Old buildings and new residences

Some writing from a bit ago, (about a week and a half) documenting my continued apartment excursions...

Yesterday set quite the stage for my future in Seattle. ‘If you get hungry eat somethtin.' My mom and I quote that line from Best in Show all the time… especially on trips, etc. I think subconsciously she also knows it’s exactly what I need to hear. The absence of food renders me dysfunctional in almost everything. Mainly that the longer I go without food, the more I convince myself that I don’t need it. Huh? Yeah, figure that one out. So after my little escapade outside that first apartment/gents club building, I felt the little gnawing creeping up in me. No I say! Stomach, I will not heed your advice nor your instincts. And so I’m off again, flying at the swift pace of 10 miles an hour through the streets of Seattle. One street and then another, well, missed that street and then... oh man that’s a One-way. So finally I pull into a parking space in the northeastern part of downtown, for a breather but still no food. I must beat my body into submission.

A few stuporing blocks later I stumble upon a building, one with bent floors and decks and oddly shaped paneling. Soon I’m standing beside the thing looking at the sign indicating, ‘plans for demolition.’ Apparently another magnificent building will usher in the new area, laying to rest this poor, shabby and sagging elder of a building. But it hasn’t passed on yet, and it keeps fight along with its ten or so residents. ‘Maybe this is my new home’ I think as I turn the corner and before me a sign reads ‘Vacancy, call Paul.’ Well, Paul turns out to be the 85 year of landlord who kindly directs me to a man named Denise. Now according to Paul, Denise lives down a set of rickety old steps, wooden and descending to a dark and damp room below. ‘Just give ‘em a good holler down there,’ says Paul. ‘Ah, Ok… Denise! Dennnnisse!’ No answer. And I, the wannabe conquistador, says ‘I’ll brave the steps.’ ‘What?’ sounds Paul, a little hard of hearing. ‘You sure?’ he cautions. I’m feeling especially confident and adventurous at the moment. ‘Oh I need to Paul.’ ‘Well you go right ahead there pal.’ 'Denise!'.. streams a bit of a yell from my lips. Nothing. He’s here I know it. Behind an open door, a boiler room awaits. One final time, perhaps more out of fear than courage, I yell. And sitting upright he shouts himself awake, ‘What! Who? O hey there.’ A response rises from a well-camouflaged cot beside the rumbling water heater. ‘It’s nice and warm and cozy beside that thing.’ he tells me. We ascend the steps and with the sunlight emerges this warm figure named Denise. My man, with a tobacco stained beard hanging low to his chest and a draped pony tale and one tooth left standing, explains the eventful history of this early 1900’s building. ‘You best know the origins of this thing if you wanna lay your head right here.’ He points to the never-once-changed lime green carpeting that adorns this slanted main room of the available apartment. I’d be sharing the one bathroom with Roger and Hank from the next room, ‘Hope that’d be all right with ya.’ I don’t mind!... with a classic Frigidaire from the fifties chilling my perishable items, I’d gladly slap high fives with these seventy-plus gents on my way to the WC. I can imagine our comical conversations late at night, I bushing my teeth, they Alkazelsering theirs, shooting the breeze and welcoming a new era of toilet humor. And so finishing the tour Denise bids me farewell and happy apartment hunting and admits he may soon be encouraged to do the same.

‘For every act of creation is at first an act of destruction,’ as a Mr. Pablo Picasso put it. That goes for new buildings and new men alike, arising from the rubble of their pasts. Adam couldn’t experience the beauty of Eve without first removing and giving her the rib that protected his heart. And perhaps we can’t draw nearer to God without a few sledge hammer blows to that comfortable residence of ours. And so He’ll throw the cards on the table, I’ll read them realizing at once they are not my own. Trumped, I’ll destruct. And soon He’ll guide me on towards a new and more joyous creation. Peace of Christ to you, my family and friends.