the housewarming happened. people were in the apartment. the stoneware was used for actual food, the lighting was warm in the way i’d spent two weeks making it warm, and julian was so pleased about the whole thing that he made the same joke three times and nobody minded. the…

the managed community apartment comes with a kitchen that has, i’ve decided, already made its opinion about blenders very clear. there are two counter tiers in this kitchen. the first holds the coffee maker, which is sovereign and non-negotiable and has been since day two. the second is nine inches…

the housewarming happened. i want to lead with that because i’ve been building toward it in this space for three weeks and i feel it’s only fair to report back on what actually occurred, rather than letting the anticipation accrete into mythology. the housewarming happened. it was a saturday. people…

julian suggested paper plates for the housewarming. i’ve already documented my immediate response to this elsewhere, but i want to use this post to explain the reasoning, because i think there’s something worth pulling apart here that goes beyond personal preference or the question of who does the dishes. a…

eleven days ago i declared war on the lighting in this apartment. i want to provide a status update. the overhead is still there. i want to say that first, before anything else—i haven’t solved the fundamental infrastructure problem, which is four recessed leds designed by someone who has never…

julian announced it the way he announces most things: as a neutral fact of the universe, already implicitly agreed upon. “we should have people over,” he said, making eggs in a way that suggests he has never been afraid of anything. “a housewarming. just a small one.” i had to…

there’s a specific kind of dread that sets in when your apartment has a “smart” thermostat that sends you push notifications. mine informed me this morning—via a badge on my phone, the way one might receive news of a celebrity death—that the living room was “2 degrees above optimal.” i…

i’ve been staring at the carpet in the guest “suite” for forty-eight hours. in this managed-living ecosystem, they call this color ‘oatmeal,’ but i know a psychological vacuum when i see one. it’s a synthetic polypropylene blend—the kind of low-pile dross that’s designed to survive a high turnover rate without…