Fugazi and the Colors Change

The downstairs neighbors are bastards. Yes, perhaps it was not the greatest of choices to engage in dorm-like debauchery in a two level, eight-unit apartment building, but I maintain that if you want to wrestle drunk with your friends at 1:30 in the morning in the middle of the week there should be nothing stopping you. It is reasonable to see how neighbors might disagree, however calling the police was quite unnecessary when a simple knock on the door would have been just as effective.

These are the same charming inhabitants who came up and complained about the first and only party you had twenty minutes into it. And when you took them freshly baked cookies the next day as a peace offering, they responded curtly to your introduction and apology only with "Oh;" and took the cookies and closed the door in your face.

Now there is a notice posted on your door saying that if you receive another noise complaint, you will be asked to leave within three days. Precious.

Contrast and Compare

You come home to an empty apartment after a cold bike ride without a sweater. You think bicycles can change the world. At this point you think sweaters can too. It’s getting dark too soon. Your favorite season is becoming tangible but your best friends are not here to watch the colors change. It feels like a waste.

Roommate has gone home for the weekend. He left a clean kitchen but it only feels unlived. You are waiting for a trace of yourself. It is an odd sensation. Nothing can be attributed to making you feel this way but the sentiment is there. You wish for a one bedroom at least six times a month, but now all you want is for the apartment to be full.

You don’t know how to turn on the heater so you sit wrapped in blankets with two pairs of socks waiting for someone who is not coming to fix things. It has been a long fucking week. Listening to Saves the Day is not helping. It only makes you think of old friends and things you’ve ruined.

You are tired of this stupid place. Your walls are still half bare and the bedrooms don’t feel cozy. The living room is chic but cool; you miss the warm tones of your parents’ house. You come home to a roommate instead of kin. (You hate yourself for thinking of one of your closest friends that way but it cannot be helped.)

The boy you’ve been out with three times this week calls to take you out. You politely decline. You drink too much at a friend’s apartment. You wait until you are able to drive and come home, in spite of genuine offer to crash there.

And sometimes sad songs just hit you hard. You blame it on the changing of seasons (there is much to be longed for). And sometimes you just need to get away. You have made so much for yourself here (but somehow now it doesn't feel that way).

You wish to take off but a friend’s birthday keeps you here. You call your mother and tell her you’ll be home the next day. She can tell you need her for no reason at all. Sometimes you think growing up is harder on her than it is for you. She says she misses you and the dog, and can’t we just come home tonight?

You show up for the party. After an hour girls are crying everywhere and it feels like a jr. high dance. You wonder why you stayed for this.

You return home. Real home with a real fireplace and ten acres and three other dogs for Gatsby to play with and scents of meals that didn’t come from a box. Your mother hugs you like she means it. You hang out with your grandma and family friends come over. Your dad plays the new Mark Knopfler album for you. You play Wii with your brother. Things feel right again.

You see your best friend. You go to your favorite coffee shop and your favorite park and you hold hands. Gatsby is almost happier to see him than you are. It is difficult to leave him. It is difficult to leave home.

You meet your mom for lunch before you take off. You see The Darjeeling Limited with your dad (you are only reminded that they have yet to screen it in Sacramento). He and Wes Anderson know how to make you laugh and comfort you.

You tell yourself it is natural to feel this way. You are on your own for the first time. You have lost nothing, though, you remind yourself. You are only gaining a better sense of self and forming self-sufficiency. Beautiful things come from suffering, you say. You plan to write this into the movie you plan to make one day.

You put on the mix cd your dear friend made you for your drive back. You are reminded that there are great people to return to. You listen to happy songs. You have an apartment waiting for you and walls to be filled. In a week you will wake up and nothing will feel this way.

Habit and Routine

For some reason, for the third time in the past week and a half, your alarm didn’t go off so you woke up in a sheer panic, with the realization that you have seventeen minutes to shower, get dressed, assert your ethnic hair, and take Gatsby for a quick stroll around the block. (Some of your professors are less understanding than others.)

You hop into the shower, which has unexpectedly remarkable water pressure. However, since the drain is significantly weaker than the showerhead, you end up standing in an ever-filling pool of shampoo and body wash and your own filth. It’s really quite charming.

You rinse off, get out, grab a towel, and quickly decide that it’s going to be another hat day. Some (most) of last night’s makeup didn’t quite wash off in your four minute tango with the shower so you don’t have to worry about reapplying, and proceed to get dressed.

You go to the kitchen to refill Gatsby’s water bowl. You stop at the fridge for Naked OJ, which you bought at the natural foods co-op a few blocks over, though you can’t remember which bottle has the vodka and which one is just juice. It’s a game of chance you play most mornings, but it makes breakfast far more fun.

The sink is still full of dishes and water from last night, not having magically drained from the night before when the roommate was asserting the dishes. Another lovely little perk about the apartment is that the garbage disposal doesn’t work. Never mind the fact that you complained about it the third day you moved in, but the property manager just does not have time to come fix it. However, they have managed to drop by twice now, to leave angry notices about your garbage removal habits and your lawn chairs on the roof. Sorry, of the forty-seven keys you were handed the day you signed the paperwork, none of which were you told open what, only four of them are effective. This means you cannot open any of the three doors you have to pass through to get to the dumpster. And as for the chairs on the roof, now where will you drink wine and smoke cigarettes and unwind from long days of class and napping?

There is nothing you can do about it, so you grab the dog’s leash and lead him downstairs. As you power-walk with him around the block, you are called a "hottie" for the first time since 1999 by some asshole in a lifted truck (quel supris). Gatsby pees and you make it back to the apartment unscathed.

Back inside, the roommate is up and functioning so you chat it up momentarily. You check your school e-mail in the sole corner of the apartment where you can pirate internet and then handoff the dog so that he may be coddled while you get your bike out the door. You say goodbye and Gatsby is shaking, which makes it very difficult to leave. In taking six classes this semester, you have encountered a few professors who are glorious with you bringing him to class, and a few that are less than pleased at the prospect. Thus, you only bring him to your Tuesday, Thursday classes once a week.

Out the door, Gatsby’s already made his way into the roommate’s room and is staring at you through the window. It’s hard to imagine that such a lovely, attractive little being could be so destructive. The first time you left him inside the apartment by himself, he tore down the blinds of that very window, trying to claw his was out. The first time you left him on the balcony, he managed to slip out of his leash and collar, which were legitimately attached to the door, and scaled the roof of the building trying to come after you. You came back to Animal Control about to take him away and three neighbors that will forever think of you as the crazy girl who doesn’t take care of her dog. Glorious first impression.

You head to school. You will return in the late afternoon between classes to check up on him and swoop him for evening class. You have become routined.