My First Apartment

A bit about my first apartment

I found my apartment by going to Apartment Search in Uptown. I met with someone who showed me listings in the area. The Belmont was the first apartment building I looked at, and I fell in love with it. The old charm, haunted history, and proximity to everything the magical city offered won me over instantly.

“I think this is perfect,” I said.

“Are you sure?” the property manager, Grace, asked?

“Oh yeah, I love it,” I mused, already envisioning calling it home.

Each apartment had two doors – one green, slatted door that could be closed with a small metal hook, and a standard heavy wooden door with a deadbolt. Inside the studio apartment, which was $550 per month, $595 with cat rent, there were large, screened windows with shutters that pulled opened and fastened with a metal hook on the wall. A white ledge ran the length of the windowsill, and that’s where I would sit and keep my ashtrays. It’s where I would smoke cigarettes and watch people and traffic, and gaze at the Minneapolis skyline. It’s where my cat would somehow fall onto the sidewalk, and survive. Where I would watch ballet classes in the studio across the street. It would be the place I would go to imagine being somewhere else, as though my windows offered a portal to anyplace I could dream of. It would be the ventilation for any number of smells – whether it be toxic fumes from my future roommate Joslyn’s fake nails, or a dinner disaster. And when I wanted to shut out the world, I would slide the windows down, unhook the shutters, and bring them together, chasing the light away and enclosing myself in the darkness and quiet, and calm, where I couldn’t be found – sometimes even by myself.