Movin' Out

What's there to say? I'm movin' out. I'm moving out of the small, charming apartment that marked the beginning of my "adulthood" - of living alone, and independent from parents, boyfriends, and pets. It was just me. Me and the skylight, me and the cat urine that would sometimes seep into my apartment from the reclusive, crazy downstairs that keeps twenty-five cats as prisoners in her small studio. I don't really know how many poor cats are shacked up in there, but it smells like the detritus of two thousand five hundred unhappy felines. But the apartment afforded me a look into myself, what I want to do, what am I doing, and what am I going to do? The apartment also bore witness to my ruts, my fits of joy, of sadness, of anger, of disillusionment, and of excitement. If the walls had ears, they would say, "Gee Clover, you've lived a hundred lives in this apartment." And now I am leaving. Where am I going, my friends want to know. I am temporarily moving into my parent's home before I relocate to Europe. My girlfriend just asked me if I'm freaking out? No, I replied. I have a goal in mind. If I didn't have a goal, I would be indeed, freaking out. But there's the rest of my good life waiting for me; and I want it to start right away, right now in fact. I am looking forward to it. So there's the boxes, the packing, the temporary feeling of regression as I reintegrate myself into my old childhood room, but those feelings and reactions will be fast and sweeping, and perhaps a little reassuring before everything in my life changes rather drastically. I will miss the overwhelming, all-encompassing light in my apartment from the skylight that stupidly sits above my bed. Don't think I ever got a good night of sleep in this apartment, as a cause of the light from the sun and moon. Recently, there was some sort of pigeon massacre on the other side of the glass. And now there is a sad, grisly postmortem display of feathers, and disembodied pigeon legs hanging. This has framed my view of the sky these past few days. Terrible. You probably think at this point that I live in an animal house, I don't, I didn't. There were just some problems with the place, it was, shall we say, less than ideal. And now it's an end of an era for me. I don't quite feel it yet. But I haven't started to pack yet, and maybe once I do, and see the remnants of the life I lived in this here apartment, I will feel differently. But I don't think so. I'm "Movin' Out." Thanks for the song Billy Joel. I'll listen to it while I'll box up my old life.

Defective

I'm not nearly as obnoxious about my birthday as I used to be. In fact, this past January 29th marked a special kind of birthday-bashfulness on my part. Friends and family were not used to it; they thought something was wrong. I was out-of-character reasonable. I reminded friends a mere two or three times that it was my birthday month, my birthday week, my birth day. Nothing's wrong, except that I want to get back to Italy. My mind is fixed on this goal. Nothing can deter me; even my birthday. Funny thing is that New York also was rather blase about it. My birthday that is. No surprise there. It hates me, remember? Anyway, plans fell through, lunch at an expensive restaurant was unforgettably disappointing, and the pear tart (I don't like cake) that my mom ordered in commemoration of my birth did not make an appearance. The bakery forgot to make it. It seems that the gradual forward-motion in my life is not allowable in this city; and that's why I choose to continue the rest of my life in Italy. But what really got my inner goat, and at the same time tickled my funny bone is what I saw in the depths of the subway. Not a rat. But something much more literal which has stayed with me nearly two weeks later. The story is small, but it speaks large. In an effort to refill her MetroCard, my mom tried four of those darling MetroCard vending machines, whose sole purpose is to refill. None of them worked. The MTA attendant who happened to be standing there jotting some never-ending note on her pad, observed my mother's frustration, but did nothing to alleviate it. My mom asked her repeatedly if she could help us. We didn't even get a nod of recognition. But I noticed that the MTA worker had some sort of name tag on her lapel, and instead of a name, it just read "Defective." My mom whispered to me and asked me if it said "Detective?" No, I said, just "Defective." "Defective" like the help we were not getting, "Defective" in the way you can spend a fortune in NY and still receive mediocre, or even bad food, "Defective" in the way people just ram into each other on any given sidewalk, and don't say sorry, "Defective" as in imperfect in form and function, faulty. This city is faulty. And it's also funny because it pokes fun at itself, like the woman proudly and defiantly wearing the word "Defective" as her namesake. She finally looked up, as if she heard me call her name. "What can I do for you?" she just barely inquired, one eye stuck on her God-forsaken pad. My mom explained she just wanted to refill. "Defective" replied, if you can call it a reply. "What aspect of your refilling is not working." My mom glanced at me, and said namely the refilling. Darling "D" then repeated her question. Gee, "aspect" was the word of the evening alongside "D" for "Defective." Nothing was resolved, and my mom left refill-less. My birthday turned out to be somewhat defective, but I could care less. I just want to defect.