(no subject)
I've been away from internet for most of the last few days. I may or may not catch up with everything here.
I lost my virginity on Friday;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
danaeris brought me to my first in-theatre showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show! It was a surprise date/present; I didn't know until we started getting ready to go just where I was going! Earlier in the day, I'd been thrift shopping with lisagems, who knew what was going on and was looking for clothes for me to wear. Though I ended up with regular clothes too, I think the best part of the shopping was her blocking the view at the end of an aisle in the stores without changing rooms so I could take my pants off and try on skirts. *laughs*
Rocky itself was such a great experience! Danae tells me it was missing a little something compared to other showings she's been to. It's possible that it was because it was a 9:30 show rather than a midnight one, and because a Groupon deal attracted a lot of people who were new to the show. But my kitty bought me not only admission, but a props kit too, so I got to throw paper plates and toilet paper all over and put on my little party hat at the appropriate time.
With shopping help from Lisa and wardrobe and makeup assistance from Danae, I got a few compliments on my Frank-esque appearance. Hopefully some of the pictures Danae took will come out so I can post them. And though I did end up on state with the rest of the virgins, most of us did not get singled out for harassment. There were several dozen of us! Probably due again to the Groupon deal. So all of us but three who were picked out for slightly more onstage antics were inducted en masse.
It was a really great special surprise date! I want to do it again, at a midnight showing with more time to prepare a costume. *bounces*
(In case I wasn't totally clear in the above, I want to express how awesome and thoughtful Danaeris is and how happy she makes me. *bounces* I re-read what I wrote and realized it's missing a certain something. The bouncy-happyness I had through most of the evening, maybe.)
---
I've been feeling a need for a real bed lately, for numerous reasons. Currently I'm sleeping on an old futon mattress resting on the floor of my room. As someone who's living with his parents while going back to school, I'm already feeling a little bit un-grownup. When I was first putting the idea of living with them together, my plan was to have a nice, decorated, adult-feeling room to live in to sort of counter that feeling a little bit. It hasn't really worked out that way so far.
When I first moved into the room at the top of the stairs, I didn't even have a wall and door to call my own. With help from a student of my dad's, we did eventually get a wall built and a door installed so I can have some privacy. The door doesn't quite cover the entire entryway since there's no frame yet, and the wall is still bare unpainted drywall, but it's something. I've wanted since moving in to have painted walls with some of my art hung, and a real bed to sleep in with nice sheets and matching pillows, and a pretty comforter to make me feel like I have some control over my life and my space. That I'm somewhere I shaped into something that makes me happy. Due to my mother's busy schedule (she was going to do a lot of the drywall finishing) and my lack of financial resources, most of it hasn't come together.
But with school starting soon, I know I'll be getting student loan money. I'm also working on selling the wonderful queen size loft bed I paid $400 for, love, and can't use in current space. I feel ok spending some of what I have in the bank right now knowing it will get replaced in the not-too-distant future. On top of that, school will keep me in Kenosha on weekends much more regularly than I have been over the Summer, especially if I'm working at school. This means that, hopefully, my girlfriends will be visiting me more often than I've been visiting them. At the moment, Danae finds my mattress really uncomfortable, and Lisa actually cannot sleep on it without experiencing lots of pain in the morning, so I need something that they are able to sleep on if I want to still spend much time with them.
My original thought was to find a used mattress and box spring on Craigslist. I was nervous about bed bugs after Lisa's experience with them, but was hoping I could find some way to ensure the mattress I bought did not have them. I tried a few new mattresses at an American Mattress store in Chicago I happened to go by, just to see what different firmnesses and types felt like. I learned that I like pretty firm mattresses, and that new mattresses from a store like that are in the four-figure range, well outside my means. I realized I might have to revise my budget up, even for used, and was stressy about that.
Danae and I looked online for mattresses and I showed her a used one on Craigslist for about $100 from a company neither of us were familiar with. She was skeptical; a no-name three hundred dollar mattress was probably not going to be much good. And there was still the bed bug/cleanliness issue.
So finally we decided to take a trip to Ikea to see whether anything they had might be workable. I wanted to compare sized too; I'd had it in my head that I needed to have a queen if I was going to be able to fit two people on it with any degree of comfort. But then Danae pointed out that her bed is a full, and though we do bump into each other a bit, it's really not too bad. In the end, after trying a few different things in the house of Swedish furniture, I decided to spend $200 on a full size Sultan Hurva. It's not a super nice mattress like the ones I tried at the other store. But it's a lot nicer than what I have. Even though I'm ok on the futon mattress I have, I do recognize a difference. And this one is brand new, and certain to be free of any bugs or anything else that mattresses accumulate while in use. I've spent more money than I wanted, but I think I'm ok with it.
I'm also buying a bed frame from someone on Craigslist tomorrow. It's an Ikea Hopen, and while the headboard might look a little like a park bench, I kind of like it. And I'm paying $75 for it, including the slatted base that the mattress needs to go on. So for about $300, I'm going to have a nice full size bed to replace my old futon mattress that came with me when I split up with Moira. I think we'd bought it new, but that was a long time ago, and having something fresh will be a pleasant change. I hope my partners think so too.
