May 23, 2002~~7:48 p.m.
Goodbye Room
I am feeling a bit comedically nostalgic. I realized that a huge portion of the last 9 months of my life is soon to be over. After next Friday, no longer will I come home to the place I spent the majority of my unemployment, the place I lived through a bitterly short autumn, the place I watched September 11 unfold, the place I waited for my boyfriend to come through the door and complain I had nothing to eat. Yes, friends, Maria and I are moving out. So I would like to say a few farewells to some of the things I will miss most about our apartment. Goodbye Emphysema Wake-Up call. I will miss waking up in fear for your life due to suffocation from gagging on your own lung each and every day. Goodbye back gate that used to make a horrendous noise but now is just about to lose its handle because of LimpNoodleSteve�s lackadaisical landlording style. Goodbye coin operated washer and dryer. I will miss losing 75 cents into the dryer whilst holding an entire load of wet laundry at 11 p.m. with nowhere to go to dry it. Goodbye sexually active yet anti-social neighbors. I will miss Maria�s cries of fear and annoyance when you alternately fight or screw to the sounds of NPR on Saturday mornings. Goodbye homeless recycling collectors. Without you, we would have had a permanently overflowing recycling bin because LimpNoodle refuses to pay to have it picked up. Goodbye fighting African American neighbors. I will miss your fascinating cussing matches during the day and sometimes in the early morn. Goodbye ghetto stovetop. I will miss your one large element that tilts downward, thus causing anything in a frying pan to slide down to one end of the pan. Goodbye small water heater. I will miss having to strategize when and how long to shower when we have guests over. Goodbye bathroom drawer that does not have runners. I will miss your unevenness that threatens to cause you fall out of your hole in the cabinetry thus dumping your contents all over my foot. Goodbye sticky bathroom window. I will miss not being able to close you when I am in a hurry. Goodbye shitty cell service inside. I will miss having to say �can you hear me now?� every 2 seconds as I travel to and fro to find a decent spot in which to talk on my cell phone, usually ending up in some crazy contortion under the window and wedged between my bed and the wall. Goodbye Archie Bunker chair and floral couch. I will miss Archie�s fibers coming off on my body and clothing whenever I sit on it and I will miss trying to cram my 5�8� frame onto my larger-than-a-loveseat-but-smaller-than-a-couch couch. Goodbye less-than-stellar plumbing. I will miss having Milton have to come over every other week for a visit to fix you. Goodbye blonde-gray Mullet next door. I will miss seeing you emerge in your greasy shirt from your upstairs apartment across the fence and peer curiously into our window as you creak down the stairs. Goodbye dim lighting. I will miss going blind trying to see in the 40 watt light that inevitably burns out every other month. Goodbye lack of air flow. I will miss opening up all the windows in anticipation of a glorious cross-breeze only to be sorely disappointed every time. Goodbye LimpNoodleSteve. I will miss having you as continual fodder for my diary. It has been somewhat of a pleasure having you as our gay landlord.
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