So I'm in a new place. My old apartment was terrible as you might recall. I actually only live a block away from there now. I showered in a space rocket (not as cool as it sounds) and for a while I thought I might have been living with cimicids (turns out it was just mosquitos. They lived outside). My place was small, shared (with a person, not insects), and the hallways often smelled of exotic (i.e. smelly) food (pungent, oh so pungent). But the place was inexpensive and kept the rain off my head. There are times I miss it. Then I walk around my new place naked for a while and I no longer miss it. Here's what it looks like from outside. The building. Not me naked.
Don't you like my white fence? It's so domestic and proper. Would you believe there are eight apartments in this building? I have one of the largest, on the first floor. The apartment across from mine is a mirror image and inhabited by a cute (if short) girl whom I've only seen twice. She's very elusive. The four windows you see closest to you on the ground floor are mine (well not mine proper; I pay rent to live behind them...there are two more on the wall to the right/west that I also live behind). My square footage is somewhere around 750. My cubic footage is somewhere around 7500. It would take many balloons to fill my apartment. That's pretty cool. My kitchen and living room are on the left; my bedroom and bathroom on the right. There are four apartments above me. Two below. Those below are very dungeonesque. It's dank down there. The washing machine and dryer are down there. So when I decide to do my washing at midnight they have to live with the sound of the machine when it inevitably gets a little off balance and goes epileptic. I hope their rent is less than $100. Really. In the fall there are crickets down there. I'm pretty sure they're camel crickets. I never caught any. They're quick. But I must admit that I'm not without pests, myself. Over winter break a wee mouse moved his self in. I tried to be humane. I set up a home-made live trap, a variation on this. Didn't work. Not surprising. Today, I upped it to poison. The street running right to left in this picture is Locust. Three blocks west (right) of me is Ninth Street. If you combined Eau Claire's Water and Barstow streets, you'd have a good approximation of Ninth and Broadway.
That's a photograph of the dresser my parents bought me. I put it up here because it's one of the only interior shots I have. It's in my bedroom. Next to it is Betty. She's always tuned to drop-D so I can play Lamb of God on command. (Actually, in a rare occurrence, right now she's down to C) On the right is one of my bookshelves. I need more of them. Or you should offer to buy some books from me. That album behind that valet is a signed copy of Chimaira's self-titled album. I'm awesome just for owning that. Notice that you can see a reflection of part of my torso in my degree from UWEC. That also makes me awesome. Anyway. My place is pretty okay. I like it and I just signed an agreement to live in it for another twelve months after August. Let's take a look around at my neighborhood.
That's a church that lives one block west of my house. There is another church one block southeast of my house. There is a mormon center a block south of my house. There are probably seven churches within four blocks of me. Missouri has teh jesus jonez. There are many power lines here too. For a while there were a couple of people living in a minivan on this block, but they left, apparently. Anyway, this church is on my way to Hitt Street Mart.
Hitt Street Mart is my handy convenience store. I buy three things there: milk, bread, and beer. I buy milk there because it saves me the trouble of carrying it home from the grocery store. I buy bread there when I run out of the good bread I buy at Hyvee. And I buy beer there because its two fucking blocks from my door. Everything there is at least a dollar too expensive. But it's two blocks from my door. When you don't own a car, you'll find that that's a tax you're willing to pay. It took them over a year to get to recognize and stop carding me. I'm pretty sure they think I have an alcohol problem. If so, they're right.
Some people have made alterations to a number of street signs in my area. I'm not entirely certain how to interpret these.
I have a favorite spot in the library. I had one in McIntyre Library back at UWEC that was on the fourth floor, directly west of the elevators. Our main library here is called Ellis Library, and my favorite spot is on the third floor. I would have a tough time describing its location in relation to the elevators because Ellis Library is very much a labyrinth. For instance, there are three second floors. Then each floor is further split into three sections, east, central, and west. My spot is in three central. The central section is unfinished concrete like a warehouse or book depository. Look at some pictures of it.
I googled "Liz Steininger Missouri" and it looks like she graduated in 1993. So she's probably not on campus anymore. That's a shame.
Give people a semipermanent canvas and privacy and they write the strangest things. Somebody using LSD has shared this desk. You see also that a small fly came to visit me.
So those are my surroundings. Nice of you to visit. If what you've seen looks at all appealing, you should move here. Even if it doesn't look appealing, you should move here.