Perhaps a city is a living thing. Each city has its own personality, after all.
Los Angeles is not Vienna. London is not Moscow. Chicago is not Paris. Each city is a collection of lives and buildings and it has its own personality.
So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.
-Old Man from "The Sandman" by Neil Gaiman
The entrance to 70 Howe
When rooming choosing time came up at the end of my sophomore year, I decided I wanted to move off-campus. My roommate had spent the first semester sleeping with my ex-boyfriend from high school while I made deeper and deeper dents into our futon in the common room (and had a sore back most weekends for my trouble). She spent the second semester going crazy because he moved to California and broke up with her. I gained 20 pounds and a case of acne not seen since junior high.
I did the research and found a studio apartment (not a New York City studio, which is equivalent to a closet, but a place with a big room, separate kitchen and bathroom) at 70 Howe Street. I knew the place was for me because the apartment number was 511, my birthday (May 11). After a little coercing, my parents saw the financial sense (it was cheaper to live in a studio off campus for 12 months than to pay Yale's outrageous fees for room and board for eight months and have to eat that disgusting food).
So come August 2001, I was sort of on my own. My mother came and we found some furniture, put it all together, creating my new space for the next two years. Being my first place, I was happy as a pig in shit. I got to cook for myself, and contrary to popular belief, I NEVER ate a package of Ramen noodle. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a damn good cook. My friends would come over immediately when they found out I was cooking rice and beans. It's a classic Puerto Rican dish and many of us hadn't had a good bowl since we left home.
That apartment saw an awful lot of my life. She saw me get my first pet (Reina the Cat), my first girl on girl kiss, my first (and second and third...) reckless love affair, my first threesomes. She was always there, no matter how long I had been away, how late I came home, how drunk or stoned I got. The pots were always in their place, the lightswitches never moved. The closet door was always too big and the elevator was always rickety.
I had plenty of friends over. I wasn't too far from campus and they liked getting away from the dorms, because those were the kinds of friends I had. Not too long after I moved in, I smoked my first blunt with a three-night fling. It actually got out of control for me, just before graduation, but until then, it was a safe space for people. One 4/20 was spent with several people crammed into my apartment, me sitting on my futon like some (much more attractive) Jabba the Hutt, reigning over a holiday.
Strange things happened there, too. I had friends over and they all proceeded to pass out on my futon (which was also my bed) so I slept in the kitchen, making out with a cute guy. One of my friends' boyfriends came over and threw up on my floor after taking three hits. I made her clean it up. I figured they were sleeping together, so she was probably used to his bodily fluids. I had an affair with a wonderful woman. It never went past kissing, but at that sexually tentative time, it was more than enough for me: her soft mouth, the swimming feeling of being high, the time always cut too short, forbidden and delicious.
There were quiet times. Sunday mornings with the sunlight coming in. Tuesday nights and Gilmore Girls on the TV. All-nighters fueled by ganja and red wine (it worked for Hemingway!), with a play to show for it in the morning. Sweeping and mopping the floors, putting everything in its place, then being able to walk barefoot on clean hardwood. Singing and dancing, no one watching (better than any dance club). Paying the bills (phone, cell, cable, credit card) and slipping them into the mail. Checking my outfit in the big mirror in the lobby on my way out or in. Sitting with a book in the laundry room. Sleep. She saw many hours of sleep.
Those were my wild days, though. Two good years of them. More than enough, maybe. After I moved out of that place, I had to start my real life. But 70 Howe was a good place to start.
About me
- I'm Starry Saltwater Rose
- From New Haven, Connecticut, United States
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