Four objects

I've got three weeks until I start the new job. Just look at all these boxes. Thank goodness I rented the apartment furnished. At least it's only the boxes to unpack, no furniture to move or arrange. Where in the hell shall I start?

Two days later everything's done. Looks just like home. Scary, how easy it's been to get everything back to the way it was in '08. Yet nothing's quite the same. Sitting on the living room sofa, looking about me, pretty much all the same objects are there but it's different somehow. Take the coffee table. I've got my Oktoberfest stein, the one I gave to John back in '00 for his fortieth birthday two years before he died. I've taken that everywhere with me, ever since his mother sent it to me back in '02. Now it's back on the coffee table in the center where it belongs -- so basic, simple, and lovely. Wish John would've been able to visit me in San Francisco. He'd have loved it.

There's the Sterling silver candy dish. Mom and Dad gave that to me back in '97 when they left Pittsburgh. I was SO mad at them back then. I couldn't believe they were leaving beautiful Pittsburgh where we'd all grown up. My mother'd once said, "I'll never leave Pittsburgh!" It's hard to believe they've been in South Carolina 13 years now, loving it so much they've even got burial plots now. Well, no wonder. There isn't a Democrat within miles. Of course they're happy.

Twelve years ago, David bought me a set of small, elegant books about the history of Philadelphia. We might've broken up in '03 but I love those books. I've even used them for writing my novel about Depression-era Philadelphia. Especially the book on Italians of Philadelphia. Odd, David didn't buy me a book about Jews in Philadelphia. You couldn't get him talking about politics without it leading to Israel and the Middle East. But he's a good guy, even if he never wanted to have sex.

Mike did want to have sex with me. Together more than six years until he broke up with me, just 2 months ago. He gave me those antique copies of Life Magazine. They're on the coffee table, all featuring actresses of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe -- how fabulous. I can remember still the excitement when I opened THAT box. We had sex for days. So what happened, I still wonder, that changed how he felt, that caused him to make that call as I was careening down the I-280, driving home from work? I nearly plowed into the concrete wall barrier when he said he wanted to break up and he was certain. Gone -- just like John, Mom and Dad, and David.

The apartment's quiet. Funny, I didn't miss any of these things in California. It's time to redecorate.