Entry #475
Time: 6:37 am
Location: Bus 52 towards Watershed Heights
Temperature: 22° Celsius
Humidity: 55%
Buses make me queasy. Why am I looking down?
Time: 6:40 am
Location: Outside Watershed Heights, surrounded by boxes.
Temperature and Humidity: Same
The manager isn't awake yet. There aren't any lights on. Strange. It's nearly 7:00!
Never mind. There's a rusty door around the side, and it's unlocked, I think. It should lead into the basement, if the steps down are any indication. I'll just go and get my boxes.
Time: 7:03 am
Location: Third step down the flight of stairs leading to the basement of Watershed Heights
Temperature and Humidity: Same
Oooooo! There's a fine Polytrichum commune growing between the steps! I was not expecting this sort of society right outside my door. Bryophytes make wonderful neighbors - he and I shall be great friends, I'm sure.
Oh dear. I've left the clothes box in a puddle. I do hope that the bottom won't rip out...I can't imagine 20 pounds of someone's laundry falling on one's head as making an excellent first impression. I so want to start things out on the right foot.
Time: 7:20 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement
Temperature: 20° Celsius
Humidity: 21.5%
The accommodations here are simply stunning. The door to the outside is on the west wall, which is covered in the most fantastic crop of mildew I have ever seen. The foundation is cracking a little near a pile of rotting boards in the northeast corner, probably because there's a root (or maybe it's a spiderweb. I can't tell) forcing its way through the concrete. I hope it isn't a root. The poor plant must be quite confused. There's various bits of garbage scattered about, but I should be able to compost most of it, once I find my formulae.
The cast-iron coal-burning furnace in the corner is a bit creepy. It will probably try and eat me while I sleep.
Time: 7:25 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I wonder if there's a hardware store around. I need to buy potting soil and 2x4s.
Time: 7:29 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I should get a humidifier for the mildew, too. It isn't nearly moist enough, poor thing.
Time: 7:30 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement, near the foundation crack
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I wonder if the manager would mind me digging a hole in the foundation.
Time: 7:37 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement, in the pile of boxes inside the door
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I can't find the box with my compost formulae and Cornell doctorate.
Time: 7:38 am
Location: Watershed Heights basement, under the pile of boxes
Temperature and Humidity: Same
Where are my compost formulae? I NEED them.
Did I lose them in the airport? No. I still have all my boxes. I think.
NO! One is missing!
Time: 7:39 am
Location: Same
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I wonder whatever happened to that botany undergrad who helped me carry my things through the airport? He was so nice, and asked some very intelligent questions about my book...particularly the compost chapter.
The sneaky bastard. If I ever find him, I'll teach him about compost first-hand. We'll see if he still likes it so well when it's HIS flesh decomposing.
Time: 7:40 am
Location: On the floor of the Watershed Heights basement, near the boxes.
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I might have left them on the subway. I should make reward posters. But what would motivate people?
Time: 7:45 am
Location: Same
Temperature and Humidity: Same
I'll give them one of the Passiflora edulis seedlings. Everyone likes passion fruit, and they make lovely companions. Such a nice sense of humor.
"Ha. What neighbors?" he thought. The only person he'd met so far was Marjorie, the woman he'd seen hanging around the first floor early on the morning he moved in. She was carrying a box of what seemed to be loads of laundry and inspecting the moldy walls outside what must have been her apartment. "I wonder what her story is," he thought. "She get kicked out too?" Maybe everyone in this whole blasted apartment building is only here because they can't stay anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteAn overgrown rooftop garden sat atop the apartment building. Since he had moved in, Ezekiel had wanted to start to grow vegetables there, but he did not have the drive, or the green thumb to actually take on this endeavor. He hoped someone else would take on the project and he could simply reap the benefits. There was a woman who he saw near the basement who seemed very intent on some mold. Perhaps she would be able to garden. But alas, the crazy woman had not yet proved to be helpful, so Ezekiel put on a leopard skin hat and walked to the Grocery Stop-and-Shop.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am very sure working on Saturdays is unnecessary, but if they'll pay me for sitting around and taking notes, I could sure use the money. Don't even have to teach those languid teenagers. I must log at least 6 notebooks every Saturday at work.
ReplyDeleteCeilí hopped from the bus to the curb, a little extra pep in her step. Conveniently, that hop carried her over the grimy puddle of murk in the street. The hop had become a part of her daily routine, and it got a smile out of the bus driver every time.
8/28/2010- 2:49:47- Bus 52 arrives at stop. 6 including me exit. None enter. No one on the playground.
Not surprising; this endless rain has left everything soggy, and it feels as if nothing has dried out. I guess the kid who normally plays here is someplace dry.
