Hi. Well I’m
hitting that time of year again when I move or think about moving. I’m turning
into a drifter. No wonder it seems like Trump has been President forever: for
me his Inauguration is 3 towns and 4 apartments ago. But I thought I would
offer an exciting tour guide through all the apartments I’ve lived in since adulthood
drove its tentacles in me.
First stop on
our tour guide is 33 Windermere Avenue in Vernon, CT. This is the only place on
the list I saw for the first time the day I moved in. My dad found it for me. I probably should have been independent enough in my activities of
daily living to find my own place but………... Not having a car was a contributing
factor so let’s go with that. I had been living back in Storrs for a year even
though I had graduated and I hadn’t talked myself into enrolling in grad school
so I worked in a sheltered workshop for the blind in the Elmwood section of
West Hartford and drank heavily on weekends instead. Over 2 hour commute to
work each and every day just so I could still go to Ted’s and Spring Weekend. Adulthood
won the war, but I fought that battle with pretty dogged determination.
But as my
friend and I were set to have to give back the apartment we were subletting for
the summer, homelessness was a semi-realistic possibility so my Dad went
apartment hunting for me.
I was pretty
scared moving there. I had to fight back tears saying goodbye to my friends
when I moved out. I wanted it to be college forever and I had never lived by
myself before and I was afriad I might slide down a downward spiral of loneliness
and despair. But, like most everything else, it worked out and wasn’t nearly as
bad as I feared.
The place
wasn’t bad. Bedroom in the front, living room in the back. A balcony! And a big
sliding glass door! Unfortunately, I mostly used the balcony to smoke. But it
was on that balcony one winter night when I decided to give up smoking for
good. I thought, “I’m sitting out in the cold breathing in poison!”. I would
put my ashes into a giant plastic cup because I never bought an ash
tray—because an ash tray would symbolize a commitment to smoking. I tossed that
cup which had become rather disgusting with ashes in the garbage.
Unfortunately,
the walls in this place were PAPER THIN. I was the proud owner of a neighbor
enraging giant Sony stereo which included a sub woofer. Because it’s all
about dat bass. And I had my Fender Stratocaster with a Crate amplifier
(good clean tone with built in chorus, distortion sounded like a hive of very angry
bees). There was a gray haired gentleman living next door who was clearly not a
big Rage Against The Machine or The Beastie Boys fan. At first, he played nice.
I got a polite friendly reminder from the office staff. Then one night I
slipped up again and heard pounding on my door. Of course I couldn’t hear
everything he said what with the music and everything but after turning it down
I caught, “………………………PAIN IN MY ASS!!!!!!!!”.
So I kept it pretty
quiet after that.
But my
neighbors downstairs weren’t quiet little mice either. They were a couple who
fought frequently and I could hear every single argument. But their
relationship appeared to be built on an endless cycle of fighting and making
up. And I could always hear them making up too. Sunday mornings seemed to be a
favourite time of the week for loud, passionate let’s-never-fight-again reconciliation.
I watched the
UConn men win their first national championship over Duke in this apartment
(wishing I could be on campus getting obliterated in celebration and watching
idiots burn mattresses because that’s what school spirit is all about). I
watched Pedro Martinez strike out 17 Yankees while I drank a bottle of wine
that had been given to me by my boss the previous Christmas. But I was so poor
I didn’t have cable most of the time I was there. Once in a while I would
splurge and rent a movie form the video store down the street and that was it. Fight
Club, The Blair Witch Project…all the hot new releases. No computer either! No
Internet, very little TV. It was glorious. I walked down to the Rockville
library and checked out books and read a lot. I also (quietly) practiced my
guitar a lot. The simple unplugged days.
I lived there
for 2 years. I might have stayed longer but---story of my life---transportation
issues surfaced. Another thing my Dad had done before I moved in was hook me up
with a ride by posting an ad in the paper offering payment to someone to drive
me to Hartford every weekday. (I did pay myself—for the record). I still had to
take a bus from downtown to Elmhood, but this cut my commute time tremendously
over taking a bus from Vernon—which took a long scenic route through beautiful
Manchester. But my driver was a bit crazy. He drove people with disabilities
for a living and I’m convinced people’s driving skills erode the more they
drive. They lose ALL patience on the road. First incident was in a snowstorm
where we hydroplaned and did a 360 spin on a Jersey barrier. By some miracle no
car hit us--probably because they were actually driving slow in the snow! My man
thought because he had an SUV he could drive like it was 75 and sunny. I
decided to give him one more chance but promised myself I would fire him if
anything else happened. The following summer he hit a girl in front of us who
stopped at a red light. Just a fender bender but still. He blamed her for
stopping too quickly but I think he was tailing her too close. Admittedly, I
took the cowardly way out of firing him: I left him a voice mail. But this
forced me to take 2 long buses. I probably plowed through One Hundered Years Of
Solitude and Love In The Time Of Cholera and Catch 22 on the bus in three weeks
flat. Plus I had gotten promoted and now had money to burn so might as well
move to place with more entertainment options to walk to than Video Galaxy and
Kahoots. A gentleman’s club. I might have gone there a couple times…..don’t
judge. I didn’t have cable. So it was on to…………………..
