Contraband shopping carts layered in the stairwell; angry Eastern-Europeans; my 3 A.M. smoking neighbor who donates his backwash vapors to my bedroom; exploding plumbing pipes; gulping frogs; pumpkin walls.
Anecdote #1:
I was balancing about five bags on my shrunken shoulders (compliments of stress) and an overweight box on my lovely woman-hip (still intact). When the elevator stopped at the first floor, there he stood: one piercing in the left lobe which adequately screamed "I am not gay! Left lobe! Left lobe!"; oversized cobalt team-T; and bald with a two-day stubble.
"Going up?" He avoided my eyes and addressed the unoccupied space in the elevator. I assumed that since I was the only one in there, he must have been talking to me.
"No. I am going to the bottom."
"Uuugh." He turned away as the door slid closed and muttered to himself, "Slacker...! Total Slacker.'
Anecdote #2:
I was laden with more bags and a gnome-stool. Two strangers were in the elevator with me. As the elevator descended, one asked, "Are you an artist? Have we met?"
I have never declared myself an artist, but at 2 P.M. on November 5th, 2008 I said, "Yes," without thinking.
"I paint, but am specifically studying Interior Design, right now. How could you tell?"
I ran my eyes over the labels on the bags and boxes hanging from my body. Toilet paper and dryer sheets were stuffed into a particular black bag. "Utrecht" was my Judas.
"No, we haven't met. I just moved in, but I'm moving out this weekend, which is wild, but if I ever see you again, my name is Marie," I said while struggling out of the elevator.
"My name is John. You are a very beautiful woman. I hope to see you again."
I often feel violated by such comments, but his was not a come-on. It was a platonic statement. I want to see him again. I imagine that his apartment is layered with seven years of smudgy vellum, bristol, whispers of gouache, and mountains of acrylic.
Queen Anne is my home. Good-bye temporary Northgate.
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