The New(est) Place

 "Everything is so set up, it looks great!" most her friends echoed.  

She thought back to a year ago where she'd promised herself that her next move would be her last.  This was her second move since then, and the feeling a failure weighed heavy upon her.

She tried to rally herself.  These moves had not been her fault, even back to the studio.  It had been sold, and had nothing to do from here.  She had to get out from KSL before they killed each other.  Then the market had not crashed or done anything except go up.

Looking around her new apartment, she had put everything up fairly quickly.  She just wanted to desperately to feel like she had a home.  Her mother was getting worse by the day and soon wouldn't remember her.  She felt like an orphan.

Her new apartment looked wonderful.  But it was too much space for one person, and there would only ever be one person here.

Losing All Sense of Home

"So, I'm actually moving in a month." SD dropped the bomb on her for the few minutes they spent together before she had to get back to Goldie's dog.  Goldie herself was moving out of the building next summer.

"Is it weird, coming back here now that you don't live here anymore?" Mel asked when he was over to visit.  "No," she answered, "It still feels like home."

She realized suddenly that soon she would have no reason to go back to her old building.  The place she still considered home.  Though she had a place to stash her crap, it didn't feel like home.  She knew it wasn't going to be forever.

The next day she had a start of a panic attack and didn't know why.  Talking through it with Banana she realized that it was just because it was like moving out of the building all over again, losing her home all over again.  Luckily the sudden knowledge of what she was panicking about stopped the attack, but the sadness of the situation remained.

She was emotionally homeless.

Goodbye Art Pop Studio

"Breathe" KSL reminded her throughout the day.

She couldn't.  She just needed to get through the day.  Her ex was helping for a bit, she didn't want to waste his time, and the truck rental had sprung it on her that she actually had to have the truck back by 5pm or else she would get charged for an overnight.

The amount of money she was spending on this move was piling up and she was starting to panic about her finances.

She and KSL's styles on how to move were wildly different, and she tried her best to go with the flow of everything throughout the day, even though that's not who she was.  She felt a huge sense of relief when PJ showed up for a little while to help them with the last of KSL's stuff, ensuring that she would get the truck back in time.

As they walked along the path from the apartment to get things out of her car, PJ commented on the random toys children of the complex had left lying around.

"Every time I see a child's toy just laying around, I want to pick it up, and toss it in the dumpster.  Every time."

She giggled and loved how on the same dark page they were.  "I actually threw away one of the darts earlier."

They got the truck back on time, and chatted with the employee as he checked them out.  He had greeted them with a "Happy Mother's Day" which perplexed her.  Did she really look that pregnant? KSL later blamed it on his balding head in addition to her apparent advanced age.

They grabbed vodka, ice, and mixers to enjoy in the new apartment.  Her body was already starting to break down from too much activity on a non-working thyroid.  She guessed it was going to get worse before it got better, but so far she was just too much in pain to sleep.

KSL invited her to watch a movie since he had set up the TV in his room already.  "Make yourself at home" he said, gesturing vaguely.

"I am home." She said.  As stressful as the day had been, they had gotten through it together.  All their things were under this roof.

"That was kind of sweet" he replied.

She settled poorly into his love sac, and he crawled into his bed.

They turned on a stand up special, but after a bit the day started to wear down on her, along with the booze.  He asked her if she was falling asleep several times, thus keeping her from drifting off too much.  He continued to keep her from drifting off, until suddenly she heard him snoring.  The TV was glowing on the menu screen; they must have both fallen asleep.

She quietly clamored out of the love sac, turned off his TV and light, and crawled into her own bed for some fitful sleep.  She was starting one of the busiest work weeks of the year the next day, and she couldn't afford to be out of it.

The Search Begins

She was going to have a talk with KSL about a potential roommate situation later.  Until she could meet with him, she went into overdrive looking for one-bedrooms.

Goldie and SD kept sending her links to units in their building.  They were all more money than she was paying, and when she went to see them...they looked their age.  It was a 50 year old building and it was fast becoming apparent that her unit was the most updated.  She secretly thanked her lucky stars that she'd found the only hardwood floor-Ikea-ed out kitchen in the entire building with a dishwasher.