Downtown
Hartford! Way easier commute. Walking distance to UConn games and concerts. The
Brickyard was still open! Heaven had a name and it was Hartford.
But like
seemingly every move I’ve ever made, it was a tradeoff. Gone was my lovely
balcony. My sole window offered a breathtaking view of a dumpster in the back parking
lot. My reasonably spacious 1 bedroom Vernon apartment was replaced by a tiny
studio. And, you know, Hartford ambiance. My Dad—former Hartford cop---read me
the riot act about NOT letting panhandlers take advantage, about NOT walking up
Garden Street….. All in all, this very non-street smart country boy managed
fine in my seven years in Hartford.
Well……there
was one glaring exception. In 2003 I had been laid off and was out of work for
7 months. Being a bit depressed over this situation, I was smart enough to mostly
avoid drinking—both alcohol and coffee. One Saturday I bought a six pack but
decided to not even drink it! But by Sunday it was just screaming my name from
my fridge so I drank a few and then ventured to the bars. Hartford bars on a
Sunday night………..kind of scary territory here. No lightweights or college
freshman with fake ID’s on this night. Hard core alcoholics, Suge Knight
acolytes……that sort of clientele. I decided to have a nightcap in the heart of
darkness itself: The Federal Café. Established 1934. HOW do they stay in
business? I’ve probably just seen too many movies, but they’re a money
laundering front for the mob I just know it.
As I was
walking out, a woman probably late 20’s/early 30’s approached me and asked if I
lived nearby. Foolishly, I said I did. She said she had to go get her kids who were
with their father but she had to call them but she didn’t have a phone (still semi-plausible
in 2003) so could she just use my phone and she’d be right on her way? I wisely
said no. Then I said no again. Then I said okay sure. Did I mention I had been
drinking since mid-eafternoon?
So of course she
makes herself at home. Asked if I had any I had anything to drink. I think I still
had a beer or two but I can’t remember. She tells me she worked at The Meadows
and has met all the stars. Dave Matthews? Moody. Of course starts to flirt. Asks
why I don’t have a girlfriend “as cute as you are”.
Finally she
left. I woke up the next day with a SCREAMING hangover. Maybe getting daydrinking
till 1 AM after having not drank anything at all in a few months was a bad idea.
But I heard a call coming in on my answering machine. “Hey Ryan, it’s Sheila! I
was wondering when I can come over today?”. I didn’t recall inviting her over.
Then another voice mail. Then another. Each one getting a little angrier about
me not picking up the phone. Feeling slightly freaked out, I took the bus to
Buckland Mall and bought my very first cell phone. Suddenly landlines with
their scary answering machines seemed like the spawn of Satan. Shortly after I
get home, I got a call from the building security guard saying there’s someone
there to see me! I go downstairs and she gives me a big hug like she’s never
been happier to see anyone in her entire life. She had a book in her hand about
depression. Asks if she can use my bathroom. Again, I think I said no but she
knew by now that no meant yes. I said okay but you have to leave RIGHT AFTER.
She promises. She goes to the bathroom and then says “Do you mind if I close
the shade? I want to show you the new underwear my mom bought for me”. Not
really sure if I even answered. She pulls down her pants and shows me a pink pair
of panties. Also noticed that she was really, really skinny. I’m probably lucky
I was so hungover and just wanted all this to go away or I MIGHT have made a poor
decision and succumbed to the charms of this likely junkie? Prostitute? STD
sufferer? Home invader? Instead I said, “You have to leave right now!”. So she
starts leaving and I said, “And don’t come here unannounced again!”. She said
okay. I was a jerk but at that point I felt like I had no choice.
But it wasn’t
quite over. About a week later I get a call on my landline. “Is Sheila there?”.
A guy’s voice. I said no. “She told me she’s staying there”. I said, “No she’s
not staying here!”. He said, “She fucked up?”. I said, “Yes”. He said, “She
always fucks up”.
Next day I
called and cancelled my landline phone account.
But poor Sheila
proved to only be the second most troublesome pest that entered my first Hartford
apartment. One night I woke up itching. Soon after I noticed these creepy tiny
black bugs on me. You could easily smoosh them and you would see this trace amount
of red blood on your finger. Don’t even go there animal rights activists….come
back and see after you’ve lived with, you guessed it, bedbugs. This. Was.
