jcgabrielle’s blog

At 1:15am this morning--just minutes ago--I looked at my roommate and said, "You know, I always thought this place was crappy, but I guess you never know how crappy it really is until a ceiling tile caves in on the very spot where your bed used to be."

"Five minutes ago," she added.  We were sitting on her bed, surveying the damage.  You can see for yourself:

First Apartment: Things That Go "Bump" in the Night

It all began when I was getting into bed.  My roommate and I noticed a water mark on the drop-ceiling tile above the foot of my bed.  It was fresh; we both confirmed it was a new phenomenon.  I guess this is the first mistake we made: not calling the maintenance man immediately.  After his stellar performance on the last job we called him in for, we were less than thrilled at the thought of calling him in again.

So we went to bed.  Time: 11:30pm.

The tenant upstairs ran a bath; this was nothing unusual.  Last week at this hour, we heard a lady singing after the water stopped running.  This time, we heard the water empty about 45 minutes later, and a second bath was run.  (One just isn't enough for some folks.)  After about 15 or 20 minutes into the second bath, I heard and felt something drip on my comforter.  And again.

I sat upright and ordered, "Turn the light on--they're leaking on my bed!"

It dripped again, and I shoved my glasses on my face in time to see a yellow liquid seeping into my lovely white comforter.  "I hope that's not the toilet!" I cried.  (When you're forced out of bed by yellow liquid leaking on your comforter, your mind does not always use logical thinking skills.)  I ran to the kitchen for a pot and stood there stupidly, holding the it under the leak, shaking slightly with adrenaline.  That was the beginning.

First Apartment: Things That Go "Bump" in the Night

First Apartment: Things That Go "Bump" in the Night

This is when I decided to wake the landlord.  I have to give him credit: He did answer his phone.  He called "Gerry," the maintenance man, who dutifully assessed the damage, knocked on the upstairs tenants' door, and found a dry bathroom floor.  The problem, it seems, is with the tub drain.  (As it turns out, their toilet is right above where my pillow usually is.)  Gerry ripped down a few precarious pieces of tile and plaster, but the rest would have to wait for the morning.  He will return at 9:00am with a ladder and a plumber named Dan.

My roommate is snoring behind me, asleep on the living room couch.  I can still hear the people upstairs walking around, flushing the toilet, moving furniture (again, not unusual for this time of night, which is perhaps another story, another night--er, morning).  And here I am, proverbial pen in hand, laughing inside as I write.

I'm laughing because earlier, when I grabbed a garbage bag from the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, my hands felt something wet.  Apparently our kitchen drain has been leaking too.

Well, you know what they say: When it rains, it pours.  Sometimes they mean outside, and sometimes they mean in your bedroom.  But remember--you never know how bad it is until a ceiling tile caves in on the very spot where your bed used to be.

'Tis the season to carve pumpkins.  My jack-o-lantern, Carlos, sits on my desk and grins at me, toothy and lopsided, while I type.  More importantly, 'tis the season to eat pumpkin pie (sorry, Carlos).  I hate berry pies--though I recently learned that pumpkins are, in fact, berries (penultimate paragraph), so perhaps I need to adjust that statement--and apple pies are of no consequence to me.  But the pumpkin pie, I think we can agree, is one of the finest after-dinner triumphs known to Americans.  Of course, one need not wait until dinner for victory: breakfast, lunch, and midnight snacks give one an equal sense of satisfaction.

But not all pumpkin pies are created equal, as my roommate so aptly proved last fall when she decided to make a pie from scratch--from an actual pumpkin, that is.  None of this One Pie or Libby's from-a-can nonsense.  No, she was going to go for the gold: Short of picking out her very own Carlos from the patch, she wanted to do everything by hand for a truly homemade dessert experience.

I suppose this comes from a strange post-college desire to see just what, exactly, you can achieve as an adult.  The twenty-something years, I've discovered, are filled with this inexplicable and sudden longing to "do it yourself," to try new things, and to generally figure things out, even if it is through trial and error: What kind of an adult do I have the capacity to be?  Am I handy?  Am I lazy?  Am I creative?  It's about proving yourself.  Am I someone who buys canned pumpkin, or do I have what it takes to turn raw, orange guts into a stunning culinary delight?  (As if the latter somehow gives you a leg up.)