She had let in three different potential investors and given them the grand 20 second tour.  A couple of them had hinted that they might buy the place and let her stay, but she needed to be prepared and couldn't rely on empty promises.

Mel was trying to get her to move into a piece of shit place by herself, tried to convince her that she didn't need things that she found to be essential.  Maybe he was just too young to realize that when you get to be a certain age, you don't have to compromise anymore...at least not about the things that really matter to you.  Mel managed to pressure her with all this while at the same time almost completely disappearing from her life.  Being as they shared the acts of service and quality time love languages, she took this as a complete abandonment and let her heart drift out to sea.

Dishwashers mattered to her.  A washer and dryer in unit would be nice, but she could potentially live without it.  It had to be under a certain amount of money or she wouldn't be able to eat.  She didn't want to live out in the sticks and have a million hour commute.  She could save a bunch of money if she had a roommate.

Her mind screamed no, that it was quite possibly the worst idea in the history of ideas that she become roommates with KSL.  They would kill each other.  It would be volatile, an emotional minefield of awful.

She started writing down concerns, questions about the apartment.  Her mind kept going and she started a new page.  She re-wrote.  Then she heard a few voices in her head of people who had told her she was negative, a defeatist.  She started a new page of positives about having a roommate, having her as a roommate.  She figured that he would know what his good qualities of being a roommate would be.

She was ready to have the talk.  There were a few things on her list that she knew if he didn't agree to, that it couldn't work.  She at least felt more calm now that all her options had been laid out in front of her.

The crying had finally subsided.

Genenna

Genenna- a place or state of misery; hell.

She was avoiding messaging her landlady.  She knew her lease was up at the end of April, and the front desk guard had told her the owners had just been slapped with a huge fee for something silly.

She figured maybe if she waited...she didn't know.  She signed up for a new app that sent her updates of free apartments.

One day she received the text.  Her landlady was going to sell the apartment.  She asked for at least 2 months notice of her having to move out, she acquiesced.

Her mind went into overdrive.  She researched apartments, signed up for alerts...and that night she went out to dinner with Mel.  She apologized for fixating, and he said it was fine.  She mentioned that one possibility, that she didn't want to really think about right now, was that KSL needed a roommate in June.  Mel recalled his days being a roommate with KSL, and advised strongly against it.  She said that with KSL she would at least know what she was getting into, she knew him.

Mel said that he would offer to move with her, but "that's a little too relationship stuff."

Internally she rolled her eyes.  God forbid she was awesome enough to want to have "relationship stuff" with.  She decided to shake it off, since he was the least of her worries at this moment.

Then, days later...she got her two months notice.  She needed to be out by May 15th, and there were three realtors coming by that weekend to look at the apartment.  The tearful phone call came right in the middle of the wrap party for the movie.  She tried to pull it together, but the text messages from the investors came rolling in right after.  She just tried to keep it together as well as possible.  She spoke briefly with KSL over the phone about having a talk about being roommates.  He was going through his own thing and she deliberately tried to keep the emotion out of her voice as she spoke to him.

Mel showed up soon afterward, but he was spooked because an old girlfriend who had once slashed his tires was there.  He said he didn't feel comfortable with her there, and left soon afterward despite the fact that she said she wasn't feeling well and needed a ride home.  He texted with her a little later vaguely threatening that if she moved in with KSL that he wouldn't see her anymore.

Good Riddance.

She got back to the apartment and realized that she was going to be up for hours trying to clean the apartment for the first realtor the next morning.

She got as far as her front hallway and started sobbing.  She was not ready to say goodbye to this space.  She was set free here.  She realized that sex was enjoyable in this space, fell in love, and had so many drunk late nights with friends.  She was not going to see Goldie and SD as often.

What if she had to go back?  What if she ended up having no choice and moving back in with her mom, and her ex who still lived there?  She was suddenly back there, that moment before she moved into her studio and was so desperate to have a different life, to be set free.

She felt as if she was going to lose her freedom again.  It felt terrible.

"This place saved me.  This apartment, you, saved me.  I'm not ready to let go" She tearfully sobbed to Goldie.

She would figured it out eventually....but for the next three days she couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop mourning the potential loss.  And she did it alone.