Awful. Kind of hard to sleep. I would itch and scratch like a manic until I
developed these big blotchy red marks all over my legs. I started thinking what
if it’s not bedbugs like it seems and I have some awful medical condition?? I
went to the ER and they gave me Prednisone. This did help reduce the itching
tremendously. For a while. Because a new army of bedbug reinforcements was
ready to do more damage. I went back to the ER and got prescribed a SECOND course
of Prednisone. I think I reported the problem to management but my AC was broken
that summer and they wouldn’t even fix that so an exterminator was out of the
question. God was good, though. My lease was up at the end of August and after
7 years, I finally took everyone’s advice and moved to West Hartford Center. To
free up quick cash for rent and security deposit, I even sold one my guitars—allowing
Guitar Center to fleece me since I didn’t have time to do Ebay. So long
Hartford, we’ll always have the Pig’s Eye Pub.
My first WeHa
apt was pretty nice. It was very bright and sunny as it faced south with no
trees blocking the light. And while relatively small, it was a 1 bedroom palace
compared to my Hartford studio. Even the Peapod delivery girl was impressed. She
said, “This apartment is much nicer than your old one”.
I moved two
months before Blue Back Square opened. I was shocked to discover there were no
bars! There were restaurants with bars in them but the days of McLadden’s and
World Of Beer were still a couple years away. They were still pretending to be
a quaint little village or something. But this was good. I had drank quite my
share in my Hartford days—block parties, Great Band Slams, concerts, games,
staying out till last call! I almost welcomed the quieter, more boring life of
not drinking much and going to the newly opened movie theatre every Saturday
night.
Oh…..but I
took the bedbugs with me! I must have taken them along when I packed. They are truly
evil. The outbreak wasn’t as severe but I actually had to hire an exterminator to
come two different times the following summer before they were finally gone. (Why
do I feel like getting rid of Trump will proceed in a very similar fashion?).
Not really
proud of this but one of my fondest memories of this apt was waking up one
Sunday morning in my sunsplashed bed to a dream where I was at The White House
during the Kennedy Administration and I was chatting up Jackie and she seemed
to think I was one devilishly charming SOB so I found myself getting a bit handsy
shall we say? Not quite in a Trumpian way….but…. never mind. Listen, Jack was a
serial cheater so this was a victimless crime! But I started looking around
hoping the Secret Service wasn’t looking and getting ready to gun me down for
getting way, way too familiar with The First Lady. Then I woke up. I mentioned
this was a cool dream, right?
But like every
other apartment I’ve lived in, problems arose. Namely, an upstairs neighbour
that moved in. He wasn’t a fan of my guitar playing. Or even of music I played
out of my computer speakers. He pounded on the floor a few times. One night he
called the cops! I had already turned off the music when the cop showed up so
that was a non event. But---and isn’t this always how it is?---he was loud
himself! He had the heaviest foot of anyone I’ve ever met. Yes, the walls were
thin. But he would walk (stomp?) around his apartment literally all hours of
the night. I swear he slept 2 hours a night. And thanks to him, so did I. I
tried earplugs. I tried a fan. I tried leaving the TV on. I bought noise
cancelling headphones. Nothing helped. Finally I moved to another unit in the complex
just to prevent slipping off the precipice into total madness. They had no 1
bedrooms on the second floor (after this I would rather die than take another 1st
floor unit) so I took a much more expensive townhouse instead.
This place was
BLISSFULLY silent. My first night going to bed and hearing not a sound coming
through the ceiling might have been one of the happiest nights of my life.
Another amazing benefit I later discovered: I could set up speakers
strategically so that I could play music as loud as I wanted without anyone
complaining!
But……………………………and
why do all the apartments I’ve lived in have a but?.......this place was kind
of lonely feeling. It was on top of a large upward slopping quadrangle removed
from the street. And it was off on the far left of a back row of apartments. And
it wasn’t nearly as bright. There were light blocking trees all around. Winters
started to feel pretty depressing there. It was starting to feel time to get a
change of scenery from West Hartford after almost ten years.
My new
property manager Mike did me a favor by providing the push I needed to finally
move on. Early in the winter, I noticed my heat was barely working. I made a
service request. He said the maintenance guy showed up with a temp reader and
said it was 68 so there was no problem whatsoever. I said maybe on a sunny day
at 3PM it was 68 but by night time and early morning it’s cold. He had him go
back….same response. So he was refusing to fix my heat?? I decided to go over his
head and call corporate headquarters. They came back, did something to open the
vents and it worked better the rest of the winter. Why did that have to be so
hard? Apparently not willing to accept this emasculating defeat, he sent me a nasty,
vaguely threatening letter saying my apartment wasn’t clean and he would be
back to inspect it on December 20th. I hired cleaners to make it super
clean. He came back---with the maintenance guy. Was he planning to evict me and
wanted a reinforcement if I went postal? Anyway, he agreed it was much better.
