Why I hate My Apartment

(another positive diatribe about my new life)

Okay so I have to say, I have warmed up to my new living quarters. A little bit. Only because now that we have it all organized and clean, it is easier to overlook all my qualms. But they still exist, no doubt. I HATED it at first. And there are multiple reasons why those feelings are justified. And, oh yes, I will tell you all about it. 

So we live in a really nice building in the city, really close to downtown. What sold me about is was the 24-hour concierge service. I thought that they would be able to help me with all my Boston questions. And I knew there would be many. Out of the 22 questions I have asked, I only received satisfactory answers to 2 or 3. SO annoying.

Our place is SUPER small, especially compared to the apartment we used to live in. The thing that kills me is that there is no space for anything. We have to share a closet for one. (Yikes!) And there is BARELY room for my shoes and purses (Ladies, you know what I’m talking about), let alone my clothes. And I only get half of it! Don’t get me started on the washer and dryer either. You put a towel and a sock in there and it’s full. It takes forever to do laundry.

Then there’s our lovely neighbors. We’ve got Loud Indian Guy on one side of us. You can literally hear his TV when you get off the elevator all the way down the hall. Naturally, we can hear it quite well though the wall we share. Loud Indian Guy really enjoys watching UFC (and cheers or boos at supreme volumes) and is very interested in the stock market. Oh and he’s always home. ALL DAY. And he doesn’t sleep. Then there’s the people above us. I think they are somehow related to the elephant family. They stomp around and it sometimes sounds like they’re just running back and forth in their apartment just to torment us. Then there’s all the rest. All our friendly neighbors we see in the elevator or in the gym, who don’t say hi and don’t’ smile. Lovely.

Let’s not forget the other random sounds and smells. Our bathroom pipes made some weird clanking noises for the first month or so. Thankfully, the maintenance guys were able to fix that. It would wake us up every night. The refrigerator makes some weird angry hums sometimes. We get it Fridge! We have no food! Then there was Drilling Day. They were apparently fixing the parking garage, which is 6 floors below us. But it sounded like they were drilling in my bedroom. This lasted from 8 AM until about 5 one day. Love it. And then our utility closet smells of smoke or Indian food or whatever our neighbor happens to be up to. It would come in handy, I suppose, if we had a dinner party and ran out of games to play. Everybody loves “Guess That Smell”.

But my favorite of all was the 2 AM fire drill. It was a Saturday night (well technically Sunday morning) and the damn alarm went off. I almost fell out of bed. It was so loud; I thought the world was coming to an end. I finally get a hold of someone at the front desk and asked if we should come downstairs. “If you want to” was the reply. Awesome. I feel safe now that I know strict emergency procedures are in place. We ran into the fireman in the stairwell who looked half-asleep and pissed off. Oh, okay and hot. Of course. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing. Instead of being relieved, I was even more annoyed. All that for nothing.

Good times.

Are there good things about living here? Sure there are, but I can’t mention them without ruining the spirit of this entry. So maybe next time….

Really?

So as you all know, I have embarked on a new exciting adventure and have uprooted myself from Austin to Boston. Boston, the city of history and opportunity and all that other shit people always say. And what have I found instead? Absolutely nothing. I have no job, no friends, a tiny apartment and nothing to do with my time. Instead of complaining all the time, like I’ve been doing and will certainly continue to do, I decided to do something about it. So I says to myself “Self, how can you earn some money with low stress and get yourself out of the apartment every day? I know! I’ll get a retail job at one of my fave stores!” (This is what my life has been reduced to.)

So I go down to Faneuil Hall, a cute little courtyard-type area of Boston where there are a bunch of shops and restaurants and street vendors. So I went into Urban Outfitters first. It didn’t at all resemble the one I love in Austin and all the people that worked there were all tatted up and looked like they wanted to kill me. Okay, next… So I walk into Abercromibe & Fitch. I really don’t understand why they have to play their music so loud, but anyway. So I go up to this guy who looks like he could be my son and he tells me to fill out an application on this little computer that’s hidden in the corner. Okay, fine. So then this girl comes over and asks if I can come back at 4 for a group interview. Done. “It’s in the bag,” I think. I’ll be coming home with a job today!

So I’m back at the store promptly at 4. I find another guy who’s waiting and we chat it up. We become BFFs quickly. Justin is the typical Southie with the Good Will Hunting accent. He’s cool and he loves that I’m from Texas. Of course. So the Manager In Training (MIT) comes over. She leads us all over across the street to a food court place to do the interview. (because of course we couldn’t hear ourselves think in the store.) So it’s me and my BFF Justin and 3 other people. Aja –a tiny black girl who had a serious tude and is not very nice to me. Letoya – who was a pretty large black chick and very quiet. And Jonathan who seemed nice enough. So MIT goes around and takes turns asking us questions. We find out that she and Jonathan used to be in the same like marine corps unit or something. They talked about that for 10 minutes until the DM who was also there was like “Uh, hello?” So the questions were pretty lame and standard. Everyone answered them fine although Justin and I were the only ones old enough to drink I think so the others answered questions with lifeguard experience of some class project t they had as examples. Here was my favorite part of the interview: The question was “What is your definition of diversity and do you think it is important in the workplace? Why or why not?” Letoya got this one first. She paused for awhile and then asked “what is diversity?” Um, Letoya that was the question. So they were nice about it and tried to explain it to her and she still couldn’t quite come up with an answer. Unbelievable.

So here’s the great part. I don’t think I got the job! Can you believe it? The DM did say I should apply for a management position though so I have an interview for that next week. The whole point of this was so that I can do something unstressful and easy for a little pocket money. I don’t’ want a freaking career at Abercrombie & Fitch. Sigh.

So on my way home, I got stuck on a train. It like didn’t leave the station for 30 minutes b/c of a problem somewhere else. So I befriended my neighbor who seemed like a decent guy. Then he gave me a few “I want to take off your pants” looks and that was that. Double sigh.

Just a day in the life of Laura Alvarado. Could it BE more exciting to be me?