You Can Go Home Again

She felt sad, then numb.  The divorce had gone through.  It was over.  It was just a piece of paper, but PJ was right, it felt different.

She went out to coffee with a friend after work, and they talked about everything they could talk about besides her divorce.  It was nice and refreshing, as they hadn't spent time together too much until that night.

She put on her headphones and started the walk home and decided to take a different path, through a road with very little streetlights and tons of trees.

It was calming and relaxing to walk through the closest thing she got to nature.  She realized about halfway home, that she was actually heading home.

That studio was actually where she lived.  This was the first time she had called it home in her mind and headed there.  She had the sudden realization that she was, blissfully, alone.  Her decisions were her own.  Her choices didn't change anyone else's reality anymore.  She was, albeit calmly, free.

She no longer felt like going on the dating sites.  She didn't feel that insane push to prove that she was worthy of being loved anymore.  The pressure melted away.  The judgment from everyone else faded.

She was finally home, in herself, for the first time in her life.

It was a nice feeling.

Gunshots and More

She and Dusky had been working on their project for a couple of hours when he said "I'm burnt out.  Let's make you something to eat and have a bitch session."

It was so nice to be talking again, to converse with Dusky.  She always missed him until she saw him again, he was so awesome to be around.  They talked about life, love, and all the garbage actors they knew and the silly things they did.

He was just getting up to leave at 11 PM when they heard 5 gunshots outside the building.  "You aren't going anywhere" she said to him.

"I'll be fine, I'm parked by the bar right out front.  Literally I'm walking like 10 feet from the building to my car."

She reluctantly let him go.  She heard his elevator door close when she got a phone call from SD.

"Are you home?  Can I come up please?!?!?!"

"Of course!" She opened the door and waiting for her to come up.  SD had seen the whole thing, the gunman shooting into the parking lot...the one right where Dusky's car was parked.

Luckily Dusky called a minute later to say that he had watched the cops run up and tackle the guy, and he was in custody.  She was still holding onto a shaking SD as she answered the call from him.

Now that SD was safe she went to the balcony and looked over at all the cop cars.  Then she figured that the police might need a statement from her, and they should go downstairs to the lobby.

In the lobby she seemed to calmed down quite a bit, finally going back to her own studio feeling a little shook up but fine.

She went up to her own studio and chatted with Banana, the only other one that would be up this late.  Their conversation took an interesting turn and she found herself getting upset by the subject matter.  She knew she needed to stop talking about it and spiraling, so she said goodnight and took a big swig of her hydrocodone.

She was only asleep for 20 minutes before she was awake again at 2 AM.  She picked up her phone as MG sent her a Snapchat of her bruised and battered face.

H2Oh No

"You have a lot of water problems" her aunt texted her.

"Yeah, well it's an old building." she responded.

For a month her shower's water temperature had been acting up.  It went from super cold to scalding in a matter of seconds.  She had actually gotten burned several times.  She called into the handyman in the building several times, but it was only after her toilet overflowed that she actually met the handyman and pointed out how she'd put in several work orders and hadn't seen him.

After some texting with the landlord they called a plumber and set up an appointment for when the building was turning off the water anyway.

She hated strangers being in her space. The handyman had spent days fixing her toilet and stepped all over her bathmats with his dirty shoes.  She washed them, again after they had been washed after the great flood of 2017.

The plumber made them more dirty than ever before.  He also went and checked out her view with his muddy boots.  Her once white bathmats had turned almost black.

When he finally left she mopped up the places where she could see his shoes and cleaned up the rest of the damage.

He wasn't done of course...there was a hole and a plastic bag taped up where her tile should be surrounding the facet.  They were coming back in a few days to fix the rest of it.

On the flip side, the young filmmaker finally made time to come pick up the old TV that had been sitting in her studio for over a year.  The empty space where it had been opened up possibilities.  She offered her ex her desk, ask it was too big for her space and more than what she really needed.  She never used it unless she was working with Dusky.  They'd be better off with a smaller space.  Her ex was finally moving out of her mother's house and she wanted to be able to give him what she could so he could start over.

Looked like it was time to start redecorating.