Some things, however, are not worth figuring out, no matter how attractive the challenge may seem.

First of all, making a pumpkin pie from scratch is a lot of work.  Carving oval eyes and the traditional triangle nose into Carlos was about as much as I could handle.  Heck, I struggled to chop and cook a butternut squash for soup last winter; I can't imagine attempting the same with a much larger pumpkin.  Once you get through the seeds and manage to hack the thing up into boil-able pieces (again--sorry, Carlos), you've still got to peel it and mash it and get it into a puree that's reasonably fit for a pie. 

In retrospect, this process probably would've been easier on my roommate if we'd had a food processor.  As I experienced with my butternut fiasco, a blender--a weak one at that--just doesn't cut it.  Literally. 

So the pumpkin pulp retained a bit of its original lumpy, mysteriously stringy texture.  I equate it to the sense you get from natural peanut butter: You know it's probably better for you because you can pronounce all the ingredients, but the texture is so darn weird; sometimes "organic" is a little too close to the ground for comfort.

The spices didn't help the situation, either.  Even now, no one quite knows what it was, but after the pie was baked, there were clumps of something white--a powder, maybe?--that hadn't mixed in all the way.  The other spices stuck to their own kind too, which created pockets of flavor, like merry little surprises in each mouthful.  The overall consistency of the filling was also wetter than usual.  This made for a slightly leaky slice on your plate and a soggy crust in the pan several days out of the oven.  Not only that, but a pool of condensation (presumably from the plastic wrap over the top) collected on the surface of the pie, glossy and admittedly unnerving.  We'd cut a slice and the water would drip down the side, only to soak into the bottom of the remaining pie.

We chucked it at that point with the understanding that your pie should not cry unless the face of the Virgin Mary is baked into it--and you probably shouldn't eat it then, either.

This year, needless to say, my roommate is baking her pie from a can.  Not that she's lost the do-it-yourself spirit, but after giving it her best shot, she learned she's the kind of adult that prefers product over process.  (At least when it comes to something as serious as pumpkin pie.)  As Thanksgiving approaches, I wholeheartedly support that discovery.

And, if his smile is any indication, I'm pretty sure Carlos agrees.

At least you can be assured I did not forget about posting altogether.  What follows is one of the entries I'd written on scrap paper while I was waiting around for something and had nothing else to do but stare at the wall.  I stared at the wall for about 10 minutes before I realized I could be doing something more constructive--and interesting.  I hope you enjoy.

September 3, 2007

The Laundromat

I'm sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts here in town; my purpose is threefold: 1) to get out of the apartment to write this post, letting my roommate sleep late in peace; 2) to consume a rather obscene amount of sugar in the form of an iced coffee and a coffee cake muffin (i.e., 100% sugar), since we are currently out of groceries and have yet to muster up the energy to walk to the store; and 3) to kill time while I wait for my laundry to finish washing.

This is actually the first time I've ventured away from the laundromat while waiting for my clothes.  I have learned several things already this morning, and it is only just 11 o'clock.  First, it is much more comfortable to sit at Dunkin' Donuts than to wait inside the laundromat for my clothes, since I have a table to write on, sugar to inspire me (or at least hype me up), and a much more pleasant smell to enjoy.  Fewer flies to swat, too.  Second, I don't like hazelnut iced coffee.  And third, carrying two small loads of laundry in one gym bag is much easier than trying to cram three loads into two bags, no matter what kind of math you use.

I've always been the kind of person who prefers the fewest number of trips, even if it means turning into a pack mule in the process.  But treks to the laundromat have become so odious, I've started to put them off until the last possible minute: until I'm down to the last pair of underwear.

Underwear is the limiting factor for me.  I bought more when I was in college so I wouldn't have to do laundry as often.  Trick is, there will always be a day when you only have one pair left, however many you start with.  In winter, socks often become the limiting factor, but right now, I can't remember the last time I wore socks.  (Actually, it was last night, but that was an isolated incident.)  I was so spoiled when I was in college.  There were washers and dryers right there on the first floor of my dorm. Dragging my laundry basket down three flights of stairs, however annoying it may have seemed at the time, is nothing compared to weighing myself down with several loads and walking 10 minutes to the nearest laundromat. 

