear from Reno, one cow from Christmas, one moose from band geeks, one of those freaky rabbits with the faces on the back that I can't remember the name of from a different Christmas.
Clocks: Three. One is lost somewhere and one is broken, but was brought back from Korea for me and looks like an apple so obviously I cannot throw it away. The lost one looks like a TV and has bendy antennae. It is from Colorado.
Posters: Three. The Hogwarts crest, the promotional We Goddesses poster with Athena, Aphrodite and Hera on it, and one of Schonbrunn.
Calendars: Two. Discworld and Fairly Oddparents.
Bulletin board: One. Stickers, notes, postcards, a birthday card, a picture, keychains, a watch, dried flowers, instructions for the TV-shaped clock, movie ticket stubs, two Aziraphale/Crowley drawings and one of Ron, one giant red gift-wrapping bow. No. I don't remember why.
Desk: White, somewhere, beneath the crap.
Lamp: has a penny-belt on.
Hats: Four. One denim bucket, one black beret, one red ski, a green baseball cap from Switzerland. They've gotten dusty from hanging on my bedposts so I don't wear them.
Turtles: Two. One little wooden one with a bobby head and a great big stuffed one on top of my computer.
Index cards: Omnipresent. I use them for bookmarks, lose them, and get new ones. Then I find the old ones and draw on them and don't want to throw them away. One day they will bury me.
Other crap: Laziness has overpowered me, so it will go unmentioned. Except for the Sharpies, of which there are many in different colors and sizes, because my love for them is undying. If high.
In conclusion: I am a dork.
Post-conclusion: I like lists.

[sophistry]

My bedroom is small - not small enough to be cramped, or claustrophobic, just enough to be cosy. The walls are white, but so covered in posters, blu-tacked photographs, cinema and plane tickets, and other ephemera, that you can hardly tell. There's a desk (also white, and doing triple duty as bedside table and dresser) running in an L-shape across half of the width of the rectangular room and down most of the length. The 'desk' part runs under a large window, so as to take advantage of daylight. Unfortunately, this isn't nearly as economical as it sounds, as the window is north-facing. Ah well.

The window does serve its purpose, however, as opposite it is a wardrobe. The front of it is a full length mirror - we all have our vanities - and, as it reflects the window, it gives the room an illusion of airiness. The wardrobe is built in; a tic of mine, souvenir of an accident at age seven, when a wardrobe fell on me and I snapped both my wrists like twigs trying to save myself.

Wedged in behind the ends of wardrobe and desk is a bunk-bed, spanning fully the width of the room. It's a narrow room. The frame is white steel, and the rungs on the ladder are the nasty, narrow sort that kill your feet. The bedclothes - I wouldn't call them beige. More of a warm parchment, with Latin inscriptions crisscrossing in a darker brown- Astrum sub Noctem, Ovis per Lumen, Solea grace, lecta soporia, omnus luna. I sleep on the bottom, of course, walled in on all sides but one. It's secure, like a cubby-hole, even if I do bump my head a lot in the morning. The mattress is very firm.

Under the bed, stacks of books, pairs of shoes. From here, I can see Converse, and pointy leather ankle boots. Both black, naturally. On the desk, within easy reach of my bed, my laptop, a stack of CDs (nine, soundtracks all), a purple marker, a coffee mug, and an empty glass which, until recently, held apple juice. My copy of 'Good Omens', Arrian's 'Campaigns of Alexander the Great', 'Endless Nights', and a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, so that we'll always know how to spell 'manoeuvre'. On the floor beside my bed, my Classical Studies folder, ready for anything Iskander can throw at me. It's a bright folder, covered edge to edge with clippings from X-Men comics (all you'll need is some sticky-back plastic and some PVA glue!) and nigh bursting apart from all the paper in it.

The parts of my walls not covered in memorabilia are taken up with bookshelves. The one nearest the bed is where I keep my fantasy novels. The non-fiction is at the other end of the room. I'd forgotten I owned a copy of the Mabinogion. More dictionaries - Latin, French, Spanish, Irish, English - a little red badge with a demon face on it, a black leather carnivale mask, and a plastic bottle filled with ash scooped from the crater of Mt. Vesuvius.

The window-sill - a squeezy foam penguin and a beanie snake, Beatrice and Crawly. An empty photo album; all my photos are on the walls. Glasses case, and a 3D puzzle in the shape of an egg, with one piece missing. A magic wand, a peacock feather, and a small pewter figurine of Pterry's Death frying some eggs.

There's a rolly spinny office chair that doesn't get used, except to dump things on. It currently plays host to two pairs of ragged jeans, my full-to-bursting art folder, and the white uniform shirt that all my friends signed in bright colours on the last day of school.

[melpemone.livejournal.com]

I've lived in this tiny, over-furnished bedroom for 11 years now, and although it's evolved a lot (as one would hope one's bedroom would between the ages of 11 and 22), two things don't change - the pale green, blu-tack stained walls, and the olive green, flower patterned, threadbare carpet.

