dumpling

My first grown up apartment was in Montreal. It was above an unfinished basement, and the crappy baseboard heaters circa 1985 kept the room temperature just slightly above freezing. The pipes burst that winter and the shelves filled up with a contentious fungus that wouldn't go away. My roommate and I admitted that we both thought we might one day find the other one dead. She had a mannequin that we would set up in dead tableaus (cooking, showering, on the toilet) around the house to scare each other.

The woman next door had some sort of nervous condition and she would periodically freak out and try to kill squirrels. We would watch as she ran around our communal back yard with a hose and a stick. Eventually her condition caused her to beat up one of our subletters, they went to court and we had to get our stuff out quickly.

But I hated that apartment. I hated my single bed that I never wanted to have sex in. I hated the cold and the bugs and the fungus. I hated it.