Don't rain on my parade
OK I know I have been, like, not around lately, so here is a quick summary:
My apartment fell apart. Literally.
Not literally literally, of course; it is still structurally sound (as far as I know, dun dun DUN!) and, you know, keeps the rain out. But definitely more literally than figuratively, because for a while it was raining in my bedroom.
So, apparently when the place was built, the radiator in the apartment upstairs was installed incorrectly. a) They used tubing instead of pipe, and b) they didn't solder it completely. So water had been leaking steadily from the pipe, probably for years, without anyone knowing it. Until about 10 days ago, when I came home to find a large bubble of water bulging out the paint in the ceiling near my light fixture. I let my landlord know and popped the bubble and drained all the water into a bucket, thinking maybe someone had just been overenthusiastic with cleaning and put too much water on the floor and it had seeped through, because there's just another bedroom above mine - it couldn't be coming from the kitchen or bathroom sink or anything.
Contractor came by the next day, took a look, said he had no freakin' idea where the water had come from, and told me to call him if the leak came back.
Yeah. Several days later: the leak came back.
It was midnight. Leak 2: Electric Boogaloo was bigger, badder, (or, for the SLC Punk! reference, since I just watched that again: "Leak 2 did it louder, did it faster, and it definitely did it with MORE LOVE, BABY!") and resulted in a chunk of the ceiling FALLING ONTO THE FLOOR and water beginning to drip into the light fixture on the ceiling. At which point I turned the light off with a quickness, to avoid electrocuting myself. (I think that probably wasn't actually possible, but still.) I dragged my mattress into the other room; put all my spare trash bags on the floor and over my worldly possessions and exhausted a large portion of my bucket/trash can/pot/bowl collection catching drips; called the contractor in a panic and left a message, all, "[plaintive wail]"; and tried to go to sleep. (I was not very successful.)
(Totally unrelated note: this woman on NPR just described herself as a "women's libber." I LOVE IT.)
The contractor couldn't come until the following evening - and at this point I figured there was little I could do myself, since I'd noticed another bubble of paint on the far wall near the ceiling, and discovered a mysterious wet patch spreading across the floor from my closet, so the problem was obviously much larger than I'd previously suspected. I went in to work and proceeded to have a slow-motion mental breakdown all day. That was fun.
So the contractor showed up that evening, we covered the room in drop cloths, and he ripped several holes in the ceiling, ran upstairs to turn off the entire boiler/radiator/whatever else was hooked up to it system, drained all the water out of the pipes (mostly through my bedroom ceiling, sigh) and the leak was finally conquered!
So THEN I spent about 4 hours taking everything out of the room, because he was coming back the next morning to pull down more of the ceiling, take out the ruined carpet, and let everything dry out.
It is really shocking how much of a pack rat I am, guys. I mean, I know that I tend to fall too often on the "it might be useful in the future" side of the keep it/toss it line, but I live in a good-sized apartment - by NY standards, at least - and stuff gets put in corners and then eventually my eye just reads it as, you know, a structural element of the room, rather than THINGS THAT NEED TO BE THROWN AWAY BECAUSE WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH TWO-YEAR-OLD ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLYS STACKED IN OLD SHOPPING BAGS OF ASSORTED SIZES? NOTHING, THAT IS WHAT.
So I did a much-needed spring cleaning. Kelly can attest to how needed it was; but she shouldn't, because then I will be even more embarrassed at how messy my room was.
So now all my furniture is crammed into the center of the living room, all my books are in grocery bags on the living room floor, the room is getting a brand new carpet and fresh coat of paint and new wiring for the light fixture (as the contractor said, "Never in my LIFE have I seen someone put a steam pipe above electrical wiring! [unintelligible, incredulous mumbling]") and I've got some new hand-me-down furniture from the Knight-Martak Axis of Awesome and it will all be wonderful in the end. But right now I am still feeling a little hectic, and resentful that this is all happening right before my birthday, like, what is that; but most of all good Lord I am TIRED.
So I treated myself to some new drinking glasses from Fishs Eddy. I would link you to them, but apparently they're not on their website. They are circus glasses, and they have a tightrope walker and a bunch of monkeys on them and they make me really happy. Um, now I just need to get something to drink out of them. I have not gone grocery shopping in quite a while.
Man, I got up all early today because I was supposed to have an early brunch with Kelly, but then she had to cancel and now it's still early and the rest of my friends sleep late and I am going stir crazy now. WAKE UP, YOU LAY-A-BEDS!
A further note: My apartment being in pieces led to some superficially-unrelated, incredibly vivid dreams. I'm not sure why my ceiling coming down should make me dream of being a knife-wielding, acrobatic, morally ambivalent probably-a-double-agent in a forest at night, surrounded by glowing eyes, but it did. In technicolor. Oh yeah.