A Valiant Effort

The pain could only be described as excruciating. Even taking a sip of water shot pain up her neck and straight into her ears, making her tear up.  Her scabs scraped up against her uvula, causing her to choke and start coughing violently.  The nausea pills that came with the original round of meds stayed untouched in their bottle until the moment where the pain was so bad she almost always felt like she was going to throw up.

It became far too much to bare.  She couldn't function, and she couldn't take any more time off or she'd be unable to pay her rent the next month.

She felt weak, like an utter loser, but she called her doctor's office.  The nurse took pity on her sob story and said she would give her a "few more days" of hydrocodone.   At least it would help her to sleep.  She'd have to muscle through the work days as best she could. 

Then her period started.

After picking up far more than 3 days worth of meds, she went home and did all the laundry that had been piling up since her surgery.  She made her bed, one of her favorite things to do to make her space feel clean again.

The laundry had taken longer than she expected, and it was late as she was heading to bed, already a little off from the medicine.  Her toilet flushed, but as she was walking away she heard it bubble.  Curious, as it never seemed to be an issue before.  Everything looked okay, clean water in the bowl.  But the bubbling made her nervous.  She reached out and flushed again.

And it overflowed.

It kept going.  It wasn't stopping.  Her hazy mind panicked.  She tossed everything on the floor into the nearby tub and pulled down her freshly washed towels onto the ground.

It kept coming.  She became deathly afraid it would start to leak into the apartment below her.  She ran.

"Be Back in 10 Minutes" That infernal sign was up in place of her false sense of security guard at the front desk.  She looked all over the perimeter of the building, they were not out for a smoke break.  She called SD and rambled about her Titanic-Situation until the security guard showed up.

She told him hurry, there wasn't much time, call whoever he needed to call to shut off the water.  He calmly asked her if she owned or if she was a renter.

"THERE IS ABOUT TO BE A GODDAMN FLOOD IN MY APARTMENT REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT I RENT OR OWN!!!!  ARE YOU GOING TO HELP?"  She near-screamed at him.

"Maybe...call a plumber?  If you are a renter we can't do anything without the owner's signing off on it.  I'll call the building handyman and see what he says."

"That's great.  Well it's about to be everyone's problem from my floor down if it doesn't stop, so you might want to help."  She gave him her apartment number and ran back upstairs.  SD said she would be on her way with towels.

The minimalist lifestyle was all fun and games until you try to clean up a mess with four towels.

She got back up to her apartment and left the front door open and slowly made her way around the corner.  She was again grateful that her apartment tilted, as all the water had made a clean turn around to make a puddle under her bed.  She moved the bed aside and exclaimed loudly at how much water had pooled around her floor.

She tried desperately to keep the water from going further.  SD walked in, handed her the towels, saw the puddle and said "Ohhhh....ohhhh...I'll go get my mop."

Shortly after the doorman came and, with the instructions from the handyman to turn off the shutoff valve, even if it had already stopped on it's own.  The doorman told her that the handyman would come around 7AM the next morning to take a look.

A half an hour later, every single absorbent fabric in her house was soaking wet and in her shower.  She was shaking like a leaf because her medication had worn off and she was again in agony. 

"Your voice sounds funny" SD told her.  It sounded like she was losing her voice, again.  She took a shot of her medicine, and 20 minutes later still didn't feel any relief.

She thanked SD a million times over, realizing in that moment that because she was so doped up she didn't think clearly about the situation at all.  She would have been cleaning up slowly all night, going downstairs to the laundry room to dry her 4 towels and start all over again.

SD left, and she moved her bed back to the lower side of the room.  She sat on her bed, in the most pain she'd been in in her life...and she started to cry.  This was her breaking point.

"I'm just so fucking done with my entire existence right now.  It's been such a rough recovery....hell such a rough year."  She messaged a friend.  "It's things like this that make me think I made a mistake.  I should have stayed with my ex.  Even if it was loveless and he basically took all my money...he never did anything vindictively. He would have been able to help me tonight.  I wouldn't have had to call SD practically in the middle of the night.  I'm a burden.  I can't take care of myself."

"Stop it.  You know that's not true." Her friend replied.  "It'll be tough for a bit but you'll get the hang of this and find someone better for you."

She tired herself out with worry over her life and slept until her alarm went off.

