I've Lived All Over This Town

By now the count of places I've called home or something quite like it is higher than I care to think. I've boomeranged home more times than most people have moved in life and that would mean that if I returned to the nest every time I moved from an apartment that's only half of the times I had to pack up my belongings and try to come up with the deposit on a new place. My guess, terrifying as it sounds, it approximately 12. No, I just did a count. It's 15. I've moved 15 times in under 10 years. Actually, most of them in the last 6 years. Every place has its own special quirk. I haven't yet lived somewhere without a calling card that reminds me of the time I spent living there.
(Side story-I was at the downtown library on Church St looking for a video today. Pickings are slim on Saturday afternoon, but I have noticed The Quiet Man has never been checked out anytime I've ever gone looking for DVD based entertainment. Whenever I see the Duke and Maureen O'Hara I think of being half conscious on a bus somewhere outside of Wexford on the way to Klonakilty waking up periodically and having semi-conherent conversations about that film that went something like: "Is that what women really are supposed to be looking for then? A man to throw them over his shoulder and carry her off to wedding bliss?" "Oh sure, and every man is looking for a woman to toss around. Women's lib was a big mistake." "Here I was trying to win men with my intelligence and personality." "Big mistake, just let them slap you around, you'll meet the perfect man." "Ahh, it all makes sense." Then we'd both fall back asleep.)
OH! But I was talking about apartments.
Apt #1
Wasn't actually an apartment. It was a room. In a rooming house. I thought it was a rooming house. You know, like Barney lived in on the Andy Griffith Show. I must've misread the memo. It was a halfway house. Right. So there's me. 19 and confused and struggling to grow up following a rather traumatic string of events and I find myself living in a halfway house with crazies and drug addicts and godonly knows what kind of sex crime offenders. I had to share a bathroom. I don't remember using it the whole couple of weeks I lived there. A weird recently released felon-a mother raper maybe a father raper maybe worse (I can only presume) followed me around sitting in the common room kitchen while I boiled my soup his eyes following my every move. For days. It was only when I called the police to get an order to get him to stop I found out I was living in a halfway house for society's dregs. I tried putting an extra lock on my door and got an angry letter from the women that owned the house that that sort of thing was NOT DONE and that I would have to pay for the door. I packed my records and clothes and moved out in the night a couple of days later. Took a several hundred dollar loss for the deposit and the first and last but I learned a good lesson. Don't live in halfway houses unless your halfway somewhere. I was halfway nowhere. I was 19
Apt #2
The summer of 1999. A summer drenched with Cher singing Believe every 2 songs on the radio. Ricky Martin was busy Living La Vida Loca. On the 4th my sister and her then boyfriend and I spent several hours in traffic in downtown Akron after watching the fireworks from the Y Bridge. The first time I ever saw Nashville. That road trip to Memphis via the Eastern seaboard. I was 22. Wiser and more together working for *$ the first time I was drunk on the Kool Aid and trying to win over the facist DM who felt that people of "my sort" (that would be the mentally ill tho she couldn't use that word since it'd would've raised a hackle or two among the crusaders for fair treatment of people with disabilities) weren't really *$ management material and I had to prove my worth. So I took a transfer to Lakewood, OH. The gayest town in the Western Cleveland suburbs. I got a third floor walk up apartment. In August. It was not air conditioned. At the time I was working anywhere from 40-4000 hours a week sometimes working from 6am-11pm and waking up the next morning to do the same all over again. For a little under $8 an hour. Because, I don't know why. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. This lasted three months. The highlights of these months were a Todd Snider show at a place calling itself Wilbert's that certainly was not-not to anyone who had been to Wilbert's that's for sure. He had no record deal, he did have a newly acquired wife and his very own stigma style diagnosis. It was one of the most depressing nights of my life. Me, about 4 others, in a completely unlit, ambience free club in Cleveland getting progressively drunker one weekend night while a washed up never was sang songs he almost remembered the lyrics to. By the time the show ended there was nothing to do but stumble in the general direction of home and hope to get there before the cops spotted the DUI in progress. Then a couple of nights later was a Brian Setzer show opened by one BR549-a band I had seen multitudes of times and hadn't missed a show in the Cleveland area in about 3 years. I'd even scheduled the rare night off to go to the show. In Jersey Girlfashion I woke up close to the next dawn dolled up in my going out on the town attire after having just laid down on the bed for a quick nod man hours earlier. Which is how I missed the only BR show within a drivable distance (drivable eventually translating into between 4 miles and 24 hours) that I would miss for the duration of the band. Something had to give. What I remember about that apartment was I felt like I was paying to live there so I had to spend all my time there. I had cable. I remember that. No stove-but cable. So I would sit all of August in my steaming hot attic apartment watching Quantum Leap reruns on SciFi missing nifty life events because I was paying $350 a month (all utilities included) to live there so I was going to by god by there $350 worth. I didn't get the point. I snapped soon enough. I lasted 3 months of that. If you ask me a medal is in order. 3 months of 12 hour days at a store with high volume and no manager alone and miserable in a town where I knew no one not sure how to meet people sleeping through goodtimes and regretting the times I got to have.
