City View: Spartanburg

Hello from Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Just a few minutes ago, wind and hard rain blew sideways around the apartment building. When the storm began, my first from inside my apartment here in Spartanburg, I opened the left window of the bay window in my living room (bay window area serving as the dining room) and wanted to feel the rain, hear the thunder more clearly. But then the wind came and swirled in the alley below this window, spraying water over me and the table. I laughed, grinned "Oh, Spartanburg," and nearly closed the window as I tried to make out the city through the water puddled in the screen.

Now, the sky is mostly blue. My windows are clearing. The rainbow over the Methodist church on the corner has faded.

Storms have been sudden and short this first week in South Carolina. They come when they want and they leave just as suddenly. And always, I've noticed, the clouds pile and color at sunset. Yes, the clouds at and near sunset are glorious, mesmerizing even. The clouds are different here near the mountains, it seems. The sky feels even bigger than Kansas at times.

After two days of driving a 16' Budget truck with an auto carrier holding my car, Jedsen and I pulled into Spartanburg just before 5pm on Saturday, June 12. So much has happened since then--so many little wonders--that it will take me a while to catch you up on all of them, so, for now, just know that I am the new administrative assistant at Hub City Writers Project and, starting Friday, will be a new barista at Starbucks. I live a block from Downtown Spartanburg, with the police/fire department across the street, the largest public library I've ever seen across the street, the post office across the street, and the Masonic Temple where I work at Hub City just two blocks down.

This building, called City View, was the first divided apartment building in Spartanburg in 1919. It's been renovated since, which you'll see in my pictures, but it has more character than anywhere I've ever lived. It feels good being here, and you know that I'm in bliss with all of these windows.

How do you get up to my apartment on the third floor? These babies. 32 stairs from the front door.

There she is. 303. You know what you can get through that door? Everything I own except my beloved couch.

 

I was excited to have a home (with wood floors!). Snickers was interested in stretching out her stiff legs from 8 hours in the cat carrier and walking off the tranquilizer that had made her all drooly and silly all day.

I hate boxes. Get them gone.

Below, they are gone. This is my apartment now, complete. 

This is what you walk into if you walk straight in from the front door. The door in the photo is not the entrance but the emergency fire exit. So, for me, it's a window in the kitchen.

This is the other side of the kitchen from the other end of the kitchen. Snickers is standing at the front door, and the refrigerator is next to the microwave. Snickers is facing the living room and the rest of the apartment.

The view of the apartment looking left from the front door. You can seen through the living room to my bedroom to the hallway with the bathroom to the books in the office.

 So, yes, this is the new futon--the substitute couch. Jedsen put it together for me one evening while I baked sugar cookies and we had on The Return of the King in background. In the week that Jedsen was here, he had a part in every bit of this apartment. It's strange to be here alone now. Snickers hasn't been brushed since he left.

Bay window!

Bay window view. (Actually, it's the view from every window.) From here, you can see the Spartanburg Public Library and the BB&T skyscraper.

Bedroom in the morning.

The tiniest closets ever. But I was up for the challenge.

Bathroom, with original tile pattern on the floor and church out the bathroom window.

The office. Where writing will happen.

The view back down the apartment from the office.

Recluse

I just realized how shocked you must be about what I haven't done in Lawrence in three years.

You've never eaten Downtown on a Saturday night? You've never gone shopping Downtown? You've been at KU for three years and NOW you want to visit the Visitor's Center?

Well, let me address my reclusiveness.

I've never eaten Downtown on a Saturday night because 1) I spend nearly every other weekend in Lenexa with Jedsen; 2) Jedsen and I don't drink and don't go out at night; 3) Jedsen and I are poor; 4) Jedsen and I are not big fans of crowded places, and Mass Street makes us nervous when it's busy.

How have I never gone shopping Downtown? Well, let me clarify. I strolled Mass Street back in March 2005 when Jedsen and I came up here for a night and a concert. Then, I was a tourist. Now that I live here, I still feel like a tourist on Mass Street for some reason. Yes, I've even worked on Mass for the entire time I've been here, but I come and I go. I've gone to specific stores on Mass for specific reasons, but I've never treated Mass St has a mall and just browsed. Part of that, again, goes back to Jedsen and his dislike for the street. I don't really argue. But that doesn't mean I want to shop it--I mean shop it--at least once.

As for the Visitor's Center, though it's on Iowa and very accessible, I didn't know I should go to it until about a year ago when someone said it was amazing. But, then, I've been pretty busy being reclusive and writing my thesis this past year.

Things just haven't gotten done.

But Jedsen and I took a ride last weekend. A ride to nowhere and anywhere, south and east of Lawrence, out in the hills, the green. We drove and tried to get lost in the county, but my sense of direction is too good. As we approached Highway 59, we noticed a park: Wells Overlook Park. So we went. What do you know? There's an overlook, a structure three stories high with views at every level. We saw Lawrence and the surrounding miles to the south, east, west. Perspective. That's where I live. Look at all that West Lawrence that we don't even know. It's new, and it reminds us of Johnson County. We only know Iowa, 23rd St East of Iowa, 9th Street East of Iowa, and portions of Mass St. I know my L of home to school and home to work. I don't know Lawrence.

So I'll try to explore some more in these last months, and I'll make it a goal to know my new town and to let it know me.

Word

I should probably explain.

My time is running out here in Lawrence. I have successfully defended my thesis, a collection of essays titled Parts & Accessories, and I'll be "hooded" as the holder of an MFA degree on May 15. Two days later, I will be reading along with five of my fellow MFA graduates at KU...in our last reading in Lawrence (well, for some of us that may be more true than for others). Even if it isn't an official "last reading" for all six of us, it is officially SENIOR NIGHT.

So, if you're in the vicinity of Teller's Restaurant in Downtown Lawrence at 7pm on Monday, May 17, come hear me read an essay or part of one. Drink a drink. Be jolly. That's what I'll be doing with my friends, these wonderful people who have made the last two years especially absolutely awesome.

Where will I be going? Stay tuned. I have an inkling.

How's that Bucket List coming, you ask? I have officially crossed one item off of my Lawrence Bucket List:

4. Eat at Runza.

Jedsen and I ate at Runza yesterday, and it reminded him of a drive in in Carl Junction, where he grew up. The onion rings had flavor beyond the onion and grease, which was a welcome surprise. And even though I got a value meal, because I ordered at 2:00 on the dot, and 1/2 price drinks ran from 2-4, I got a half-price Mountain Dew. And because I drank a Mountain Dew for the first time in, perhaps, a year, I had a headache and was fidgety when we watched Rashoman a few hours later. But, hey, the hamburger was juicy, freshly made. And the fries were hot. And the guy at the counter was uber-friendly.

14 to go in a month-and-a-half. Who's gonna help me out?