There's been a lot of posters up, over the years - at one point I tacked up everything I could find, to cover the paint. Right now, there's a CoS poster and a PoA poster over my bed, and a small one of Harry and Draco in Quidditch gear across the room. That one is next to the window - the curtains are black, with silver moons and stars - and above the smaller bookcase, which currently holds my old fandom stuff in piles, waiting to be boxed away. My firestaff is stuck in the corner - it's been too cold to play with it.

Next to the small bookcase, which is across from the dresser, is my (dusty) altar. It holds three candles, a silver chalice, an incense burner, an athame (ritual dagger), and a black scrying mirror. The altar's directly under the window, so I have to remember to shut that if I want to light the candles (the burn hole in the carpet is testimony to the wisdom of that).

Next to the altar is the corner unit - 8 drawers, 4 shelves, holds my TV and DVD player, my fishtank, my sewing machine, my stereo, and an awful lot of junk. My HP figurines live there, and all my favourite books, and all my CDs and DVDs. It's overflowing. More candles, small figurines of faeries, unicorns, wizards and Snape - and Buddha, because he's holding flowers and looks cheerfully benevolent. The drawers are so full of clothes that the bottoms have fallen out and been repaired numerous times. The unit is dusty. The fishtank is empty.

Jammed next to that, is my violin and acoustic guitar. Along the side of the unit is photos of my boyfriend, taken over the years, making a nice montage of his evolving hair and tattoos. I can see these from my chair, and find myself staring at them often.

I'm at the computer desk - another surface overflowing with stuff (a telephone, PC games, earrings, a can of Pepsi, a magic 8 ball, HP collectible cards (the ones that came with the chocolate frogs), my ashtray...). The monitor is decorated with stars, a world times wheel and my Slytherin badge on the corner.

Next to the desk is my wardrobe. On the side, I've nailed up this year's calendar - a Harry Potter one, this month is Dobby. There's also several guitar picks and an outdated LJ birthdays list stuck to it. On the front of the wardrobe is my whiteboard/corkboard. The whiteboard has written on it: quantum materia materiatur marmota monax si marmota monax materium possit materiari? (loosely - how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? :D), and 780x50 (to remind me of a website background resolution). The corkboard has several bills, my timesheets for work, last year's Big Day Out ticket, a handmade Slytherin crest from a costume party, and a sticker that says Fuck Yeah I'm Weird. Below the board I've got a list of Death Eater Daily Resolutions I found on ataniell93's LJ. My favourite reads: "I honour and express all facets of my being, regardless of state and local laws."

The wardrobe is next to the door. On the back of the door is several handbags, my Hedwig backpack, my bike helmet, my favourite green shawl, and a coil of sparkly wire with multicoloured stars on it.

And next to the door is my bed - a double, with a purple bedspread and a black iron bedhead. Under the pillows are my stereo remote and two green notebooks, for when the bunnies bite in my sleep. A clampable desk lamp is attached to the bedhead, and there's a pile of clothes on it.

Sometimes I hate this room. It's ugly, it's irredeemably messy, there's constant dust, it's too dim. I itch to throw out everything, start anew. Or, preferably, move out altogether, to a house for myself. But at the same time, the room is filled with my energy, and it's my sacred space. No one steps in here without my explicit permission, under pain of death. If something's moved, I know. Having to live here drives me crazy, but I can definitely call this room my own.

[r-becca.livejournal.com]

Cross-posted from my own journal:

This room, the second bedroom in our two-bedroom apartment, is designated the "office," but really that's a poor choice of words. We seem to put everything in here that we don't have a place for somewhere else. The closet is full of wedding china that we still have never used, my pants that need to be shortened are folded on the table in the corner, even that table is something we felt might be useful one day but didn't want to throw out.

A large pink couch, with white polka dots, sits on one wall. It's not a terribly comfortable couch, and it's certainly not very attractive, but it took Adam and Andy and Dave two hours to get it in here, so it will stay here as long as we live in this apartment. Next to it sits the white laminate end table that I got for free, as a college hand-me-down. The bookshelf is tall, and full of old textbooks. An observer can tell that between us, we majored in history, economics, and biology. Perhaps we had a minor in wedding planning. My Harry Potter books are also in here, in the non-fiction section, defying the organizational system because I want them near the computer.

The desk I'm sitting at is big-- it's the kind that is made to go in the corner of the room, with a desktop surface that forms a right angle and shelves that rise up above them to arrange our office supplies at eye level and also block out half of the window. On the shelves are some office supplies-- little yellow notepads and white envelopes and plastic CD cases containing computer software, but it also contains ... other things. A silver flask engraved with Adam's name, a bobbing-head figure of a house-elf, a Russian doll made out of wood that has smaller replicas of herself inside, a bronze statue of Justice which is just too tacky for Adam to bring into work, but somehow looks less so in between the Russian doll and the stuffed Empire State Building. Also, there are the things that are between the necessary and the whimsical: weight-lifting gloves, a map of Maryland.

Oh look, there's the vase I searched the entire kitchen for yesterday. I'd better go put it somewhere where I'll be able to find it again.