Sometimes an extended trip (hell, a weekend) out of the city can cause you to seriously question your life in New York. One of those visits with out-of-town friends (who live in whole houses where you sleep in their guest room and have dinner in the back yard), anywhere really with grass and trees and flowers and birds and lack of screaming and dirt and garbage and such puts your 300 square foot shit-hole, for which you pay three times more than said friends whole house, into perspective. "Okay, why do we live here again?" is a common question for myself and my friends in that two seconds after your key goes in your door, the two seconds it takes to set your things down and have them consume your entire apartment--which you notice is smaller, darker, dirtier, and in much more disrepair than you remember. Then a siren goes off outside. A neighbor turns their stereo up on cue, shaking the roaches out of the wall.
Not this time kids. I got back from my stint with the country living and I couldn't believe my good fortune. This is MY apartment? My ceilings are huge, huge! And that bathroom...have you seen my tub? Yeah, all the enamel wore off forty years ago and soap scum has turned it a permanent grey, but dude--you can get like five people in there. My kitchen sink is six feet deep. Okay two. Deep enough that you can't even see the dishes until it's two week's worth. My bed is enormous. It's still the same queen size bed, but it's shape-shifted or something, pulled off an impossible feat of outer-dimension physics. The size of the bedroom likewise. All my stuff, the stuff I hate, the stuff I'm too poor to replace that soooo doesn't suit me or my taste or my sense of style; man, it looks great in here. That craigslist second-hand pull out couch was such a smart choice. The side-of-the-road armoire that I converted into a computer station for G, which STILL smells like the nasty-ass foot funk of its previous owner? Stunning. Hardwood floors, windows overlooking a busy row of stores. It's a showplace I tell you. Seriously, you should come over and see.
Total and complete satisfaction with things exactly as they are, what a freaking concept. And it only took 28 days of back-breaking labor (17 of which consecutively) for ultimately less pay than had I been working at McDonalds to achieve.
Is my monitor bigger? I swear it's bigger. And the computer has never screamed so fast.
Posted by Antigeist at May 6, 2005 11:13 AMi feel like that when i get home to my medium-sized apartment from my parents' ginormous suburban sprawl. well, not that everything is bigger, but more like, hey, i can walk to the bathroom now without risking getting lost. "total and complete satisfaction with things exactly as they are". yeah, it's precious.
Posted by: anne at May 7, 2005 04:00 AMAs a child of the suburbs, I'm always thrilled whenever I visit anyone who lives in a big city. "You mean we can walk to the bar from your apartment? All right!"
Posted by: rasputin at May 10, 2005 01:09 AM