Moving freaking sucks. And who knew I had so many books?
The main lesson: people are disgusting.
MIA the past few weeks? Me? What?
The last two weeks were normal on one level. I was busy living the Minneapolis yuppie life: work, long dog walks at the lakes, clubs, drag shows, cooking disasters, restaurants, cafes, museums, crazy hobos…
It’s about 10 p.m. I am halfway through another episode of The First 48, (my favorite TV show) when I hear an a-rappa-tap-tap in the kitchen.
Things got real bad on Friday night.
I come back from work around 10pm and find Mark, who lives on the second floor, waiting by the building door. Mark tells me that his sink kitchen clogged, so I call the emergency plumber.
The plumber dredges Mark’s sink while Alesus and I skip over to the Showplace ICON theater and watch the new Resident Evil1 movie.
We come back to my apartment, watch Jersey Shore, and go to bed around 2am.
I hear a knock on my at 4am. It’s Heidi, the tenant who lives under Mark. Her kitchen is completely flooded with stinky black water that is shooting from her kitchen sink. Heidi’s bathroom ceiling is also leaking.
I’m the caretaker for my building. Part of the caretaker job is showing open units to the ghetto and the crazy, most of whom don’t show up for their appointments:
Me: “Hello, I’d like to speak to KeKe.
Old Lady: “What? Why? Who?”
Me: “KeKe. We had an appointment for an apartment showing at 1pm. It’s 1:15 now…”
Old Lady: “Oh, THE GIRL! Lemme find her…”
KeKe: “Yea?”
Me: “Hi Keke. This is Dennis from the Whittier Apartment building.”
KeKe: “Okay.”
Me: “…uh, well, we had a showing scheduled today for 1pm. It’s 1:15 now. Do you need directions?”
KeKe: “Oh I couldn’t find it.”
I was leaving my apartment building this morning when I saw a man run across the street. He clutched a soda and started shouting at me:
Sodaman: “Hey, can you hold the door for me?”
Me: “Uh, sure.
Sodaman: “Thanks. I live in apartment #45…just don’t want the police to come and…”
I ran into one of those corny poster-sales on campus and realized that I could probably find something cheap to cover my large bare walls.
Ta-da!
The poster of the woman is actually huge (4×6 feet) the guy with the camera is the generic Target-picture that came with my poster frames. I just cut out the ad-like bottom portion.
The picture that caught most of the flash is of a couple sitting at an all-night cafe.
I also have a print of Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott above my desk to keep things fancy:
The pictures definitely make the apartment look cozier, but Harley has not commented yet…
I read a lot of animal hoarding and cases at work, but last Sunday I came across a case that was so horrifying that I almost went home.
The case involved the typical hoarding situation: a house stuffed like Noah’s Arc and caked with feces. The description of the house so gruesome however, that I just wanted to speed home, shower, and bleach my entire apartment.
My standards for cleanliness have definitely changed over the past few years. I have a lot of plants, a pet frog, and Harley.
Crumbs, dog hair, and dead leaves are now a fact of life. I clean on a biweekly basis but there is no way to teach the dog to stop shedding, or keep the apartment perfectly sterile.
Only three people have seen my apartment, and they would probably agree that it is relatively clean. But when I read the case last Sunday my kitchen trash was full, the dishes piled, and the laundry unfolded. I was so absolutely disgusted that I devoted all of yesterday to cleaning. The case is after the jump.
I got frustrated today and decided to stop moving furniture.
I figured if I couldn’t come up with a better layout for my apartment during the summer, then it’s not going to happen during the semester.
Exactly which neighbor had their pets confiscated was a mystery until yesterday when I ran into Maggie.
Maggie lives down the hall, right next door to Yesina. Maggie is always aware of all the building gossip so of course she knew whose pets were taken:
Maggie: “Oh, that was the guy who lives above me. You didn’t know?”
Me: “No…”
Maggie: “Yeah, he was this morbidly obese guy who would never walk his dog. It was a sad, deranged looking thing. He would only let it pee and poop right in front of the building and never let anyone pet it or touch it. It was strange. Well, he died. And god knows how long he was in there because they had to go in with hazmat masks and everything. I think the pets were in there with him for several days. I called the animal shelter to make sure that the poor thing wasn’t going to be put down but some rescue group had already snatched him up…”
Oh my goodness.
I’m making birthday plans with Jack & Company over the phone:
Jack: “Should I just come over at 10 before we go out? I want to see the dog!”
Me: “Erm. I have to clean my apartment first.”
Jack: “You are NOT cleaning your apartment on your birthday!”
Me: “Oh, yes I am!”
For the past month, large stacks of boxes and plastic wrap have dominated my apartment. I always had something better to do than unpack and clean (Finals, petitioning, not petitioning, working…etc.) so I never felt fully moved in.1
And it was annoying.
So this weekend I decided to do something about it:
And yes, I’m sick of Target, Home Depot and Ikea. Neither I or my wallet want to hear from those stores for a while.
My two favorite things are the fuzzy grass-like2 carpet:
And these guys, who I got from Wal-Mart:
The bug-eyed stuffed birds bring amuse me. I always mimic their deer-in-the-headlights look when I see them.
My dog however, has not been amused by my decorating and cleaning activities. He’s totally convinced that the vacuum’s sole purpose is to scare him…
…and he’s probably right.3
1 There was always something I didn’t have yet like oven mits, lamps, power cords, rugs, etc.
2 It doesn’t look dirty in real-life. I swear. It just photographs funny.
3 He always runs out of the room or hides in his crate when I start the vac… my downstairs neighbors probably think I’m OCD or something…
I’m not a neat freak per-se, but clutter does hurt my ability to concentrate.
I finished moving the rest of my things out of the fraternity house this afternoon. The only problem is that my apartment is now on the Lindsay Lohan level. There are boxes everywhere, and it’s just, well, sad.1
In fact, my apartment was so bad that I fled to work…but after 8 hours I realized that I have to go back sometime…
So tomorrow I’m taking on all of the clutter. Clean house style. I may even tape a flower to my head and pretend that I have gap teeth to show that I’m serious.
I will be unpacked and organized by noon and it will be glorious because it signify2 being legitimately “moved into my first apartment.”
Full report to come. We’ll see how this goes…
1 Actually, it’s worse than sad because I had to dump some boxes of unpacked shitkram onto the floor in order to use the boxes today.
2 Kinda feels like I’m shoving myself into adulthood… cleaning the apartment isn’t this significant all the time! (assuming “without deciding” that it is significant now…)