I lost my virginity on Friday;
danaeris brought me to my first in-theatre showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show! It was a surprise date/present; I didn't know until we started getting ready to go just where I was going! Earlier in the day, I'd been thrift shopping with lisagems, who knew what was going on and was looking for clothes for me to wear. Though I ended up with regular clothes too, I think the best part of the shopping was her blocking the view at the end of an aisle in the stores without changing rooms so I could take my pants off and try on skirts. *laughs*Rocky itself was such a great experience! Danae tells me it was missing a little something compared to other showings she's been to. It's possible that it was because it was a 9:30 show rather than a midnight one, and because a Groupon deal attracted a lot of people who were new to the show. But my kitty bought me not only admission, but a props kit too, so I got to throw paper plates and toilet paper all over and put on my little party hat at the appropriate time.
With shopping help from Lisa and wardrobe and makeup assistance from Danae, I got a few compliments on my Frank-esque appearance. Hopefully some of the pictures Danae took will come out so I can post them. And though I did end up on state with the rest of the virgins, most of us did not get singled out for harassment. There were several dozen of us! Probably due again to the Groupon deal. So all of us but three who were picked out for slightly more onstage antics were inducted en masse.
It was a really great special surprise date! I want to do it again, at a midnight showing with more time to prepare a costume. *bounces*
(In case I wasn't totally clear in the above, I want to express how awesome and thoughtful Danaeris is and how happy she makes me. *bounces* I re-read what I wrote and realized it's missing a certain something. The bouncy-happyness I had through most of the evening, maybe.)
---
I've been feeling a need for a real bed lately, for numerous reasons. Currently I'm sleeping on an old futon mattress resting on the floor of my room. As someone who's living with his parents while going back to school, I'm already feeling a little bit un-grownup. When I was first putting the idea of living with them together, my plan was to have a nice, decorated, adult-feeling room to live in to sort of counter that feeling a little bit. It hasn't really worked out that way so far.
When I first moved into the room at the top of the stairs, I didn't even have a wall and door to call my own. With help from a student of my dad's, we did eventually get a wall built and a door installed so I can have some privacy. The door doesn't quite cover the entire entryway since there's no frame yet, and the wall is still bare unpainted drywall, but it's something. I've wanted since moving in to have painted walls with some of my art hung, and a real bed to sleep in with nice sheets and matching pillows, and a pretty comforter to make me feel like I have some control over my life and my space. That I'm somewhere I shaped into something that makes me happy. Due to my mother's busy schedule (she was going to do a lot of the drywall finishing) and my lack of financial resources, most of it hasn't come together.
But with school starting soon, I know I'll be getting student loan money. I'm also working on selling the wonderful queen size loft bed I paid $400 for, love, and can't use in current space. I feel ok spending some of what I have in the bank right now knowing it will get replaced in the not-too-distant future. On top of that, school will keep me in Kenosha on weekends much more regularly than I have been over the Summer, especially if I'm working at school. This means that, hopefully, my girlfriends will be visiting me more often than I've been visiting them. At the moment, Danae finds my mattress really uncomfortable, and Lisa actually cannot sleep on it without experiencing lots of pain in the morning, so I need something that they are able to sleep on if I want to still spend much time with them.
My original thought was to find a used mattress and box spring on Craigslist. I was nervous about bed bugs after Lisa's experience with them, but was hoping I could find some way to ensure the mattress I bought did not have them. I tried a few new mattresses at an American Mattress store in Chicago I happened to go by, just to see what different firmnesses and types felt like. I learned that I like pretty firm mattresses, and that new mattresses from a store like that are in the four-figure range, well outside my means. I realized I might have to revise my budget up, even for used, and was stressy about that.
Danae and I looked online for mattresses and I showed her a used one on Craigslist for about $100 from a company neither of us were familiar with. She was skeptical; a no-name three hundred dollar mattress was probably not going to be much good. And there was still the bed bug/cleanliness issue.
So finally we decided to take a trip to Ikea to see whether anything they had might be workable. I wanted to compare sized too; I'd had it in my head that I needed to have a queen if I was going to be able to fit two people on it with any degree of comfort. But then Danae pointed out that her bed is a full, and though we do bump into each other a bit, it's really not too bad. In the end, after trying a few different things in the house of Swedish furniture, I decided to spend $200 on a full size Sultan Hurva. It's not a super nice mattress like the ones I tried at the other store. But it's a lot nicer than what I have. Even though I'm ok on the futon mattress I have, I do recognize a difference. And this one is brand new, and certain to be free of any bugs or anything else that mattresses accumulate while in use. I've spent more money than I wanted, but I think I'm ok with it.
I'm also buying a bed frame from someone on Craigslist tomorrow. It's an Ikea Hopen, and while the headboard might look a little like a park bench, I kind of like it. And I'm paying $75 for it, including the slatted base that the mattress needs to go on. So for about $300, I'm going to have a nice full size bed to replace my old futon mattress that came with me when I split up with Moira. I think we'd bought it new, but that was a long time ago, and having something fresh will be a pleasant change. I hope my partners think so too.
