This is Day One, then, they tell me. The first day is abrupt, remarkable, noteworthy, harsh. And the contrast of this domestic situation and my usual lifestyle of couch floor bed guestroom hostel hotelroom trailer tent backseat surfing, is as jarring as graffiti on plaid. Or as conspicuous as a hand painted vanagon in Hollywood. Or as unheard of as a mistreated avo at my fingertips.

I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Lying in a king sized bed - alone. In a bedroom - alone. In an apartment - alone. Right now, on Day One, it is the little things that fascinate me. Like: how witty it is to have two bed stands. One for the electronics (the infrequently needed alarms, the IPod, the stereo, sometimes laptop) and one for the candles, the journal, the incense, a glass of filtered water, or stringed beads (important stuff). And isn't it cunning how some sinks have a disposal drain for organic matter including steeped paper tea bags without staple or string, like Celestial Seasonings. Or how mandatory it is to have an entire drawer somewhere either completely empty or completely filled with imagination items - you know, feathers, rocks, keys, oils, and other things whose seemingly sole use is to be perceived as beautiful and cause an appropriate reaction to the observer.

I dare everyone to make purposeless beauty.

Imagination box.

It is natural, like raw food, like dancing outdoors and singing at the market, like wondering what those slightly parted, slightly hesitant lips feel like on mine (feel like green coconut jelly meat). It is natural to want to not carry thirty pounds of your belongings at all times in a backpack to rehearsal, to class, to auditions, to the gym, to the coffee shop, to the farmer's market, to the dressing rooms at Fredrick’s of Hollywood if someone doesn't stop me. It is natural to want to have a regular spot, maybe in a small cabinet or something, where your toothbrush can be located every single time you look for it. The last place I found my toothbrush was a bar floor. Yup. That's my life.

Or was my life.

And it is natural for one who has not had such things with any degree of consistency over the past five years to feel completely nauseous and overwhelmed at the whole should-I-put-pants-on-a-hanger-or-fold-them decision. Yes, all five pair.

My lover, who has simultaneously come up missing as I begin my three month house sitting Study in Domestication, urges me to pretend it is a play in which I am cast as A Person Who Lives Somewhere, which will close in three months - unless I choose to extend the contract. Until then, I have a sophisticated Hollywood apartment, two frisky felines, one four foot snake, three house plants and a radically competent home stereo system under my personal protection. I feel like everything I ever wanted was just dropped in my lap, but it is made of balloon and my hands are suddenly razor blades. I don't know what to do with all this space - do I fill it with useless things or leave it empty? Is it an Imagination Box or a sock drawer?

And where is my lover anyway?

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