My Crazy Life

We moved to Detroit on Friday. I found out about said move on Thursday. Brandon's company made an executive decision to move us when we'd all decided we'd had enough of Savannah's licensing problems. My mother said that I was like a modern day pioneer. I’m not sure about that, but I do have the pack up your life and leave on a moments notice thing down. My mother also said that I would probably win if there were ever a competition of how many places you have lived as a newly married couple. I’ve never participated in a competition of that sort, but I suppose if there ever is one and I happen to be nearby, I will most definitely jump in and enthusiastically declare myself the victor.

We got here at one o’clock in the morning after getting lost on 8 Mile for a little while because the freeway happened to be closed off right at that exit and no detour was posted. Brandon's cousin Jake played Eminem on his phone in the backseat while I pretended that I wasn’t frightened.

The first thing I noticed once we got here is that Detroit is cold. It’s right on the border with Canada and I don’t think I ever made that connection before. Compared to the stifling heat and humidity of Savannah, Georgia, the cool breeze feels foreign and delightful. There are no cockroaches the size of my head scurrying around my flip-flopped feet and it doesn't smell like sulfur. Instead the air here has a dry crispness, and it smells faintly sweet like the air at Lake Tahoe that drips with the scent of pine and good, clean nature.

My second observation was that our apartment resembles an elegant hotel suite. The company Brandon works for always provides furniture in the apartments we live in—usually from a furniture rental company so it’s the bare minimum—but this place was obviously came furnished. There is a completely fully stocked kitchen (that’s with dishes, appliances, and cooking utensils and pans and such, not food—I wish), washroom with washer and dryer, iron and ironing board, gas fireplace, TV and DVD player, a basement, bathroom fully loaded with linens, and one of the most luxurious king size beds I’ve ever seen or slept on. Oh, there are also twelve paintings throughout the small one bedroom apartment. Whoever chose them had atrocious taste—or at least did not know how to mix and match.

We have two Post-Impressionist pieces (Van Gogh imitations, moderately well-done, but poorly framed), two Baroque-ish still lifes, an impressionist print, a complicated-looking gilded medieval map of the word, two decorative paintings of hydrangeas, a Renaissance style tapestry-type painting, a hideous modern kind of folk art piece, a strange Japanese seascape that looks like it came straight out of a fantasy story, and a poster of a girl standing on the tip of a Gothic cathedral while a gargoyle leaps out over the edge as if freed by her presence and the bubbles she's blowing. There is also fake ivy spread out over dressers and the vanity in the bedroom. The smell is a little like old people, but in a good way. Combined with the old fashioned decorations, I feel like I'm staying at a grandmother's house. It reminds me of a house that belonged to a widow named Lilliann Joberg where my family lived for a few months while trying to find some place to move when I was about seven. That house had a mysterious feel with its old trinkets and dated decorations. This place is much the same. And don’t even get me started on the basement. The floor is completely blue and made of concrete and the only things down in that cold, square room are two rickety white shelves and a large, old headboard.

Apparently, I love it here.