Apartment 2

Back in '88 and after a rather unfortunately first apartment experience, I moved into my second apartment.  This time my roommate was male.  Thirsty T and I had been friends for a little while and got along great.  Plus there was no romantic entanglement there.  I really had no attraction to Thirsty T and I know the feeling was mutual.  I was already dating The Man and he was fine with the arrangement.

Ahh but the family was not so fine with it.  Mom was mortified.  How could I be moving in with a guy!  "You weren't raised that way!" she told me.  I guess she conveniently forgot that my sister lived with her boyfriend for several years before they married.  Never underestimate the power of denial.  Yes it was a scandal.  It was out of the realm of things that occurred in my family.   Living with someone, not my boyfriend.  "What happens when you take a shower and come out of the bathroom in just a towel?  He'll get ideas," mom warned me.  Wow, I'm flattered!   Or am I outraged?  Did mom think that just my mere presence in a towel was going to send Thirsty T into a rapist frenzy?   And what will people say!  How can she explain this to people?  Alas, my poor mother is always concerned with what people are going to say.  She was spurred on by my brother who was absolutely aghast that I was doing this and that The Man would "allow" it.   As I recall it, his reaction to The Man not caring about the living arrangement was, "well, he just better protect what's his!"  Wow, Neanderthal much?

It became quite apparent to anyone who has known me that from about the age of 14 on that I was going to do what I was going to do and there really wasn't much that anyone could say to change that.  I set my own rules, I do my own thing and I like it that way.  It may take a round about way to get there, but in the end I always do.  So the idea that these objections were going to stop what I wanted to do was pretty much an exercise in futility.  But hey, they had to try I guess.  I really never understood the big deal.  We weren't sharing a bed or even a bedroom and really, so what if we were.  It was a sharing of expenses and a space.

We found the perfect place in Cleveland Hts.  It had two bedrooms, hardwood floors, gorgeous built ins, a big fireplace in the bedroom that would end up being mine, laundry facilities in the basement and it was $325 a month.  Not too shabby.  It was perfect.  And our landlord was a gem.  I loved this apartment.

We decorated it in a style I call Early Punk Rock... posters completely covering the walls (Clash, Siouxsie, Ramones, Sex Pistols, of course Peter Murphy and Bauhaus posters as far as the eye could see and so many others).  I had a stunningly huge poster of Mickey Rourke that made me swoon whenever I walked by it.  This was the late 80's before he became a plastic surgery disaster.  He was that smouldering masochist from 9 1/2 Weeks and the hauntingly depressing drunk in Barfly.  He was my fave.  And just look at him.  This is what he looked like then.  This is the poster I had on my wall, that I walked by several times a day.  Did I mention he was stunning.  He so was.  I haven't watched either of those movies in many years, but I used to know them pretty much by heart.  He was great.  Rumble Fish, Angel Heart, Diner, The Pope of Greenwich Village.  Ahh Mickey!   I love you so, you made me go off on a tangent! 

Besides posters our decor consisted of a mannequin (stolen from a dumpster of course) named Sheena, obviously, because she was a punk rocker.  A life sized cardboard cutout of Elvira.  Hand me down and/or thrift store furniture.  And of course, zebra print.  It was all a gal of 22 could ever want.  It was perfect and I ended up living there with TT for 5 years.   Five years of laughs, great times, parties, drunken debauchery, sex, loud music, insane neighbors.  Damn, why can't we stay 22 forever?