Getting ready for the move....
There have been some Interesting Events associated with the move to the new apartment. Most Interesting was the leak found in the bathroom just as I was about to start bringing books and such over to the new place...
Note to the wise: Never hang pictures in the bathroom without checking with the management to see Where the Pipes Are. "Someone" --presumably the couple who lived in the place for six years--punched a hole in the water line and the resultant slow leak managed to damage the living room wall as well as the bathroom plaster.
The workmen scraped away the bad plaster and showed me the leaking mass inside, which looked rather like a burned and suppurating limb. I had visions of Edgar Allan Poe's corpse in the wall from the BLACK CAT. Would my furniture arrive only to react in horror as the walls of the Apartment of Usher fell into the deep tarn that would appear in the place where the tub used to be?
Apparently not.
A day later there was a reasonably neat hole punched in the wall with a new pipe bisecting it. I didn't think that the 'picture window in the bathroom' would be a popular decorating item but it could be good for a few laughs. I could bandage my hand and apologize for my hot temper. "I just get so upset at the news sometimes".
Maybe it would be even better to bandage my head.
The hole and the pipe looked like a suitable entry for the Tate gallery art competition; the pipe representing solidity, the stone of the wall both solid and transparent, stone and air; symbolic of the illusion of material things; pipe and wall together forming the Greek letter omega...
I've never been very good at keeping a straight face while writing stuff like this. But the hole and pipe would have looked good in some art galleries I've been to.
I decided that I could take the bus and bring over some little things that can be stashed in closets while workmen are in the place, so I took the hangers and some miscellaneous objects over at 8:30 on a Friday night.
I am hoping that my social life will improve after I move to the new location.
A woman busily talking on a cell phone nearly slammed the elevator door in my face as I was hauling the bags of stuff up Norma Desmond's staircase. "Excuse ME," I said, and the elevator door ceased to close. "I didn't see you, I'm SORRY!" came the startled reply.
Now, this is a great start to my tenancy. If this woman should turn out to be the next door neighbor...
Sod's law. Of course she was.
Fortunately for me, she was also genuinely sorry and came over a few minutes later to apologize. I said, think nothing of it. We went out for tea and I got a rundown of the other tenants on the floor: one museum curator, one historian at the George Eastman house with a film collection that might complement my own; one lady whose occupation I have forgotten; and one mysterious gentleman who probably lived on another floor since you never saw him in the little studio next to the elevator.
And there is one other cartoonist living in the building.
I got the impression that I had chosen the right place to move to.
