It’s been a dog’s age since I updated, but I’m going to type as fast as I can for the next 26 minutes, when I can legally leave work for the day.
Why so mute, you ask? Well, dear friends, it all boils down to two simple words: apartment hunting. The the past two weeks, I’ve seen 18 apartments, printed out and studied a two-inch-thick stack of listings on the Web, and made and received uncountable phone calls. I’ve talked with realtors, nice young couples, current tenants, and friends of the landlord. I have seen the insides of more closets than I have any right to, dining rooms being described as bedrooms, an end table constructed from two cases of Bud, and a stack of Maxims in the bathroom. I’ve learned some truths: namely, that I don’t want to live in an apartment building again if I can at all help it and that Cambridge residential architects had some warped sense about what a closet is. I’ve discussed my relationship, my ex-husband, and various cities I’ve lived in with perfect strangers. Finally, I’ve come to realize that “modern” translates as “generic and ugly,” “charming” means “miniscule,” and “spacious” means “a slant-floored dump.”
Right now, D. and I are waiting to hear if we got the apartment we want. I hope we hear soon, because I keep waking up in the middle of the night with my stomach Watusiing and my mind racing from fear of being homeless come 1 September.
In other exciting news, I managed to take a tumble on the sidewalk along the waterfront Monday night — I was hurrying to keep up with my friends, as our dinner at the Barking Crab had taken forever and we were late for Mission of Burma/Wilco. My shoe caught a loose brick and my right ankle underwent some complex torsion while my other leg scraped the pavement. Luckily, I didn’t land on my fingers and break any digits this time. Very embarrassing, with everyone fussing. I told them to go on ahead, and D. helped me walk to a stone bench, where we sat for a spell to see if my ankle felt better. It didn’t, so we went home and watched Disc 2 of the Wilco DVD.
I went to the doctor today for X-rays, just to be safe and because I have health insurance. No fractures, but curiously, the radiology technician pointed out two small bright shapes between the third and fourth and fourth and pinky toes of my right foot. “Did you step on any metal recently?” she inquired. I hadn’t, but I remembered that when I was about 7 or 8, I stepped on a seam ripper my mom left lying on the floor with her sewing stuff. THe tip broke off in my foot and looked bruisey for years, but eventually healed. I always figured it had worked its way out, but looks like it migrated inward, broke into two pieces, and started a little pedal homestead. Ick. The radiation lady said that a woman had come in for a foot X-ray recently and they’d found a sewing needle in the soft tissue of her foot. Made me think of my dad, who has always said, “That’d feel good in somebody’s foot” whenever he found something even moderately sharp on the floor.
Looks like the clock has run out. . . .