The handyman didn't show up until she was getting ready to leave for work.  She left them to do their work and told them the door would lock behind them when they left.

Walking to work she got a call from her doctor's office.  They were billing her the entire surgery because they couldn't find her insurance.

"We've already danced this dance.  Y'all almost canceled it because you couldn't find my insurance, and then you called me and said it was all good.  The surgery center has it because they billed me and I paid them on the day.  I'll give you the numbers again but I'm in the system."

She was sure she sounded plenty authoritative when her vocal range was still limited to "whiny Disney Princess." At least it matched her attitude about life in general these days.

Neighbor Drama

She fell asleep around midnight, already cursing herself for getting to bed so late.  She needed to go to yoga with TM at 9, and she had a pick up rehearsal with her new cast at noon.  There was going to be no time for a mud mask or other pampering that she usually gave to herself on Saturdays.  Then that night was the last night of the show, and she knew it would be another 3 AM ordeal.

She awoke suddenly at 5:00 AM to some loud people in the alleyway.  She held onto sleep, waiting for them to walk and move on.  After a few minutes they hadn't moved on, but gotten louder.  Suddenly, once she had fully woken herself up, she realized their speech was very clear.  She climbed out of bed and opened her balcony door, and the sound became so clear she realized that the people were in her next door neighbors 400 square foot apartment.

They were clearly drunk, loudly yelling about what they were celebrating.  One girl kept asking over and over again "Who's dog is this?" So clearly they all weren't good friends.  By 5:30, once it became clear no one was leaving, she called downstairs to the doorman.  No answer.  She sighed, pulled on some pants, and went downstairs.  The doorman had the "back in 10 minutes" sign posted.  As she waited she looked on the sign in book, and found that literally no one had signed in to be a guest for her neighbors party.  How did they manage to get in?  She made her complaint once the young punk doorman returned.  He said he'd be up in a minute to ask them to keep it down.

She heard the doorman knock on the door next to hers, and suddenly she heard her neighbor, clearly angry and drunk.  "I never even see that fucking cunt.  She's complaining about me?  You know what, both of you can just fuck the hell off." SLAM.  The door was closed, the conversation over.  She was legit scared of her neighbor at this point, and decided that she guessed she was up.

An hour later, he had finally had enough of his company, opened his front door, and yelled at everyone to get the fuck out.  It took two full elevators to get everyone out, and once they were gone he continued to complain, loudly.  He certainly had a mouth on him.  She managed to tune him out enough to fall asleep for about an hour before she got ready for yoga.  Just as she was about to leave, she heard a knock at his dog.

In a real Gladys Kravitz move, she went to her peephole to see who it was.  It was 2 plainclothes officers.  She didn't call the police!  Someone else must have.  She wondered if it had been the front desk or another neighbor.  She found out later it had been both.  The man a floor above her on the other side of the elevators had heard the party, and he got very angry at that sort of thing and always called.

The neighbor never did open the door for the police, but after they left she heard him get in the elevator.  She hurried to grab the next one so he wouldn't see her, and made her way to Yoga.

Letting Nature Take It's Course

The sprinklers had just turned off as they rounded the corner to the park.  The water droplets hovered on the very tips of the grass and formed mini rainbows across the landscape.

The dog happily sniffed around and she trailed behind breathing in the moist morning breeze.  The birds chirped into the warm air, and all was calm.  The scene could be seen as beautiful, calming.

She scratched her bug bites as the dog tugged her along, getting the bottoms of her work pants damp.  Even though she had a shower, she still smelled like the dog.  The adorable, codependent, whiny dog.  The scene could be described as miserable and done too.

Thank goodness this was the end of the week.  She was ready to have her 435 square feet back, in the heart of the city, without many bugs.

Pizza Party of One

It was her first full day at her studio by herself with no plans.  She was excited to do nothing and just be in her own company.  She woke up early, got showered and dressed because she did have tentative plans to celebrate Earth Day at the park and go out for bloody marys with MG and SD.  They both canceled however, and she was left to her own devises, for the first time maybe in her life.

