Service and Repair, Part I
Today, I hung out with my landlady’s main man, Awkward Maintenance Man, whom I’ve told ya’ll about before.

He came in to try to fix my electricity, only half of which has been working since I came back from Spring Break last week (not including the bathroom lights and fan. In the interim last week, he loaned me a gigantic, canary yellow metal construction spotlight-lamp, which made peeing and showers feel something like interrogation. Which was fun.)

[Also, this: I had an old, dear friend in Chapel Hill, NC who used to collect stories of awkwardness like little Pac Man cherries, and my exchange with AMM immediately called him to mind—so if you’re reading, m’dear, consider this for you.]

Okay, so it was *obvious* that I was doing schoolwork at my little kitchen table. But AMM kept making random stabs at conversation anyway. These stabs petered out, politely, on my end, but still he kept on. At one point, the pseudo-conversation took this turn:

AMM: So. You still have that boyfriend?
[Note: *You* are a fifty-something graying maintenance fellow alone with your tenant, who is a young, single woman, in her apartment. Alone. You two are very much alone and the doors are all shut.]
Alice: Nope. Actually, that ended. Um, this fall.
AMM: Oh-!
[Moment of silence.]
AMM: Well, he certainly seemed like a nice guy.
Alice: Oh yeah, he was.
AMM: Well, those long-distance things-
Alice: Yeah. Just not a good idea.
AMM: -sometimes, for the best.

Oh, AMM, you make my awkward world go ‘round!


Repairs II
Well, so I got my electricity back, mostly. Now I’m not supposed to use my ceiling fan, though, because it’ll kill it all again, so I have a lovely new piece of duct tape over that switch.

So I was talking with a friend once about apartment life, though, how it brings with it some natural sense of accommodation. Like so: You don’t start dancing to the soundtrack of Trainspotting with your pit bull and five of your closest friends at 3:30 in the morning (based on a true story), and I won’t peer into your kitchen window at you as you make lunch.

Which is now, also, a true story. Yesterday I got back from my grandma’s and when I stepped into my apartment, Dangercat was yelling at me, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped around the giant construction lamp in my entryway and turned on a cd of audiodocumentary, but even at top-volume, I couldn’t hear that either. All I could hear was the scream of the electric equipment belonging to three workmen who were sanding paint off of the (surprisingly thin) wall that separates the inside of my tiny apartment from my secret balcony and the entire wide world beyond. I went to make a salad and right outside my window with the broken blind that won’t shut, there were the workmen, who waved to me, one by one. I waved back. Then I went and sat with my ear to my boombox to listen to the documentary, but realized that I’d really just have to leave to house to do much of anything.

They were back this morning at 7:00, but I was already awake. I was at the window again, washing a pan I’d just cooked an egg in, when the first one showed up. We waved.

I’d gotten up early to get things done. This was more out of the vague sense of nameless urgency that’s been stalking me lately than the possession of an actual, concrete to-do list.

However, the facts hit me pretty quickly once I was up. To be clearer, I stubbed my toe on one of two suitcases that were holding court in my apartment. They were both still full of clothes and sundry toiletries from the two recent stints out of town, and they shared the space with the full laundry bag, which I’d spent the last week moving back and forth, from the bedroom to the other room, depending on which room I’m in. Then there were the copies of classmates’ stories I need to critique for classes and multiple stories of mine that've been critiqued by classmates, still unread. The photocopied ideas for exercises for my students. The mail pile. The tower of library books. The tower of lit journals from the writing conference in Atlanta. The tower of books that don’t fit on my overburdened shelves.

I’ve spent recent days navigating around all this in a matter that’s either fairly impressive or disturbing, considering the bonny wee scale (again, I insist to you) of my apartment. But this morning, I woke up and could no longer stand it. The fact is, I’ve been totally immersed in this one particular writing project lately whenever I’m not all immersified in this thing that I’ve started referring to in my mind as My Very Own Personal Drama!(TM). Or, more to the point: to avoid thinking about the latter, I delve into the former. And the result is a physical mess.

No mas! though. Today I did laundry. Today I tidied up. And tomorrow? Why, tomorrow, I shall make into soup, the vegetables and beef that are waiting patiently in my fridge still housed in their plastic grocery bags. Soup from my grandma’s recipe, only not quite as good because it just will never be. Which is totally okay.