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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


The Profile


Zanzibar
Age. 39
Gender. Female
Ethnicity. that of my father and his father before him
Location Altadena, CA
School. Other
» More info.
The World









The Link To Zanzibar's Past
This is my page in the beloved art community that my sister got me into:

Samarinda

Extra points for people who know what Samarinda is.
The Phases of the Moon Module
CURRENT MOON
Croc Hunter/Combat Wombat
My hero(s)
Only My Favorite Baseball Player EVER


Aw, Larry Walker, how I loved thee.
The Schedule
M: Science and Exploration
T: Cook a nice dinner
W: PARKOUR!
Th: Parties, movies, dinners
F: Picnics, the Louvre
S: Read books, go for walks, PARKOUR
Su: Philosophy, Religion
The Reading List
This list starts Summer 2006
A Crocodile on the Sandbank
Looking Backwards
Wild Swans
Exodus
1984
Tales of the Alhambra (in progress)
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Lost Years of Merlin
Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (in progress)
Atlas Shrugged (in progress)
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
A Long Way Gone (story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone- met the author! w00t!)
The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time
From Magma to Tephra (in progress)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Harry Potter 7
The No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency
Introduction to Planetary Volcanism
A Child Called "It"
Pompeii
Is Multi-Culturalism Bad for Women?
Americans in Southeast Asia: Roots of Commitment (in progress)
What's So Great About Christianity?
Aeolian Geomorphology
Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks
Cube Route
When I was in Cuba, I was a German Shepard
Bound
The Golden Compass
Clan of the Cave Bear
The 9/11 Commission Report (2nd time through, graphic novel format this time, ip)
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn
Armageddon's Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
Animorphs #25: The Extreme
Animorphs #26: The Attack
Crucial Conversations
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Great and Terrible Beauty
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Dandelion Wine
To Sir, With Love
London Calling
Watership Down
The Invisible
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Host
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Shadows and Strongholds
The Jungle Book
Beatrice and Virgil
Infidel
Neuromancer
The Help
Flip
Zion Andrews
The Unit
Princess
Quantum Brain
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
No One Ever Told Us We Were Defeated
Delirium
Memento Nora
Robopocalypse
The Name of the Wind
The Terror
Sister
Tao Te Ching
What Paul Meant
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Libyan Sands
Sand and Sandstones
Lost Christianites: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
The Science of God
Calculating God
Great Contemporaries, by Winston Churchill
City of Bones
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Divergent
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Old Man and the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
Au Bonheur des Ogres
The Martian
The Road to Serfdom
De La Terre � la Lune (ip)
In the Light of What We Know
Devil in the White City
2312
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Red Mars
How to Be a Good Wife
A Mote in God's Eye
A Gentleman in Russia
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
The Juanes Module


Juanes just needed his own mod. Who can disagree.
Tuesday. 6.28.11 6:35 pm
If my roommate and I were a married couple, I would be the husband, there's no doubt about that.

I'm the one that pays the bills and changes the lightbulbs, after all, I'm the one who calls the repair guy, I'm the one who figures out the taxes. Those are all husbandy things to do, right? She's the one who makes the place look nice, the one who rearranges the furniture to make it more functional, the one who gets us to hang up pictures on the wall in aesthetically-pleasing patterns. She wanted to hang up the pictures together, so that we could both decide where to put them, even though I'd have been happy with whichever way she wanted to go about hanging them. She didn't want me to be happy with whichever way she wanted to go about hanging them, she wanted me to care where they went and she wanted us to decide together and she kind of wanted me to drive the nails in I think, because it freaks her out to drive nails into things.

She hates our apartment.

She doesn't hate it.

