it's still christmas somewhere!
“the unbearable embeddedness of being”
I am staring at two Australian people who are eating Chinese
take-out at my kitchen table.
I met them about seven minutes ago when they immerged into
my apartment from the blizzard outside—each carrying roughly their body weight
in supplies separated into backpacks and duffle bags.
They have been traveling for the past fourteen months—all
around continental Europe and the United Kingdom. They flew over to Canada and spent some time in Toronto
before they headed to Buffalo to work on a dude ranch in exchange for room and
board. Now they are in my
apartment because they will be sleeping here for the next two nights in a
“railroad” bedroom that I have to walk through in order to get to mine. They were going to spend the night
camping on abandoned airport runway near Coney Island, but the snowstorm
condemned them to a night indoors.
I can’t remember their names, but somehow, given that I am
sitting on my couch watching them eat Chinese take-out at my kitchen table, it
feels rude to ask to be reacquainted.
They finish eating.
The boy-Australian wraps up the leftovers and asks if he can stick them
in the fridge. I tell him of
course, and explain in an inarticulate way that everyone who lives in this
apartment is very “chill”, so they should make themselves at home. As I am stumbling through my sentences,
I wonder to myself why I am so nervous.
But entertaining that thought while trying to speak to these two
Australian strangers (who I am fairly
certain are not here to murder me) makes my language even less
intelligible. He tells me to help
myself to their Chinese food, if I want any for breakfast. He tells me that it’s “mostly veggies”,
which makes me want to ask if they are vegetarians, like me. But then I think to myself that after
tomorrow evening, I probably won’t ever see them again, so it doesn’t seem
worth it to ask.
Not continuing the conversation was the right choice,
because as soon as the refrigerator door closes, the apartment buzzer rings.
It is Cedric.
Cedric is another person that I don’t know. I learn when I meet Cedric at the front
door that he is not Australian like the other two strangers in my
apartment. I also learn that he is
a little shorter than me, has a beard, is black, uses headphones, holds his
belongings in a backpack, and is covered in snow. My favorite thing about Cedric so far is that he is covered
in snow, because it instantly gives us something to talk about. There is a blizzard happening outside
the apartment, and nothing creates community like extreme weather
conditions.
Cedric is thinking about living in my room for the month of
January. I will be living in
Rebecca’s room (which is currently mostly full of supplies brought by the
Australians, and a little bit full with the Australians themselves). This is because I had the idea that it
would be easier to get someone to live in my bedroom for the month than it would be to get someone to live in Rebecca’s bedroom for the month because you have to walk
through Rebecca’s bedroom in order to get from my bedroom to the living room
(because Rebecca’s bedroom is the most “railroad” part of the “railroad
bedroom” situation). My bedroom,
on the other hand, does not serve as a hallway for anyone and has it’s own
private entrance which I have never used.
Rebecca will not be living in either of these bedrooms because she is in
California getting surgery on her leg that she almost completely ruined by
landing the wrong way while jumping on a trampoline. That wrong landing is indirectly why I am meeting all these
people for the first time in my apartment in my pajamas.
Cedric leaves.
I think he liked the apartment, which indirectly means that
I think Cedric will be living in my apartment for the month of January. The wall that separates my bedroom
(which will become Cedric’s bedroom) and Rebecca’s bedroom (which will become
my bedroom) is paper thin. That
means for the next month, Cedric will hear me masturbate and I will hear Cedric
masturbate (assuming that is something Cedric likes to do). He does not know that this is something
I am thinking about while I am forming unintelligible sentences about the
weather as I walk him to the door.
Once Cedric is gone, the Australians come out of the room
full of their things. It is
possible that they don’t like short people, or people with beards, or black
people, or people who wear headphones and keep their things in their backpacks,
and that is why they didn’t come out and say “hello” to Cedric. I don’t know them well enough to rule
out any of these possibilities.
The boy-Australian asks me if there is a good place for him to
smoke. I tell him outside, even
though the main activity that happens inside this apartment is smoking. He doesn’t know me well enough to be
able to identify the signs I exhibit when I lie.
He and the girl-Australian go outside for a smoke.
I am alone in the apartment as I had been an hour
before.
And I think to myself, I don’t really know myself well enough to be able to identify the signs I
exhibit when I lie.
--
what i learned today is that, when you live in a part of town that is predominantly populated by people of color and low-income individuals, you are the last ones to get the snow cleaned off your sidewalks.
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