I moved back home.
Apt #3
One of the great living arrangements of all time. I moved in with 2 fellow *$-ers. Well, they both worked there when I moved in. One got fired pretty quick for some reaosn. They were both underage. I think 18 or 19 or 7 I really don't remember. What I remember is that I got the smallest bedroom in the house and I was the only one actually writing checks for the light bill and that the only bill in my name was the cable bill and when no one contributed to it after 2 months I directed it straight into the little room in the basement I made my own. Much to the dismay of my fellows who came pounding on the door wondering what the hell had happened to their free stream of Real World. Took them about 10 minutes to realize the cable had been disconnected but they never offered to pay for any of it. Another 3 month residency for me. That was my average for a long time. The kiddies had expensive drug habits that ate into the rent checks and I never saw a phone bill that didn't exclaim OVERDUE and I was amazed the electric got turned on at all based on how they'd never paid it at their previous apartment. Monthly I wrote checks for the bills that never were cashed, weekly I went to the store and bought groceries that were eaten whilst on a pot induced munchie state by persons I had never met much less received food funds from. Also they wanted me to buy them beer, a thing I wouldn't do because I am not a big fan of contributing to the deliquency of minors. Even minors that were clearly already pretty effin deliquent without my help.
What I remember about this apartment was watching the Mary Tyler Moore reunion movie on a portable TV in the kitchen one rare quiet evening in which I was the only one home in the house. The other good memory is that one day, drunk maybe stone maybe both more than likely me and my roommates were the only ones there-a rare thing trust me. One of them randomly said "A few years ago there was a hit song-like a jig-about a girl that got knocked up and the guy moved to New York. Remember that song?" The other people in the room looked at her like she was crazy. I sat down whatever I had in my hand and walked upstairs to where my CDs were stored away from the CDs of my roommates and came downstairs with Black 47's EP on which could be found Funky Ceili. I put it on the player and cued the song up--"Is this it?" I asked. She listened for a few seconds, "Yeah, that's it. I like that song." She got bored after that track, I got obsessed. Well, they may've been underage fuck ups with X addictions and other fun problems but there is that little moment to think about. This was also the last time I would live somewhere without Baxter. The roommates had cats.
I moved out when it became evident that eviction was eminent. I didn't want to get home from work to find my shit on the street so I packed it up and amscrayed while the amscraying was good.
Apt #4
This is a sore spot. Very sore. In fact, there is a family rift caused by this little moment in time. It has tainted my image-and the image I have of some people and things for probably ever. Why? Well, there were the cockroaches. Everything I owned was infested with roaches. Ever had roaches? Ever had them laying their eggs on everything you own? Every have people realize you live in a roach motel? Not the thing that gives you that glowing aura of respectability let's just say. Then there was the fact that it was stone cold ghetto. The kind of place where if you hit a redlight you don't stop. The place the cops don't show up to calls in any hurry because the ghetto weeds are best left to ortho themselves. Let's add the alcoholic screaming fights that punctuated most evenings making it impossible to sleep and the fact that the drunks were *family* (tho I prefer not using the word-I know from family and that ain't it). On top of that was that my father's mother was the landlady and that she neglected to collect rent from anyone but me and didn't bother to put the rent towards the house payments. Soon enough the place was condemned and I had 24 hours to get out. I don't think I even hit the 3 month mark there. I've hated the woman that brought my da into the world (that they have any DNA in common at all boggles the rational mind) since then. She tried to make me into one of the scum she loves so well and I almost let it happen. I despise her almost as much as I despise the fact that I nearly allowed myself to be what she tried to fashion. One day I might be able to really say why I hate her-there's plenty more than just that-but if she died I doubt I would miss work for the funeral. Unless Da wanted me there-I'd go for Da who has tried desperately to take care of this worthless stupid woman-but I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.
After the place was condemned I moved home again. I lived at home for awhile until I decided to go off to school at Bowling Green.
