Almost every day I gloat about something in my new apartment. (I still haven't decided on its name. So far it's just The Homestead.) This cold is still kicking my ass, so rather than compose something thoughtful and deep I'll just list off the things that make me feel smug and happy AF about living here.
1. My snaketongue (the succulent, you perv. No, the PLANT. The DESERT PLANT. Arrrgh forget it). That thing has decided it loves life in its new location high up on the bathroom shelf. I was worried that the lack of direct sunlight would hurt it, but evidently shade is its thang, because it's put out like ten new blades in the last two months, and the old raggedy shriveled blades that droop over the mirror are beginning to fill out.
2. My bathroom window. Ooooo it's so pretty. The shower stall is done all in big desert-colored tiles, and the window, comprised of cubes of wavy glass, is set in the middle of the shower stall, with a broad tiled ledge at about (my) waist height where I arranged two potted succulents (hilariously, the tiny little fingerling plants I bought for two bucks a pop at Aldi are thriving far more luxuriantly than anything I bought at far higher prices at The Home Depot) on either end, with a carved stone lizard, a stained-glass piece, two huge hunks of glass (one in bottle green, one in pale beach blue), and a bright blue glass vase of bath salts (the legal kind). Once the shower curtain has aired out, I pull it off to the side so the light from the window can light up the glass pieces; the effect is glorious.
3. My dishwasher. Is. So. Quiet.
4. My mantel. The huge fireplace isn't functional, but I have an electric heater that looks like a cast-iron stove that fits perfectly in the grate. When I moved in the fireplace bricks were painted this hideous glossy maroon; the walls were a shiny industrial gray that always just looked...sweaty. Steph came to visit the day after I moved in and we spent a week painting the walls throughout the apartment varying shades of green. We turned the living room this amazing dark Victorian arsenic green; I painted the fireplace white. It looks perfect. Just before I moved out of the old shithole, someone at that complex had thrown away an enormous bedroom suite, and I salvaged the mammoth dresser mirror from the dumpster, painted it the same white as the fireplace, and installed it above the mantel. It's stunning. On either end of the mantel (seriously this fireplace is fucking gargantuan) I perched my mismatched pair of favorite lamps, one a tall tapering ridged ceramic in avocado green with a drum shade wrapped in strips of burlap; the other a squat glass in rich deep orange -- they look strangely good together. In between the lamps range my favorite cobalt blue vases, interspersed with slender green daffodil-stemmed vases, and the Depression-era ruby wine glasses that my grandmother gave me. The whole thing is finished off by a riot of pothos vines that start behind the lamps and twine throughout the glass pieces and over the lamps and mirror. I just like staring at it.
5. My I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING AT ALL darkened bedroom. Back when I lived in The Eyrie I became obsessed with the idea of sleeping in pitch darkness and embarked on a quest to kill all light entering the room (I am become Satan, destroyer of light. Shit we might experience nuclear war soon. That reference wasn't funny. Dammit). Not content with the blackout curtains one can buy at Wal-Mart, I purchased real blackout fabric and sewed it to the backs of the curtains, then hung additional blackout curtains over the door (impermeable to light; permeable to Simon). It was the best sleep I've ever had. I never cared about the Placeholder (that's what I'm calling my previous dwelling, I think -- a shitty senselessly split-level condo built in the 60s with absolutely no soundproofing between the first and second floors), so it wasn't worth my time to try to light-proof that bedroom, but once I moved into the Homestead and realized the landlord wasn't kidding when he said his security lights illuminate the building like a miniature sun, I tunneled through my piles of boxes until I found the blackout curtains.
I love it. When you turn out the lights you can't even see your hand in front of your face. Once again I sleep the beautiful deep uninterrupted sleep of the entombed, and it's amazing.
6. My galley kitchen with oodles of counterspace. So easy to cook in.
7. My microwave that doesn't require you to press a button before you set the cook time. (I HATE having to press "cook time" before punching in the cook time.)
8. My neighbors. Are so quiet.
9. I HAVE A BALCONY.
10. The size and the silence.
Still gonna take me awhile to settle in -- probably most of the winter. I'm still tired and taking it easy. But I already love living here. One day soon I'll write about the story of finding this place. It's not a bad tale. In the meantime, I wake up every morning happy and grateful for where I live.
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