Tonight marks the end of my third month in this apartment. I’d call it a monthiversary even though I know that’s an invented word blend. I hate douche bags that call things an n-month anniversary. A year has to pass for an event to qualify for an anniversary. Anni. From the Latin, annus, meaning, year. Buy a dictionary!
I digress.
Tonight feels like someone else lives here. It’s weird to feel like you’re subletting your own apartment. Living aboveground is extremely underrated and when I first moved in, I had difficulty adjusting to what most superterranean folks might take for granted (windows, daylight, hope). Comfort was foreign to me; I’d never felt comfortable in any place I’d ever lived before, including my childhood homes, due to the following shortlist of problems: mold, odorous roommates, a sinking power-of-sale house, an avian invasion, daily overhead circling of the wagons, and a stout little despot of a superintendant eager to take me to Fallsview Casino for “some fun.”
A garbage strike quickly robbed me of any comfort I may have felt. I had a fly problem that not even the encroaching spiders’ webs could solve. My living room doubled as the recycling holding area; there was a pile of cardboard that stacked up to two-thirds my height. The end of the month-plus-long strike met with a new inconvenience: physical evidence of loathsome mice that awakened the OCD sadist in me. I purged and bleached the kitchen and every morning since, I take the flashlight to inspect the countertop border that serves as the murine thoroughfare to god-knows-what, to see if there have been any midnight travelers on what Al McKinley would call the “Ventura Highway”. So far, I have found nothing, but there is no rest for the weary, friends. I have won the most recent battle of attrition but the war wages on.
Another hindrance to my happiness is the fact that I haven’t unpacked everything yet. Surprise, surprise. I always leave something in a box. I think it’s my inner nomad telling me not to get too comfortable in one place. I still have a moving box marked 2005 that hasn’t been opened since I moved into Zelda’s basement four years ago tomorrow. My inner nomad is a fierce See You Next Tuesday but I have faith that I’m slowly vanquishing my vagrant nature. While it’s true that my CDs haven’t seen the light of day in three months, I am perfectly comfortable basking in the setting sun atop my chaise. In fact, the piece of furniture I refer to as the European Vacation has done great work to make me and others feel welcome and at home. I have embraced the ideals of hospitality and I take great pride in hosting intimate cocktail and dinner parties. Ultimately, I’ve grown quite fond of the local colour that skulks by my window at any and all hours and there’s no end to my love for the ‘hood, which I refer to endearingly as Skagsville.
Perhaps I have finally made it home and should accept my discomfort with comfort as the last discomforting thing I have to overcome. Perhaps there’s hope at last for this restless wanderer.