Nope! There he is, over by Watershed Heights. Ahh, that's why, that woman with the big brass horn is playing outside. That reminds me...
8/28/2010- 2:51:15- XX18 is outside Watershed playing for crowd of 2 kids, 1 teen girl, 2 men, 4 women.
Walking around the roundabout the long way for a better view while pulling the notebook out of her sleeve again, Ceilí was struck in the side of the head by a small, dense, fast-moving idea- though she liked the prospect of being able to look over the notebooks and compare the data, the process of cross referencing each note was easily the most time consuming activity she committed to, and painfully boring despite the potential of all the notes in those notebooks. The rare gap of sun through the clouds eked a glint out of the sousaphone, and the unexpected glare gave Ceilí's mind a whir, and once the spinning had stopped, the kernel of thought remaining was brilliant.
A computer. The cross referencing takes so long because the notes have nothing to do with each other. I can't carry around all of my notebooks, one about the lightbulb, one about the rats by the Heights door, one about the rats by the fountain, etc. Impossible. But a computer.. All of the notes right there, I just have to go to the right area.
Naturally, this was not the first time such the computer had made itself evident as an alternative. The arguments for computers were well planned in Ceilí's head. There had simply not been enough money before to go through with the idea.
Ceilí was forced to send the idea to the back of her head when she realized she'd passed the opening to Watershed Heights and was now circling the building. Ahead of her, a woman scurried clumsily from the street, arms full of long pieces of wood and a large bag, and headed straight into an old metal door at the base of the building. In her haste, one of the pieces of timber fell from her load, landing on a beer can with a crunch, alerting the woman to its new position. The woman turned back, scurried over to the wood, and began to lean over to pick it up before realizing the futility of her situation. If she picked up the board, the rest would tumble from her arms. She looked around, mumbling and scowling, until her eyes caught on Ceilí.
Ceilí jogged several steps towards the woman, who seemed to shrink back from the approaching stranger, and picked up the board with both hands. She stretched our her arms and set the wood down on top of the stack still in the woman's hand, noticing that the woman had more wrinkles on her face than she'd a right to when carrying so much stuff.
"My name is Ceilí Thompson, I live upstairs. I don't recognize you, did you just move in?" she asked as she turned the knob to the basement door. It opened with a high pitched squeaking-grinding noise.
I guess I found XX49.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMY GOD DAMN AIR CONDITIONER
ReplyDeleteMY god damn air conditioner brooke again. its hot hell balls in here, but hey its a cheap sana, its about to get moldy in here, maybe someone will clean it up. its like nam except my feet aint wet. i remember back in the glory days in the film industry i always had a sana in my trailer on set, maybe thats why i live in a trailer now, helps remind me of the good times the sexy times, or i could be because im just dead broke. God damn cockroach!!!! (splat)(john macrackin steps on bug). this place is a shit hole, my shit hole but still a shit hole, i need to go on a walk with my auzzies. HENRY HENRY!!!! (THATS MY FAV AUZZIE) my baby ready for a walk.
i hate the ground and how it looks how it just lets people step all over them, damn look at that fool with all the damn boxes in front of that dump water shed heights, is that a guy with those boxes, well ill be damn it is!!!!!! i wonder what the hell he is doing i might just have to take a looksies tonight. well imma start singing again
That I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I wont forget the men who died,who gave that right to me. And I gladly stand up, next to you and defend her still today. ‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA.
Later that night:
damn thats a shit load of mold, this guy is crazy, and i thought i lived in a shit hole. wait he can take care of my mold well ill just leave him a little leter asking fo him to take my mold
Letter:
Dear Mold Man,
i gpt lots of mold and such you may like come take a looksy at my sweet trailer in the abandon lot.
Note left on moldy door
So, I'm peeing/pissing/living down the slide, when I feel like I'm being watched. Call it a sixth sense, if you will. I look up from my stream of waste and corruption to meet eyes with an elderly lady waiting at the bus stop, rather nondescript looking. She was kinda pretty in that way, I guess. Maybe a little nervous. She seemed to be thinking quickly. I could see it. Every few minutes, another thought.
ReplyDelete10:15: Where the Hell is the bus?
10:18: Who is this strikingly handsome naked man, and why is he pissing everywhere?
Like that. I'm still pissing. I had to go. And she's just watching, kind of disgusted. Just watching. I did a lot of that in my single-serving home. I try to think of something deep to say ("Hey, how are you?"), and this is what I come up with...
"What? Haven't you ever wanted to watch the worst parts of you just float away?"
As she is leaving the apartment complex, she notices one of her neighbors, Marjorie Wilkins, in total disarray. Kalenna walks by Marjorie, who is surrounded by boxes and appears to be having some personal issues, and thinks to herself how different these new people she is around are from the people she was around in Mexico.
ReplyDelete