Fifth Space

There is an opportunity for me to chase this weird dream, but I shouldn’t do it.

For decades I’ve adored this urbanist ideal of living in an apartment above a shop in a busy stretch of the city, where I am in the thick of it, making a home in a bustling zone of commerce and traffic. One such opportunity has opened up — but I shouldn’t take it.

I’ve had my eye on this weird flatiron-style apartment above a secondhand shop, uphill from the cafe I’ve called my 3rd space for twenty years, and at the other end of the building from the bar I’ve called my 4th space for five. Suddenly, all the curtains are down and it’s now unoccupied. It’s on the market. On the market!

Now I’m floating these weird fantasies of renting it as a second home, where I can have a place to crawl to after a night out, where I can bring friends to, where I can set up my music gear and create without bothering neighbors, where I can get away for a bit with less consequence. But I don’t want to let go of my current apartment, which is cozy, quiet, and has been mine for the past 6 years.

So I would have to half-time it between here and there. And double-time it with furniture and other stuff I’d need to support my life. Two bars of soap. Two sets of kitchen pans. Two microwaves. Two couches. Two bedroom sets. Two Internet bills. Two of everything for as long as I held both leases.

This apartment is between an anarchist bookstore that throws punk shows on one side and a convenience store with a busy taco stand on the other. It’s loud, it’s brash, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s poorly insulated. It’s hostile to restfulness. The parking is bad. The property crime is elevated. The nearby intersection is hectic and crash-prone.

Half-time indeed.

Honestly, I love this idea, but I also hate this idea on two grounds:

It’s a weird flex: having two apartments, in a city where housing is hard to find, not only makes me part of the problem, but an architect of the problem. I don’t want to pass this up, but I also don’t want to pay double for housing and be on the hook for the duration of both leases should something happen to my standard of living (I place no trust in my future employment). That spot should go to someone more deserving.

Not thinking big enough: this place and my current apartment are only one neighborhood away from each other. I’d love to once again live in this other neighborhood. It’s nice. But if I’m renting two places, why not be more geographically distant? Why not do the snowbird / sunbird thing and split time between locales where the weather’s different enough to be fulfilling?

I really, really should not call and look at the place. That would be foolish. So foolish. These stupid fantasies are going to be the ruin of me.

Flex is ruin.

Weak Valves

I think of all the greatness that will never be, because the urge to create is so easily satisfied. A thought at the kitchen sink can be hastily reworded into a funny quip and crossposted onto the timeline, half-baked, incomplete, a good laugh, and then it’s gone.

All the Buckowskis of the world never to be born fully formed with fire and intensity. All the Kerouacs sated and deflated, long before they can craft an idea into a journey.

I write less, because I blather more.

We need time to mull over ideas, give them flesh, pass them along to the other puppeteers in the chain, get them onboard. Then we make dragons.

Flux

On the same day, I learn that glitterkitten.uk and toot.community will soon be shutting down operations, for legitimate reasons. It feels, to me, like a dark day for the , but really it’s an example of how human systems change and evolve. I shouldn’t be so despondent. Change is part of the recipe, eh? This fledgling network will survive. We have juice.

Agonists

This year I discovered that my allergy to Aspirin and its derivatives is absolute bollocks. I’ve been carrying this belief since my asthmatic childhood, spawned by doctors asking my mother about a list of known triggers in my environment. We’ve heard that everything from Aspirin to pets to feather pillows could trigger asthma attacks. So, naturally, I had limited exposure to any of those throughout my life.

I’ve told every medical provider that I’m allergic to the ol’ ASA for this reason. But last year I took a trip to the ER where as part of the protocol they gave me two baby Aspirin — nothing worse happened! I was fine!

What I’ve learned in hindsight is that the primary agonist to my childhood asthma was the incessant indoor smoking by the adults in my life. Did I age out of my adolescent asthma, or did I just move away and live smoke-free?

PARENT [puffing a cigarette]: Doctor, why does junior have asthma?
DOCTOR [lighting a cigarette]: Ma’am, we’re not too sure. It is a medical mystery. Oh, here, please use this ashtray.

So what this all means is that, as of now, I can take Ibuprofen and Aspirin. Hell, I can probably even sleep on a feather pillow with a down comforter and be alright. Which is great because with my age also comes aches and inflammation; access to NSAIDs is a godsend. And, of course, down is comfy.

Wins

Tonight, at the cafe and the bar, I posted a handful of W’s. I find my role in this world to be similar to Tyrion Lannister in GOT, in that my job in this society is that I drink and I know things. My purpose, generally, is to be a talk show host and to guide the conversation into good times, to elevate it into something better. I feel that. I found myself passing along info to several people, asking good questions, and steering the convo in group chat to something better.

Sure, sometimes I feel like I’m a useful idiot, but at least I’m useful. That’s something.

Really, though, if I can be a matador waving the red cape at a herd of bulls hell-bent on turning the arena into a down-mouthed amphitheater for solipsism, reigning them in and improving the group vibe, then I feel like I’ve made the world a better place, even if it’s on the micro level. Fine by me. ¡Olé!