I bet some duct tape would have held those levees together

April 30, 2007 at 2:34 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Damn apartment. Today the toilets were backed up. Both of them. So I had to have the maintenance guy out yet again. It’s OK, though…I’m only living here for another month, and then it’s on to Seattle. I sent my 30 days notice in last Friday, along with a nice note to the property manager. I like her, despite all the problems I’ve had with this place (and there have been many). She lost her house in Katrina, and for a long time was driving back and forth from Baton Rouge in order to keep her job here.

So it’s always been a cost/benefit analysis over whether to stay here, with the pluses of a decent person as property manager and a great location just barely outweighing the minuses of a crappy property with a revolving door on the other side of the duplex, on a street requiring an off-road suspension system. And did I mention the burglaries? Yes, that’s plural.

But it’s 5 blocks from CC’s, 3 blocks from Whole Foods and 5 minutes from the pool where I swim. I think about that every time I consider moving out. In fact, I’m pretty certain that if I had actually liked this apartment, I would have seriously considered staying at Tulane for my prelim year.

I still probably wouldn’t have. Seattle has better infrastructure for resident training, as well as for health care in general. And housing. So if I have to live in a cardboard box, at least I’ll be living in a new one, and not an old, soggy, drafty one with temperamental plumbing.

Right now, it seems like the only things staving off disaster are duct tape and other people’s sympathy.