Apt #5
Closets are bigger. I've had bigger cars actually-the Buick Mommy had when I learned to drive was bigger than this apartment. There was no light unless I left the front (only) window open for all to see my goings on in the one room apartment. Due to the size I couldn't have a bed except a futon (my couch) under a bunk bed (my bed) and the one light in the apartment was blocked out by the bed so I had only the light of a cheap clip lamp to light the place. The front window opened sometime in August and I didn't figure out how to get it closed until late in the following January. The months between I had all but one of my towels stuffed into the opening. My heating bills were outrageous. About 4 sq ft and the electric bill was $80 a month. Even after I got the window closed it was never warm in there and the monthly electric bill could've kept fed and clothed a family of 6. An anomoly I never quite figured out. Aye, but it was mine. It was cramped but nothing compared to
Apt #6
Which was cheaper, but no more bright and had the draw back of being the basement of the home of a respectable couple that did not take kindly to late night drunked revelry. Luckily, I had no one to revel with, so most of the revelry involved me crawling towards the bathroom hoping to get there before I puked up the cherry vodka I'd imbibed while listening to Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town 7 times in a row. So no one noticed. Once, in the midst of a Cher concert performed by yours truly-a concert that herself would've found impressive (tho I was lacking costume changes and dancers I made up for it in spirit and personality!) the male homeowner came downstairs and politely asked that I tone down the theatrics as I was distracting him from his studies. Occassionally, I hosted Monday night pizza and repeatedly my guests were surprised at the lack of drugs. I didn't have money for drugs, I was too busy buying vodka to hide in Orange Diet Rite to drink during English class. Silly people. I left there when I left Bowling Green.
I moved back home. Then I moved into my Grandma's house. Which would qualify as
Apt #7
I lived in an upstairs bedroom touching none of the things in any of the other rooms my worldly possessions mostly at the parents' house (as was Grandma at the time) or in that one small room that had been Mommy's a few decades previous. Sort of creepy really. There were a few times that took place in the span of the months I lived there. One most notably, a few less so but nevertheless interesting. But that's not the point here. I was living with ghosts and haunted during my stay there. Which ended when my mother and I had a falling out that would've been monumental had Daddy not done the most sneaky thing and handed the phone to Mommy during my rant about how I wasn't going to talk to her until I was damn good and ready and blah blah blah. So we yelled and screamed and bitched and got over it and I moved into
Apt #8
Which was nothing if not transitional. The real benefits here were that I got used to the sound of trains and really really convinced I had to get out of Ohio. The quirk of this apartment was that no matter what I did everything was included so I would sleep with the window/door open and the air on full blast with the TV on and the turntable playing Waylon Jennings. The highlight of my stay there was the night the security guard came pounding on my door one night around 11:30 to tell me to "turn down that rock and roll" as people were trying to sleep. I was listening to Elton John Ice on Fire. There is so much wrong about that-the night I moved in an underage girl jumped off a fourth floor balcony to avoid the cops who were there to bust the party she was attending-but I was getting yelled out for listening to Nikita too loud. Get me out of Caucasian Falls! I moved out in June and in with my parents I really had nowhere I specifically planned to go. Just Nashville. Then I got more specific. East Nashville. Then I got less specific and then there were a lot of screaming fights and me crying because it was beginning to look like I was going to be living in my parents' spare room unemployed and often sort of drunk and incoherent for an indeterminate amount of time.
Apt #8
Here. Dear sweet Riverside Dr. With a great view of the Piggly Wiggly-er, I mean IGA. Walking distance to the Family Wash. Regularly scheduled program including cop cars with sirens blaring, arguing neighbors and trains always the train. I've never been to Georgia on a Fast Train and this train I ride isn't much of a mystery...the only train I ever rode went to New Haven, CT. I did get off at Union Station tho, there are several Union Stations. Some have more mystique than others. When I first found this place I was sure I'd made a huge mistake. With the landlady being a bit-overbearing. "Do you have a drinking problem?" "Oh no ma'am, I have no problem with drinking at all." "Do you intend to have wild parties?" "Well, I don't know, I haven't had one yet." I was sure I was in for it. I even thought about not moving in here. To the apartment with the some of the best rent in East Nashville (cheaper than Bowling Green OH!) and a location to write home to Mom about and I thought about passing it up. There are a couple of drawbacks, most of which involve the plumbing. There's only about 4 gallons of hot water available per day and those 4 gallons are only available at 11:15am if you miss that there's a lukewarm shower available 12 hours later and a downright cold shower the rest of the day. This is somewhat annoying. That and the fact that no shower lasts longer than 2 minutes (wash yr hair AND shave at one time? ha! dreamer!) this is frustrating. But it's a small price to pay for the exchange of having an apartment with an actual living room bedroom and kitchen (not a hot plate and a microwave either-but a kitchen) why I'm practically a Vanderbilt over here. Except Vandy's would never be caught on THIS SIDE of town.

Well that was long wasn't it. Bless yr heart if you read all the way through. Not like there's anything new in here-new words maybe but the stories are quite old. I'm just writing them down because it occurs to me I might forget them at some point and that would be a shame-if only for my future therapy lessons as hypnotic regression can get expensive.