bottom drawer

Yesterday we did a bit more on Juanita's house. Putting up plywood ceilings and trims, and panelling out the bathroom with some pretty horrible masonite panels of fake tiling in beige. But compared to what she had before it is heavenly - easy to clean, non-leaking and new. The idea of the 'neck-down' project is that you don't use your head - ie, a short, intense burst of activity to fulfill the project without 'designing' or thinking too much about anything apart from functionality and fulfilling the client's needs. So although the ply ceilings look, to many of 'our' eyes, pretty funky being left unpainted in contrast to the white wood panelled walls in the main rooms - a bit like a sub-early Gehry effort - we know that Juanita will feel that they are unfinshed unless we paint them, so that's how it will be. So that's why we end up with fake tiles on the walls - they are cheap and practical and quick to put up. When Juanita and her family ...

well, here I am at my landlady's computer in Greensboro, Alabama! suffice it to say, although I arrived in the States on Wednesday, it has been so completely whirlwind and busy that setting up my own internet account has been the last thing on my mind. I have been straight in at the deep end, being picked up and driven directly to the site of the term's first project, a week-long 'neck-down' project involving all this semester's Rural Studio students, remodelling the incredibly run-down house of a 79year old black lady named Juanita. After several hours hard work of hammering, drilling and sawing I finally got to go home to my new apartment! Today the project was meant to finish, but of course there's still work to be done so we're back there tomorrow. But this evening Juanita and her family came by to be formally given the keys to her new front door, and their reaction to what we had done justified this programme absolutely. I will write more in due cour...

I have organised a small apartment in Greensboro, the main town of Hale County where the Rural Studio is based. It's with Mrs McCleskey, who sounds very sweet and very Southern. My voice starts to relax into a drawl when I speak to her. In our first conversation, she explained the apartment (it's very convenient, there's a microwave, cable television - do you have a television?') and then moved onto her other domestic arrangements: 'Do you like pets? a'cause I've got a dog, a German Shepherd, and I do try to tell her, but she will want'a sniff you whenever you come in'a th house. She's awful friendly, and she will jus' want'a sniff anyone who comes in.' Today in an email from her it emerges she actually has '4 dogs-only one of which stays inside. Sometimes they get rather noisy, so I hope you're prepared for a little aggravation.' I've never really been a dog person, preferring cats myself. Other than that she...

The Rural Studio programme started yesterday...and I'm still here...but I now have an estimated time of departure. I'll only be a week late!

As preparation, I have been reading the Alabama Driver's Manual ; learning about what do with school buses, box junctions, low speed limits and driving on the other side in general. The chapter on 'The Driver' epitomises something about American culture, when it includes sentences like: "There is something about getting behind the wheel and in control of the power, speed and bulk of a car that reveals the type ofindividual you are. You can soon see whether you are inclined to be a bully, a thoughtless lawbreaker, and a self-centred lane-stealer. or whether you are reliable, courteous and sportsmanlike...Good driving attitudes and sound actions reflect mental and emotional maturity." Somehow, that might have come out of a 1950s English textbook but would never be found in the UK of today. Though maybe we need it, given this report. Yet despite this kindly advice, they still give a licence to every hormonally unbalanced 16 year old.

Just found someone else's bottom drawer - a very nice project from a Chicago-based webmaster. Deadpan, but great concept and fab execution.

Apparently Alabama has the second highest rate of gun ownership in the US. But this has at least spawned one sporting heroine .

Last night I dreamt about going to Alabama. A typical anxiety dream, but it solved my main, big worry (what am I going to do for transport before I get my driving licence?) by having a train going around from town to town. It was mini, I had to bend down every time we went under a bridge.

Read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience this morning on the bus. Do any of our politicians/commentators read this stuff any more? a more relevant book for the times is hard to think of - and it's short and written in language anyone can understand. It hasn't aged a bit. Meanwhile, having been highly bored by the prospect of the Olympics, reading this has got me cheering on at least one team. And more good news on the football front here .

The thing that was worst about the US embassy cattle-herding was that it discriminated against people like the woman who sat at the end of my row of seats, waiting patiently for several hours, whose story I overheard. She needed a visa, so she thought that the easiest way would be to go the embassy and ask for one. But of course, at the embassy there isn't an information desk. Anyone who doesn't have the internet, or who doesn't want to pay £1.30 a minute for their premium-rate phone information service (and you're then put on hold for 10 minutes) hasn't got a chance. So, she had arrived at the embassy, seen a queue of people with signs saying 'Non-immigrant visas queue here' and joined it. At no point in that queue did anyone consider that there might be technologically-poor people there and make a simple statement to say 'Anyone who is here for a non-immigrant visa, you must have your forms ready and have paid £60 to our bank account.' So th...

Well, it was painful, I was in there from 8.30-1.15 (and which fool forgot to bring a book), they suspected me of having an Alabamian sweetheart who I was going to join, but they are going to let me in the country. So I rewarded myself by shopping...what every girl needs in Alabama is definitely a gingham check skirt from Comme des Garcons bought at a knock-down price in the sale!

Everyone here keeps asking me where Alabama is. So, to enlighten little Britain, here's a map. Alabama is bordered by Mississipi, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. I'm going to be pretty slap bang in the middle of it, a little to the left. Alabama was the heartland of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King came from here. (I've been reading up on the movement while on holiday...John Lewis's memoir 'Walking with the Wind') Alabama covers 52,000 square miles and has a population of 4.5 million. By comparison the UK covers 94,000 square miles with a population of 60 million - 7 times as densely populated. I don't know much else about Alabama, yet...

Visa hold-ups mean I'm still here...and going to be for some time (well, another 2 weeks) thus missing the start of term at the Rural Studio - very annoying. Last week I was on holiday with the boy on a narrowboat in the Midlands, and it was pretty strange to get a call on my mobile from the Deep South while gliding through beautiful English countryside. Meanwhile, I'm doing horrifically boring things like archiving all my iphotos from the last 3 years onto CD, sorting out insurance, bills, tax returns, tidying my flat and making endless lists. Tomorrow I have to be at the US embassy for an interview to sort the terrorists from the innocent student visa-seekers at 8.30 am, and they say to allow four hours...and after that its shopping for mothballs to pack with all the clothes that I'm leaving here.