The joys of cheap rent include a built-in fitness plan in conjunction with the local laundromat. 

My new philosophy on picking out clothes in the morning is "You wear it, you lug it."  I try to keep things as clean as possible and avoid putting them in the hamper for as long as I can.  (Febreze, by the way, is a good way to keep a shirt smelling ok for another wear--even if they don't know how that "breeze" is spelled with two e's.)

I'm back in the laundromat now, switching my clothes to the dryer. A fly just landed on my ankle.  They're all over the place, the flies.  As I look around, the word "grime" comes to mind all too readily: the machines, the floors, the chairs, the walls, the overhead fans whose blades are bumpy and woolly with black gunk (Lint? I wonder).  The floor is a horrible tan and beige linoleum that makes me think of my grandmother's bathroom.  The smell here, while not entirely unpleasant, is not entirely pleasant either.  The washer in front of me is emanating a particularly pungent detergent smell, which seems more to me like dishwasher soap than laundry soap.  Perhaps someone had an innocent mix-up of cleaning agents.

I swat another fly and think forward to the day when, hopefully, I will have my own home with my own washer and dryer.  I know they'll eventually collect their own grime and set of bugs--spiders, probably.  But for now the thought cheers me, and I hum a bit, tapping my foot to the beat.  Heck, maybe I'll even get to pick out my own linoleum.  At that, my foot thumps away like a dryer on spin cycle. 

I never knew I found linoleum so inspiring.  But today is a day of learning, I guess.

Oh, wait--false alarm.  It's just the sugar. 

I wonder what will happen when the caffeine kicks in.

I acknowledge my lapse in posting and apologize to you, dear readers, for leaving you hanging. Just when I thought I had good momentum going, my schedule threw me some metaphorical curve balls (those are so tricky to catch, aren't they?), and I found myself letting this slip off my priority list.

BUT--

We're back on, baby, so buckle up!

My roommate finally called our apartment’s maintenance man regarding the spidery corner of the bedroom and other significant holes in the ceiling and walls.  What “Gerry” did to fix the problems was not disappointing, not discouraging, and not at all disturbing in its lack of professionalism.  Ok, maybe it was a few of those things.  But more than any of that, Gerry’s repairs were—and continue to be—one of the funniest things about this apartment.  

To solve the problem of the giant, crumbling crack in the corner of the bedroom—the spidery fissure above my poor roommate’s bed—Gerry decided to go with caulking.  Excellent choice.  It certainly solved the problem, but now there are bulging globs of pale yellow caulk in the corner, floor to ceiling and several inches thick.  It’s as if meringue or marshmallow—or something less pleasant—were bubbling out from the walls, thick and gooey, now freeze-framed in mid-ooze.

This has inspired me to rethink my decorating tactics:

1) Don’t ignore corners as possible places for color or texture accents for the room; and

2) Consider the merits of repairs as art installations, which could serve as a charming history of the apartment for guests to view.

After all, there is no question about whether or not guests will view Gerry’s little caulking adventure; there’s no ignoring it.  When we rearrange the furniture in the bedroom, we’ll have to find something to cover the spot where my roommate’s bed is, since Gerry, in a well-meaning zeal of thoroughness, applied caulk directly to the baseboard and carpet as well.  My roommate scraped it up as best as she could, but spiders beware: the caulk in the corner isn’t going anywhere.

Except that it went all over the floor, as did bits of the two ceiling tiles Gerry replaced while he was here.  Also over my roommate’s bed, the drop-ceiling tiles Gerry replaced are a different pattern than the rest now, and he sawed a rectangular chunk out of the corner tile to allow the hot water pipes to fit through.  (I guess it would be unreasonable to shut out the spiders entirely.)  My roommate vacuumed the mess under her bed and across the room under mine, where bits of tile and miscellaneous fix-it debris had scattered during the flurry of repairs. 

