Trade-offs

I have lived so many places. Creaking old house with mice in the walls, 100 watt light bulbs overhead, toilet that stank of sewer after a rain. Typical post WWI tract house, with much patched plumbing and decades of paint. This is what I grew up in, my first bedroom a large bathroom converted into a small bedroom, with sloping walls and access to outside that birds occasionally found their way in through. High, small window. Heater grate leading down to a coal furnace that belched hot, dusty air all winter. Choo-choo train wallpaper changed to purple flowers in stripes. Creaking linoleum floors. Steep stairs bisecting the house.

I lived in older apartments in college, with more dubious wiring and constant late night party ruckus. I dreamed of shooting through the floor to silence the thumpa-thumpa and drugged cackling shouts, violent fantasies, pressing against my desperate, pillow muffled ears. I slept on foam on the floor that folded into a sort of chair in the morning. I had roaches scramble over my sleeping face.

My four months in a solid, concrete duplex in the North Woods sported a little field mouse, who came in every night to inspect me. And very touchy circuit breakers. Furnished, with a naugahyde sofa, horse-head medallion in the back rest.

Every place had it's problems, annoyances, dangers. A few had their delights, like the view from the agency-supplied 20th floor apartment in Boston. The birds and trees outside the last place we lived on 9th East (a series of three). The awful place with TWO bathrooms, that became the drop-in spot for friends. The place a block from a park with stream, and geese.

Here, oh, my. I watch the trains, and listen to them. Smooth trams that roll past with a low, mellow rumble. Wide expanse of sky. Windows, that when both open, bring the world inside, a whole wall of light. My mother would be horrified at the endless hallway, but this is a neutral, a block of walking out of the weather. I hear the neighbor's printer in the morning, but little else. I prefer the solidity, the modernity, the high ceiling that makes it all feel more spacious. Not another basement, not another high-rise, not another creaking, cobbled together mouldy make-do. Cleanable, workable, we made lunch together in the kitchen without irritation.

Moby has been up on the washing machine. We've only seen him jump down from there, but it seems a reasonable extrapolation.