My apartment fell apart. Literally.
Not literally literally, of course; it is still structurally sound (as far as I know, dun dun DUN!) and, you know, keeps the rain out. But definitely more literally than figuratively, because for a while it was raining in my bedroom.
So, apparently when the place was built, the radiator in the apartment upstairs was installed incorrectly. a) They used tubing instead of pipe, and b) they didn't solder it completely. So water had been leaking steadily from the pipe, probably for years, without anyone knowing it. Until about 10 days ago, when I came home to find a large bubble of water bulging out the paint in the ceiling near my light fixture. I let my landlord know and popped the bubble and drained all the water into a bucket, thinking maybe someone had just been overenthusiastic with cleaning and put too much water on the floor and it had seeped through, because there's just another bedroom above mine - it couldn't be coming from the kitchen or bathroom sink or anything.
Contractor came by the next day, took a look, said he had no freakin' idea where the water had come from, and told me to call him if the leak came back.
Yeah. Several days later: the leak came back.
It was midnight. Leak 2: Electric Boogaloo was bigger, badder, (or, for the SLC Punk! reference, since I just watched that again: "Leak 2 did it louder, did it faster, and it definitely did it with MORE LOVE, BABY!") and resulted in a chunk of the ceiling FALLING ONTO THE FLOOR and water beginning to drip into the light fixture on the ceiling. At which point I turned the light off with a quickness, to avoid electrocuting myself. (I think that probably wasn't actually possible, but still.) I dragged my mattress into the other room; put all my spare trash bags on the floor and over my worldly possessions and exhausted a large portion of my bucket/trash can/pot/bowl collection catching drips; called the contractor in a panic and left a message, all, "[plaintive wail]"; and tried to go to sleep. (I was not very successful.)
(Totally unrelated note: this woman on NPR just described herself as a "women's libber." I LOVE IT.)
The contractor couldn't come until the following evening - and at this point I figured there was little I could do myself, since I'd noticed another bubble of paint on the far wall near the ceiling, and discovered a mysterious wet patch spreading across the floor from my closet, so the problem was obviously much larger than I'd previously suspected. I went in to work and proceeded to have a slow-motion mental breakdown all day. That was fun.
So the contractor showed up that evening, we covered the room in drop cloths, and he ripped several holes in the ceiling, ran upstairs to turn off the entire boiler/radiator/whatever else was hooked up to it system, drained all the water out of the pipes (mostly through my bedroom ceiling, sigh) and the leak was finally conquered!
So THEN I spent about 4 hours taking everything out of the room, because he was coming back the next morning to pull down more of the ceiling, take out the ruined carpet, and let everything dry out.
It is really shocking how much of a pack rat I am, guys. I mean, I know that I tend to fall too often on the "it might be useful in the future" side of the keep it/toss it line, but I live in a good-sized apartment - by NY standards, at least - and stuff gets put in corners and then eventually my eye just reads it as, you know, a structural element of the room, rather than THINGS THAT NEED TO BE THROWN AWAY BECAUSE WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH TWO-YEAR-OLD ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLYS STACKED IN OLD SHOPPING BAGS OF ASSORTED SIZES? NOTHING, THAT IS WHAT.
So I did a much-needed spring cleaning. Kelly can attest to how needed it was; but she shouldn't, because then I will be even more embarrassed at how messy my room was.
So now all my furniture is crammed into the center of the living room, all my books are in grocery bags on the living room floor, the room is getting a brand new carpet and fresh coat of paint and new wiring for the light fixture (as the contractor said, "Never in my LIFE have I seen someone put a steam pipe above electrical wiring! [unintelligible, incredulous mumbling]") and I've got some new hand-me-down furniture from the Knight-Martak Axis of Awesome and it will all be wonderful in the end. But right now I am still feeling a little hectic, and resentful that this is all happening right before my birthday, like, what is that; but most of all good Lord I am TIRED.
So I treated myself to some new drinking glasses from Fishs Eddy. I would link you to them, but apparently they're not on their website. They are circus glasses, and they have a tightrope walker and a bunch of monkeys on them and they make me really happy. Um, now I just need to get something to drink out of them. I have not gone grocery shopping in quite a while.
Man, I got up all early today because I was supposed to have an early brunch with Kelly, but then she had to cancel and now it's still early and the rest of my friends sleep late and I am going stir crazy now. WAKE UP, YOU LAY-A-BEDS!
A further note: My apartment being in pieces led to some superficially-unrelated, incredibly vivid dreams. I'm not sure why my ceiling coming down should make me dream of being a knife-wielding, acrobatic, morally ambivalent probably-a-double-agent in a forest at night, surrounded by glowing eyes, but it did. In technicolor. Oh yeah.