But I knew it was time to GTFO when my lease ran out a couple months later.
But…..Brooksyde
Apartment still had a parting gift in store for me. One early spring day I came
back from running and a neighbor’s loud yapping dog was out unsupervised on a
leash in the ground. I came too close and he bit me on the left butt cheek! I politely
noted this to the owners a few days later and they were incredulous. Not their
adorable little pooch! One day soon after I was again coming back from jogging (this
time sticking to the other side of the quad) but the dog was on a leash in a
different spot and he got to me again and bit me on the leg! I complained to my
frienemy property manager but God knows if he did anything. It was time to move
on to………………..
Glastonbury.
This was a really nice apartment. 2 bedroom again—they didn’t have 2nd
floor 1 BR’s at the time so I said screw it. Beautiful hardwood floors instead
of the horrible beige carpeting I had been living with for nearly 20 years. A
pool! A gym! Two wall AC’s! All amenities my WeHa apartment lacked but they
still charged slightly more in rent. The property manager Kristen was actually
nice and responded to maintenance calls!
I even kind of
befriended a couple neighbors—a rarity in apartment land in my experience. Then
again I’m not a social butterfly with strangers. But an Indian family lived
below and they had two grammar school aged boys. One liked to play 20 Questions
with me. “Is your bathroom the same as ours?”. “Are you single?”. Many other
rather random questions I’m forgetting. But it always seemed like he was
breaking the rules by talking to me since he would run if he saw his mom—who I’m
guessing was stranger danger wary.
But by between
West Harford and Glastonbury I had been taking two buses to get to work for 11
years. Occasionally getting rides but mostly busing it. I was feeling burnt out
on that and yearned for the blissful one bus commute only possible if I moved
back to Hartford. My last night there was Halloween two years ago. My
downstairs neighbors and their friends knocked on my door Trick Or Treating. I
was so sad because A) I hadn’t prepared with candy and B) I was moving to an
apartment building in Hartford the following day where I knew there was no
chance I’d ever see a Trick Or Treater. The cold and scary city awaited me!
My first place
back in New England’s Rising Star was pretty nice—a corner unit, reasonably big
for a one bedroom, hardwood floors, laundry and dryer in the unit. But darkness
was an issue again. Not trees, but the monstrosity of the XL Center across the
street. I might have just lived with it for more than a year but by this time I
had a cat. I felt so guilty moving her there. She loves to sit in the sun and
there was very little sun. In GBury she loved to sit at the windowsill and
stalk birds but nothing but concrete out the window now.
So I moved to
my current abode: south facing, much more sun, facing Bushnell Park with trees
out the window. And $200 cheaper. I thought I had hit the jackpot. This place
sucks. The carpet has stains that were there the day I moved in and my attempt
to get them cleaned fell on deaf ears. There’s a water fountain in the hallway
but there was something someone threw in there the day I moved in that no one
had bothered removing. The washers and dryers don’t work half the time. It took
3 maintenance calls to get my toilet fixed and 4 to get a broken blind fixed.
And it’s just a bit too small. Has the layout of a glorified studio. I’m too
old for this shit. And recently a neighbor moved in one side who complains
about the slightest noise and another neighbor moved in with an obnoxiously
loud German Shepherd and they play obnoxiously loud music. Knock on wood, they’ve
been quiet the last couple weeks after I made multiple complaints to
management. I can’t win! Every apartment I move to has pros and cons but is
never any sort of dream home. Have I become too picky? I don’t know.
But my lease
is almost up and Covid complicates my choices. I have an option to go to a place
on Arch Street on just a six month lease. This would let me continue going into
my office—almost everyone is working from home but I realized I hated my
apartment so much I would go insane spending all my time there. The other
option……………..move back to my old apartment complex in Glastonbury. Who moves
back to the same complex they already lived in? Maybe this guy. It’s familiar,
now’s not the time for apartment hunting, it would also only be a six month
lease, it might make a great Covid winter quarantine shelter from the storm…..
So I might do that. Only problem…..after not having switched to teleworking from
the beginning I’m afraid I will hate it even in a much bigger, nicer apartment.
But I might find I actually love it and when will this chance come again………………?
It occurs to me I’ve come full circle and my work from home fear mirrors my
fear of living alone in my first apartment.
When this is
all over I need to find a condo or small house! All this wandering is making me
tired.
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