Gerry’s note explains things:

HI, SORRY ABOUT ANY MESS – I FILLED THE CRACK WITH A FILLER & PUT IN NEW TILES – ALSO COVERED OLD LIGHT HOLE IN LIVING ROOM JUST IN CASE –

(I think by “any mess” he actually meant to write “the large mess,” but we’ll forgive this oversight.  He was very busy with the old light hole, looking, perhaps, to preempt any subsequent requests my roommate and I may have had.)

This brings us to the highlight of my apartment: the brilliant way Gerry covered the old light hole—“just in case.”

Like his other fixes, Gerry clearly had good intentions when he used the chunk of ceiling tile from the bedroom to cover the hole in the living room ceiling.  He meant well when he caulked it to the ceiling, being careful to use enough to make it stick, even if that caused the caulk to squish out along the edges like an overloaded PB&J.  The little spatters of caulk on the ceiling were only mild side-effects to this much-needed procedure.  And he certainly had our best interest in mind when he nailed the piece of tile in on both ends, ensuring a complete graft onto the existing tile with no chance of slippage, loosening, or complete rejection by the host.

First Apartment: Recent Repairs

But, as you can see from the picture, our best interest does not include such aesthetic luxuries as replacing an entire tile if it has a hole or finding the least obtrusive solution.  Our best interest—and I mean very best interest—is more basic than that.  It is a simple and organic line of functionality upon which the apartment must tread, gingerly, lest the caulking and nails give way.

When I first saw what Gerry had done, I said, “That is not a solution.”  I probably had my hands on my hips or snapped my fingers in an “oh no you di’n’t” kind of way (for dramatic effect).  But after looking at it for a few minutes and seeing what a clever, efficient reuse of materials Gerry came up with, I began to laugh.  I looked at the protruding chunk of tile nailed to the ceiling and laughed from my gut at the brilliance of the solution.  I looked at it and saw how beautifully it fit in with the rest of the apartment, and how natural a choice it had been for Gerry to make.

Whatever else it has going for it, I have to admit the latest fix is certainly in keeping with the whole “hovel” theme.

Everyone has a nickname of some sort.  Whether it's a shortened version of your name, something you're known for among friends, or something your enemies whisper loudly as you pass, nicknames distinguish you from your peers.  For better or worse, they're part of who you are.

My apartment has a nickname; it falls pretty well under the "for worse" category.  It came about while I was talking to my mother on the phone one day about finances, telling her my rent was low, so I could afford to save for a car. 

"That's because you live in a h--" she started to say.

"A what--a hole?  I live in a hole?"

"No," she said, "I wasn't going to say 'hole.'"  She was laughing.

"A hovel?"

She didn't answer me; she just laughed, and I could hear her pull the phone away as she snorted.  I started to laugh too.

"Yes," she said, "a hovel.  You live in a hovel."  And that was that: my apartment, the hovel.

I don't blame her for the nickname, really, since I had already been referring to it as "my crappy little apartment."  It was only time before someone took it to the next level.  Her reasons for taking it there are legitimate and twofold, the two w's of where this place went wrong: the wiring and the walls.

As I understand it, usually the electrical wiring in people's homes is cleverly hidden behind the walls, and outlets tend to lie flat, blending into their surroundings.  But this aesthetic arrangement apparently wasn't interesting enough for the electrician who worked on our place, so now the outlets, switches, and wiring are all right where you can see them, encased in a delightful shiny metal tubing.  The tubing runs from one wall across the ceiling to the other, the switch and outlet boxes jutting out like a pop-up book for first-year electricians.

Perhaps this was a place of learning and practice, a teaching hospital of electric surgery.  Not only are the conduits exposed for better view, but I can tell the overhead light and smoke detector were moved in the living room, as well as various outlets throughout the apartment, as if several students were given a go at proper installation.  I can tell they were moved because of the outlines on the ceiling and walls where no dirt or sunlight could reach to fade the area where the fixtures used to be. 

That, and the gaping holes that were left behind.

None of that fancy spackle-and-repaint business for this place, no sir.  Only the transplanted bathroom light switch got that kind of treatment; the rest of the gutted electrical outlets have been left like eyeless sockets, unblinking and--forgive the pun--rather unsightly.

