Feeling blue (rooms)

on hanging roman blinds and hospital gowns

It’s my first winter living in the Northeast since I was 17. I’m writing this from the studio apartment in downtown Manhattan that I moved into last Thursday. It’s pouring outside and the space is still in a bit of disarray. I’m trying to ✨trust the process✨ and take my time, but I also would like to snap and have everything feel right.

Yesterday, I dislocated my shoulder trying to hang no drill Roman blinds by myself. I wish I was kidding… The x-ray I got this morning came back fine, my shoulder is back in its place, thankfully, but I need to be in a sling for the next week. Never a dull moment :,).

Anyways, back to Roman-blinds-gate. As it turns out, my window frames are uneven, diagnosed by the TaskRabbit who showed up an hour after my solo attempt and told me it would be impossible to ever hang no drill blinds in this prewar, lopsided building. So he ditched the tension rod for his electric drill to set the blinds into place. While the ordeal took him all of 20 minutes, it cost me $85, a bit of my mental sanity as he ran through a laundry list of issues he noticed in my 400 sq ft space, and a trip to urgent care.

Ironically, I’ve been saving blue rooms on a secret Pinterest board for the last month. As I waited for my X-ray results, I took a scroll through for the first time. Still feeling a bit blue myself, sitting in a CityMD exam room, under fluorescent lights, wearing a very on-brand blue hospital gown, a vision for the space finally became clear.