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.