She got a text from her husband offering her some french macarons he'd picked up, but saying he couldn't bring them by until later.  She said she had a small headache anyway and to let her know when he was free.  She napped, and he did call later to invite her to his cast party for his show.  It was at the director's house, and she felt like that would be a little imposing.  She had anticipated asking him if he wanted to get something to eat.  She declined the invitation to the party and the macarons, but agreed to meet up with him in the middle of next week for a social get together.  She was sure that would lead to a division of assets, but she didn't want to think about that now.

She had already had a microwave meal for lunch and didn't feel like breaking out another for dinner.  The idea suddenly hit her to order a pizza, and she realized she had never ordered one just for herself before.  It felt...indulgent.  It felt wrong.  She suddenly felt like she was on the edge of a cliff looking down, about to fall.  Vertigo setting in.  She was panicking over the amount of freedom she had in this moment.

"So, on a scale of 1 to 'Damn you're fat' how sad would it be to order pizza just for myself because I don't feel like leaving the studio?" She messaged to a friend.

He assured her that it was a smart plan, and that she would be surprised at how long one pizza could last solo.  So she texted SD and asked if they would let the pizza delivery guy up to her floor or did she need to wait for him in the lobby?  Then she messaged another friend freaking out about how she couldn't do this, she couldn't live alone.  What was she thinking?  He replied that she shouldn't dump on herself, she was strong enough to do this on her own.  She took a deep breath and took his words to heart, tried to calm down and do what she needed to do.

She went online and looked at the menu, then realized that she had no idea what she liked.  She'd spent her whole life compromising other people's topping into her own.  It took her far longer to figure out what she liked and order it.   She didn't even have her own account for the pizza place, she had to create one.  This would take some getting used to.

She ate three slices of pizza, then put the rest in the fridge.  She was still trying to get a hold of herself, tears forming, when she got the text from KSL.  "How goes?"

He seemed to always know.

Dowisetrepla

She discovered early on that the flooring the landlord had set down was shotty craftsmanship; the entire main room was at an angle.  It amused her to put her desk chair in the middle of the room and watch it slowly make it's way to the other side.

Then one night she accidentally forgot about the full glass of iced coffee she had on the table, and knocked it over with her laptop.  It spilled across the coffee table and started dripping down to the floor.  "Shit!" she exclaimed to no one in particular.  She jumped up to grab the paper towels, and by the time she came back she saw the liquid slowly making it's way to the other side of the room.

This she found slightly less amusing.  She ran out of paper towels and furiously threw out all the other things in the cabinet to get the packaging off all the new towels.  She got down on her knees and fought against the tilt and tried to keep the liquid from continuing to roll down to the other side of the room and under her bed. She realized suddenly that she was the only one in charge of that mess, for the first time in her life.  She cleaned the entire thing up herself, then mopped the floor and washed the table, feeling accomplished that she had done it without anyone's help.

When she was finished she sat back on her heels, and started to laugh.  It had been a sitcom moment.  Spills and the Single Girl.

Hard Knocks Make Good Neighbors

Her lady bits were being murderous, so she decided to skip the surprise birthday party for a friend and just stay home.  She settled into her couch with a movie when she heard it.

Knock.

Knock.



KnockKnock.


Was it coming from the neighbor to the right?  Above her?  Below her?  It sounded like it was directly on the other side of her bathroom, but that was where the elevator was.  She shrugged and figured it would stop after a little while.  She pushed play on her movie again.

After that movie and a couple of TV show episodes, it was 8:00 PM and the knocking continued.  She got up to try and find the noise again, when her old-timey doorbell buzzer went off.  She opened the door and there was a guy, angry.  He was wearing sweats just like hers, and she laughed internally because they could go as twins somewhere.

"That knocking...it has to stop."  He said through gritted teeth.  "It's after 8PM, construction hours are over."

"I couldn't agree more...but I'm not the one doing--" the knocking started up again, proving that she wasn't the culprit.

The man let out a grunt and said "WHERE could it be coming from?"

"I think maybe it's the one on the other side of the elevators...or above or below...where is yours?"

"I'm on 20" he said, indicating the floor above.  He was already halfway down the hallway to the other side.  She desperately wanted to ask him if he was directly above her, and if he played jacks and marbles all the time, or only when she was home.  Before she could say anything, he was gone around the corner.

She went back inside, closed the door, and locked it.  Still facing the door, she said to herself "It was nice to meet you."