The Apartment

Sleeping on this pull-out couch is like sleeping on pipes. I don't know how the woman who owns this apartment can do it. Maybe she's young and still carefree. Or maybe she's just drunk all the time and so she can't feel anything anyway. I'm going to go to the store tonight and buy one of those foam eggshell crate mattress pads, and then I can present it to her as a gift when she returns.

I'd like to mention the bathroom sink. It is the kind that has a hot water faucet on the left, and a cold water faucet on the right, so you either have to burn your hands or freeze them. In an effort to be optimistic, I will consider the use of this sinks as a mini Russian banya, and focus on the health and disinfection benefit.

The reason I am still here in this apartment is because it is extremely clean, despite the general state of deterioration. And it is meticulously organized. The woman subletting to me left a note telling me where her box of cleaning supplies is located, and added, "p.s. Green sponge for ammonia, blue for bleach..." Any woman who (a) has a box of cleaning supplies (b) expects me to want to use them during my three-week stay and (c) knows not to mix bleach with ammonia is someone I think I should become friends with. Most of my fears regarding general disinfection are allayed.

However, most of my fears are not all of my fears. Her note has calmed me enough to where I can stay in this apartment, but I am still uncomfortable here, simply because everything is decaying. The enamel on the sinks has in many places worn away. There are rust stains on the faucets. The tub is permanently gray (I tried Scrubbing Bubbles last night and it didn't do anything at all). I wonder if this class was designed as a lure to make me go through exposure therapy.

I still am amazed at how I lived under these conditions as an undergrad. At first I thought it might be because I was so excited to be living away from home, and all that first-time freedom emotion. But I am just as excited to be here this time, and maybe more, now that I've been out in the world, working in a cubicle farm, and dragging myself through the days. I am appreciating the fact that I have almost no time contraints here, and virtually no stress (minus the apartment-related anxieties). So now I think that it is just age. The young can endure anything, and also, they are less-experienced, and therefore more ignorant.