The wiring, as wonderful as it is, could easily be forgiven if the rest of the place were in good condition.  But we arrive now at the second w, the walls, which present an even bigger challenge when it comes to decorating and making the place home.  Not only are the walls thin and painted a depressing, dirty off-white color, they seem to have contracted some sort of disease during the electrical surgery, symptoms of which include cracking, crumbling, and, on occasion, tearing.

In the living room alone are two very long, jagged cracks we've had to cover up with wall hangings.  Pretty material or tapestries have single-handedly saved our living room from looking like it would break in half if you made too much commotion.  (Breathing, for example.)  Paintings, too, can be used to patch up the wounds.  My favorite is a spot in the bedroom that looks like Wolverine dragged his claws across the wall.  Someone attempted to repair the damage with spackle, but they forgot to take the extra step and repaint the area, so a painting now covers it like a custom-designed band-aid.

Unfortunately, not everything can be covered up.  The corner by my roommate's bed is crumbling so much that the two sides barely meet, and you can see inside to the dusty recesses of the walls.  Dusty and spidery, I should say.  She's been killing at least one big one a day, and I know she hasn't been keeping track of the little ones.  I stay out of it because it's not my side of the room, but I'm not thrilled to know our crumbling wall is an arachnid hub.  We try to vacuum it out as often as possible, but you have to be careful not to knock off any more chunks with the hose. 

I had a good laugh about the walls with my roommate this morning as she set off to buy a slipcover for our loveseat, taking a curtain tie and an arm protector from the sofa slipcover as color samples.

"That's a smart idea," I said as she untied a curtain panel.

"I could probably take some of the wall, too, since there are so many places where it's coming off," she replied, and we both cracked up.

The thing is, it's funny.  The two w's and all the other places the apartment went wrong are actually entertaining.  It's hilarious that Wolverine came in here and tore up the place.  It's hysterical that my roommate gets dive-bombed by spiders in her sleep (ok, maybe it's only funny because it's not happening to me).   Life would not be the same if this were a dream house with aesthetically-pleasing outlets and no need for tapestries.  For better or worse, in sickness and in electrical surgery, the "hovel" certainly keeps you on your toes.

I could live without the spiders, though.

When I woke up this morning, it felt like fall.  Last night was the first time in months I had slept under a blanket; lately, I've been wiggling my toes out from under the sheet to cool them off.   But this morning, my nose was cold.  It made me think of the summer mornings I'd spent at my friend's camp on Lake Champlain where we grew up in Vermont.  We always slept in the screened-in porch, and the wind from the lake would freeze us awake in the mornings, making our noses cold and our eyes water.  We would pull our heads back into our sleeping bags and listen to the waves, waiting to see how long the other would pretend to be asleep.

This morning when I woke up to a cold nose, I knew fall was on its way.  There's no lake here to cool off my room, and while I still pull my head back under the covers and pretend to be asleep, summer won't wait for me.  It's already packing up to go home.

As I lay in bed, rubbing my nose, the changing season reminded me it was around this time last year that I moved into this apartment.  I graduated college in May 2006 and stayed with a friend during the summer.  In the fall, my family packed up my room in Vermont and helped me move with my college roommate--now my twenty-something roommate--into my first apartment.

It is not glamorous, not like you picture as a kid, thinking about what life will be like when you're on your own.  Even though my mother affectionately refers to it as "the hovel" (thanks, Mom), it isn't as bad as it could be, either.  Over the past year, there have been many times I've wanted to move out, find a better place, a bigger place, a cleaner place, or just a different place.  I've resented the windowless kitchen, drooping ceiling tiles, paper-thin walls and grubby windows.  But for now, this is home.  And right now, it finally feels like it.  All of its defects are part of the charm of the twenty-something life it holds inside its walls, and as I look around at all the things I would like to change about this place, I know they're they very things that give it character.

This blog is my way of sharing that character with you: all the ups and downs that come with being on my own for the first time, in my first apartment.  Stay tuned for pictures and stories on everything from plants to gunshots, as well as recipes from my very own windowless kitchen. 

Whether adventure or misadventure, it's all part of the charm of growing up.