But she thinks that everybody's else's apartment is nicer than ours. She says that they don't have light fixtures that don't work, and they don't have laundry machines that are always breaking, and they don't have old peeling paint that makes the windows look shabby. They they have nice windows, too. If we lived in a place with nice windows then she wouldn't have to rely on me to open and close them all the time. If we lived in a place like that then the faucet wouldn't leak all the time, and the leak wouldn't keep her up half the night, and she wouldn't be so tired all the time, tired and a little sad and tired from being up half the night because the apartment's too close to the neighbor's and there are chirping birds in the trees and the place is too hot and that faucet is dripping again.

I feel responsible. The apartment is really my apartment. I lived there before and convinced her to move in. I tried to fix the leaking faucet once but I couldn't figure out what pieces I needed. I pried up a board in the living room and I've never gotten it to sit quite flat ever again. I can't hear the birds when they chirp at night. I sleep through just about everything, and I don't notice the faucet when it's dripping. I call the repair man every week and he just doesn't come, even when he says he's going to come.

She says her friend's landlord is very attentive. She says it's real quiet there because they live over a business. She's thinking about leaving and moving there. Their kitchen is bright and open, she says.

What's wrong with our kitchen? I say. You don't think our kitchen is bright and open? I say.

Oh there's nothing wrong with our kitchen, she says.

Do they have parking like our parking? I say.

Yes, she says, only their lot is paved, unlike ours which is made of gravel.

Do they have a yard? I say.

No, she doesn't think they have a yard, but what use is a yard, anyway?

I love our apartment.

I love the old wooden floors and the way that some of the doors are wooden on one side and painted on the other. I love our numerous closets and our two bathrooms and the way none of the rooms have shapes that make any sense.

I love our little yard with our little barbeque grill and our little flowering umbrella tree with Christmas lights in it that I always forget to take down. I said she could have the grill when I was gone but she doesn't think she'll ever use it.

But I love my roommate, too. And I feel like it's my fault that she can't sleep. I feel like it's my fault that the windows don't work and that we've never had a proper mirror in the powder room. I feel like it's my fault that our house is shabby and we don't have a dishwasher like all of her friends have. I tried to fix the light in the kitchen only I don't have any idea how it works, no more idea than she does, no more than the maintenance man, no more than pages and pages of Google search results that I scour to try to make up for my inadequacy.

She hates our apartment. She says if she doesn't move then she'll change everything about it when I leave. She says it won't look so crowded. She says she'll get rid of that nasty old couch and the broken futon. I would have gotten rid of them a long time ago for her only I didn't know she felt so strongly about it. I didn't know she spent all this time hating that couch and that futon.

I know she doesn't think so, but when she hates our apartment it feels like she hates us and that me being there has made her unhappy, and that she'll be happier when I'm gone because she'll be able to do whatever she likes. It makes me think that she hates our home, and that I'm a failure because I couldn't fix it for her.

I know that isn't the case.

I know it.

If she wants to change things, that's no business of mine. I'd be happy for her to do it. I changed the place after my old roommate moved out, after all. Even an easy-going person like me must exert some great force of inertia on all her plans. But I don't want to hear about it. She can decide to move into a shiny new apartment with shiny new appliances. That apartment can have a much better deal on the rent and all the utilities included. That apartment can be a quieter part of town. She can fill it with real furniture, not that shabby Craigslist stuff that doesn't match and smells weird. I'll help her move in. Heck, I'll drag those old couches down to the corner myself and arrange with the municipal trash service to have them taken away. She doesn't have to justify herself. I don't want to know.
2 Comments.


I feel like I would like your apartment.
If I know what it looks like :D

RE: I know! Hehehehe. Now I'm going to start giggling to myself like a crazy woman.
» peanutmelon on 2011-06-29 12:27:34

:(
This post makes me sad.
I have learned over the years that it's not the place that makes it home, but the people inside of it.
I'm sorry that she's making you feel inadequate, but I don't believe she's justified (of course i'm saying this without any concrete information) to make you feel bad either.
It seems like you did your part, and I for one would have appreciated all you attempted. Plus, your apartment sounds like it has alot of soul. Soul is a wonderful thing in an apartment.
» Helena on 2011-06-30 12:33:07

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