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I was trying to recall yesterday how old my lovebird, Urza, is. I am horrible with dates and times. I have to put things into context of events in order to remember when things happened. Thinking of Urza brought back memories of my old apartment on Concord Avenue. What a place it was.
It was walking distance from work, but because of the weird hours I keep, I rarely walked. The building was an old, historic-district house that had been converted into four 1/1s. My apartment had a dingy, worn, gray carpet that never looked clean no matter how many times it was vacuumed or steam cleaned. There was a single, cheap air-conditioning unit in a window in the bedroom, and even chugging along at full power couldn't keep the place cool in the summer. I bought floor fans to blow some of the "cooler" air into the living room, but the place still was a furnace in the summer. There were many nights (or mornings) that I lay motionless and sprawled out on the bed with a fan blowing directly on me as I struggled to sleep. The kitchen was quaint, with a big, metal sink and a small, white, old-fashioned stove with an oven that never completely closed. I look back and wonder why I endured it. But the rent at the time -- $415 -- was dirt cheap, and I lived downtown.
I had had a roommate in the apartment previous to this one, but this place was the first time I truly considered myself living on my own. I have so many memories of it, good and bad: Tooling around at 4 a.m. with my trusty ol' beige Mac G3 (which I still had up until a few months ago), listening to nothing but the roar of the A/C unit, which was right above the computer. ... An old friend confiding in me about the love of her life as we sat on the steps leading up to the back porch, sipping beers as the sun went down. ... Other friends coming over weekly to sit on the dingy floor to play Magic: The Gathering. ... The shock and sadness I felt when I found my first rabbit, Mattie -- a large, furry, gray lop-eared bunny -- dead in the kitchen. What a sweetie she was. ... I adopted my second cat, Nekkochan -- a variation of nekochan (neh-koh-chan), which means "little kitty" in Japanese -- while I lived there. She was a friendly, beat-up calico who would wait on the back porch steps every night for a handout. It didn't take long for me to break down and take her in. I suspected she was old, and she was clearly not in the best of health when I found her. Her hip was dislocated, she walked with a limp and her tail was dead. The vet I took her to said her injuries were old; she had healed that way and she was not in pain. But she was a scrappy little thing and loved people. She passed away while I lived there. ... Coming home to find my aforementioned ex-roommate passed out on the kitchen floor and finding out later at a hospital that she had ODed on GHB (she had temporarily moved in while she looked for another place to live). That was no fun. I haven't seen her since. ... Decorating the windows with Christmas lights for the first time. ... Having a blast racing around one summer touring all the theme parks with another friend before he had to move away. He was the one who named the place the "Conquered Arms," after a small, cast-iron sign that hung in the front yard that said "Concord Arms." ...
My ex-boyfriend gave me Urza as a gift while I lived there. That must have been around 1994-95.
Replies: 3 shoutouts
what nice memories. most of them, anyway. I think kimberly williams used to live in that same complex. it reminds me of my old apartment downtown, the $425 rathole smack dab in trendiest thornton park.
Posted by tiff @ 01/04/2003 09:57 PM EST
I remember that apartment, it was pretty cool. It reminds me of my place here, except I think yours was bigger and mine is ten dollars cheaper. I work during the day so I can walk to work. It's so nice.
Posted by Richard @ 01/04/2003 05:23 PM EST
I remeber that apartment, it was pretty cool. It reminds me of my place here, except I think yours was bigger and mine is ten dollars cheaper. I work during the day so I can walk to work. It's so nice.
Posted by Richard @ 01/04/2003 05:23 PM EST