Day #12 Following the Instructions in "Manifesting Your Soul Mate"
Making Space: In - and Out
I was not only supposed to be imagining the Soul Mate as already there, according to the book, I was also supposed to be making space for him. I evidently expected the soon-to-be-arriving Soul Mate to charge in the door, race to the fridge, chow down, belch contentedly and then amble off to the bathroom with an hour’s reading material without even saying hello, because the first spring cleaning tasks I put some elbow grease into was a thorough cleaning of the bathroom and then the refrigerator.
Not that either one of them were in particularly bad shape – they weren’t – I just went the extra mile of bleach and ammonia cleaning I don’t normally do every week – and then sprayed the bathroom with a lovely, über-feminine floral air freshener so his eyes wouldn’t immediately start watering – not from joy at finding me at last, but from the ammonia fumes. Am I thoughtful or what?? We can discuss the questionable behavioral expectations I had for him later.
Making Space: Pinked
In Feng Shui terms, the “relationships, love, marriage” section of the apartment is supposed to be reflective of the fire element and decorated with reds, pinks and whites – definitely not my favorite color scheme. Too much pink always reminds of those annoying women who carry around little yipping dogs in wicker baskets, slather on their make-up with a trowel, paint on their arched eyebrows, bat their fake eyelashes at everybody and talk in little-girl voices and think they’re irresistible.
Reds I can deal with and whites I can deal with – but pink? I don’t know. What DO men think about pink bedrooms? I've never actually done a survey, but my educated guess would be that pink was not their favorite color scheme, either. (Or, if it happened to be some guy’s favorite color scheme, I’m not at all sure he’d be at all interested in ME, let’s put it that way).
Also, it’s supposed to contain the elements that reflect such relationships: no pictures of people or items in isolation, nothing depressing or scary – only two’s and couples; items that represent love and commitment. Feng Shui practitioners sometimes recommend a pair of mallard ducks for this area. Now, I have nothing against mallard ducks. I know mallard ducks are supposed to mate for life, but I still don’t spy a pair of mallard ducks and think, “How romantic! Love! Marriage!”
What To Do When You See A Mallard Duck
Actually, I see a pair of mallard ducks and immediately (if you’ll excuse the expression) duck and cover. Reason? I used to live in a region of the lower Catskills populated with stupid and illiterate hunters who would just as often shoot themselves and each other (and me) while aiming for a mallard duck as anything else that moved. I have nothing against the NRA in particular, but I still can’t figure out why they think it goes against the constitution to take a really stupid man who can’t read a simple “Hunting Prohibited” sign in a residential area, put a gun in his hand and then set him loose on the population. Lord, but we’re an idiotic country sometimes. You have to prove you can read road signs to drive, but not prove you can read “Hunting Prohibited” signs in order to be handed a gun?
But I digress.
A bedroom, to bring to mind love and romance, should also probably have a bed in it. And that was something of a problem. I didn’t have a bed. Well, I do have a bed, but it’s presently in another state, still being held hostage in the lower Catskills,. (See “Felonious and Evil Ex-Relative”, previous entry). For the last five years I’ve had to make do with a cheap, squeaky daybed that was only supposed to tide me over for four months in college and was now so worn out my back was killing me. Even my doctor had suggested I consider buying a new bed when I complained of sciatic nerve pain so severe I had trouble standing up straight in the mornings.
I could hardly welcome a Soul Mate into my life with a romantic life confined to a single, squeaky day bed and me hobbling around in the mornings like an 80-year old. After weeks of comparison shopping and scrimping I found a platform bed I could afford, and ordered it. I was told it would arrive in six to eight weeks.
The Doorbell Rings!
I was told wrong. It arrived in three days. Definitely had to have set some sort of land speed record for beds.
And I was SO not ready for it. I was very peacefully sorting through books in the “New Bedroom”, deciding which ones to keep and which ones to send to the storage room when the doorbell rang at 8:00 in the morning. It was so heavy the FedEx guy couldn’t even lift it onto his dollie, and had to push it along the carpeted hallway most of the way. I’m sure my neighbors couldn’t imagine a more charming way to be awakened in the morning than by the sound of grunting, groaning, heaving and ho’ing in the hallway. (And feel free to keep your comments and giggling to yourself, please). I knew that if the Fed Ex guy couldn’t lift it, there was no way I was going to lift it. To heck with the patient wait for him to materialize, I needed my Soul Mate – and his muscles - RIGHT NOW, or I was going to welcome him into my life by handing him a pocket wrench and telling him to start cracking.
Alas, the doorbell didn’t ring twice. The lazy sot … er, I mean, my beloved soul mate … was so not going to show right now. Wise man. It looked like I was going to have to do this myself. And surely you have some idea already of my accident-prone tendencies. When I looked at the huge and heavy bed components and threw phrases like “do or die” around, I was being more literal than most people. My cats know me pretty well, too, and wisely slunk out of the way, preferring to warily watch the proceedings from safe distances. Wise animals, cats.
Assembly in Three Languages
One thing I really love about assembly instructions is the way that it never says, “Two people recommended” on the website you order the bed from, but it does say it on the instructions when you’re standing all alone in your living room. In three languages, no less: “2 PEOPLE! 2 PERSONNES! 2 PERSONAS!” To which I snorted, “Merci! Gracias! AND THANKS FOR TELLING ME THAT NOW!” I had an immovable bed, no way to lift it, nowhere to put it, no way to put it together and no firm mattress to put on it.
But – there was nothing else I could do but tackle the problem alone. I started at 8:30 in the morning, first by walking in circles around it, eyeballing the pile of components. Then by dragging the components piece by piece from the living room into the bedroom. Then by opening the directions and trying to match up pieces with illustrations I needed a magnifying glass to see. Then I dug out my toolbox again, looking for my new screwdrivers. Then I put some uplifting music on the speakers. Then I started putting this huge bed together. Since I didn’t have the second person, I decided to use the wall and other pieces of furniture to brace it against when I needed to hold it steady.
It worked. I know, I couldn't believe it, either! I finished at 4:00 in the afternoon without injuring myself once, if you don’t count the bruise in my palm from screwing bolts into it manually … voila! Every body part I had now ached, but I had a big empty platform laying in the middle of the bedroom. Of course I spent the rest of the day forgetting it was there, and barking my shins on it regularly.
Mattresses take less time to arrive, so I had assumed I could wait for it; and hadn’t even ordered one. Thinking I could probably now use one sooner rather than later, I dialed up Bob’s Discount Furniture for a Bob-o-Pedic and made one happy salesman’s day – he didn’t even have to do a sales pitch. In the meanwhile, I supposed I could lay the single mattress down on the platform, to at least give my aching back some support and finally dismantle the squeaky daybed. And good riddance to it. But in my world, dismantling things could be just as dangerous as assembling things … and I don’t have the best record in dismantling things without injury. It could wait at least a day.
Meanwhile ... now to assemble the matching nightstands.
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