paganbabies

How I'm Livin'

Aha! You're here. Very good. Did you smell that smell on your way through the hall? Ah, but you're confused. Which smell? There are as many odors around here as there are rooms, each more foul than the last. Believe it or not, I think it's the food that these residents are eating. Can you imagine? Anything that smells like that under preparation is sending a signal: get away from here before you're asked to eat this. Were you lucky enough to have overheard any Karaoke? The folks across the hall from us mix it up occasionally and you'll hear a song in English. Everybody else is singing songs in their favorite flavor of Asian language. Funny thing is that, near as I can tell, they're all the same song - like something out of a low-budget 1980's television show translated. You can picture the video - some woman in sequins with a HUGE microphone, backlit with five gel lights and filmed through that blurred Penthouse lens. Exquisite in its insufferability. But you can't hear them once your inside a room. Shame.

We stand before room 127. As we face the door, to our right is the emergency fire exit. The only thing that makes this an emergency exit, and prevents it from being a convenient, normal exit for me, is a little plastic sign on the door. It reads "Emergency Fire Exit." But at two inches high, it is small enough to be unnoticeable, and surely would not meet OSHA requirements. I'm almost positive that the door isn't alarmed anyway because I've seen it cracked open almost a full inch, but I would bet that, if I start using it, someone will complain or they'll install/activate the alarm. They want to funnel everyone through the useless "secure" front door to please the insurance people. On a sidenote Columbia is a center for the insurance industry. Several companies are headquartered here, including Shelter Insurance, and State Farm has a major office south of town. Fascinating. Anyway. Open the door.

Here we are in the living room/kitchen/dining room. Like most people, we've organized the furniture in such a way as to best give worship to the television. Most of the furniture is the stock furniture provided by the building. Functional but unattractive. My roommate actually did a pretty good job at improving that couch over there with a dark blue cover. I think I've sat in it three times. I think that's how many times I've turned on the television too. You can see its about a 27 incher. Standard definition. Not mine. The X-boxes and Ps2 aren't mine either. Nor is the Guitar Hero stuff. Just a few of those DvD's and a couple of the Ps2 games. I've lived here six months and I've spent maybe four hours in this room. I pay an extra $240 a year for extra space out here. The other units here are narrower and don't have that northern window. I think they seem unlivable, but as I said, I never use the common area much at all, so what do I know? What I do use is the kitchen.

The kitchen is about 12 square feet and almost unusable. If you so much as dirty a dish, the kitchen is a mess. Oops! I made a bagel - trashed. Make a pizza and you'll find evidence of it for a week. The dishwasher runs, but doesn't really clean anything. The oven is a comical little thing, and an undeniable safety hazard. The biggest burner on the stove has a real sketchy electrical connection and I'm afraid to use it. On the plus side, our smoke detector is so sensitive we have to keep it dismantled or hear it every time we cook something. Dangerous and illegal. I live on the edge, ladies... The refrigerator is actually quite nice, if a bit cramped. I keep that fucker stocked. The only aspects of living I do well anymore are eating and drinking. I've gotten to be a bit of an inventive chef, and I think I could do some great things, if I had a kitchen that wasn't retarded.

Oh. That over there is the pantry. Not enough shelves.

The carpet is the same throughout, a burgundy/almond type of color that really does nothing for the poorly painted yellow/cream-colored walls. My guess is that it took them thirty minutes to paint the entire place - I think they taped down a bunch of plastic over the floor and went nuts. They had an orangutan do the bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, it hasn't been remodeled since the building was constructed. The counter is covered in a sort of gray marble laminate that seems to have recognized its own inappropriateness and is trying to peel itself away from the wood, but the maintenance staff has stubbornly re-affixed it, in some places with small nails. There are two sinks, which is convenient because two men will often use the bathroom at the same time. (Might they have gone with one and salvaged some room for the kitchen?)

But now we come to the real center of this home, and the heart of the hilariousness that is my apartment: the shower. The shower is a circle. I shit you not, a circle. Imagine stepping into one of those capsules used at bank drive-thrus to take a shower. It must have been inspired by the NASA moon missions during the 60's or perhaps Star Trek, because after you step in and slide the sort of revolving door shut, you fully expect Scotty to beam you down to some alien planet, which would be awful because you'd be naked and wet. What the fuck is wrong with an architect who gives you standing room only in your kitchen, makes the shower into a space pod, includes no power outlets in the bathroom, but makes the living room 400 square feet? A PCP addiction?

The bedrooms are long and narrow. Actually, I really like the way they're laid out, though the two closets could have been combined to one longer one. The closets also have an incredibly shitty pair of sliding doors on them that are both useless and problematic. They just make it tough to get at your shit. I'm considering just removing them. 'Course then I gotta stare at my things all in disarray, which is unpleasant.

You'll notice the decor I've chosen for the room revolves around a fuckin-piles-of-books theme. Those books by the dresser are library books from last semester; the ones under the window are library books from this semester, the pile by the desk consists mainly of new books from amazon, and all the ones on the shelves are my older collection. I use booze bottles for bookends, because, you know, I got class.

Ok I've bitched about this place for 2000 words now, so I should say at least a few nice things about it. There is only one area of town with better location, and I can't afford to live there. Everything is included in the rent but parking which makes life easier. And if I had the time and money to put about a week's worth of work into the place, it would be quite comfortable - all it needs is paint and furniture. But fuck that; I'm not working on a place with an itty-bitty kitchen and a personal-cleaning tube.

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