Starting with 536 E 7th St
Inspired by Alexa at Flotsam, here’s my home history.
When Company Y took over Company X some years back, I had to provide in my last ten years of addresses, and they didn’t provide near enough lines. I remember being extremely annoyed at the personal invasion of their request, while enjoying the actual compilation. This list was even more enjoyable to write, as accuracy doesn’t count, and I don’t have to track down any old phone bills for the exact street. [Sidenote: I later stumbled across my entire address history guess where: Amazon. Apparently I’ve had books delivered to every address I’ve had for a decade, and they kindly still provide you a button to let you choose to ship your order back to that post-college apartment. And I know, I know, I should frequent my local bookstore more often…]
Home uno: A 40 year old-ish house in the middle of a fairly small Northwest town. Lots of character. It had an “attic” in the gable off a closet in my bedroom, accessible by parting the two hanging sleeping bags my parents had for backpacking but never used. I fantasized (and I believe, told some kids at school) that from the attic there was a secret passage to the garage. Remember the show Webster? We lived on a corner, but across the street there was a Dead End (these days known as a cul-de-sac), and past the last house there was The Gulley, which some kids were allowed to play “down in”, and others not. Lots of kids, lots of Cops and Robbers in the Dead End. And at least one baton twirling show in bathing suits for the neighbors. Africa by Toto accompanied.
Home Dos: A characterless split level just inside the same small town city limits. My parents are asleep there now. We moved at the end of my fourth grade year, to accomodate my father’s mother, sweet kind hard-working brownie-baking Grandma Betty. Alas I was hitting my hormonal middle-school years, and one of my saddest regrets in life is that I treated her like crap. I just could not believe her audacity in picking up the dirty clothes from my bedroom floor EVERY DAY and WASHING them. Or dusting my precious nail polish collection. Timing is everything; for that service now, what would I pay? And I would dearly love to hear have her advice about parenting twin boys. Aside from the Grandma drama, the bigger yard was nice, the one goody-goody kid nearby was not destined to be my friend.
Home Tres: Harstad Hall. Lovely old brick building. Lovely group of girls. By which I mean, funny and intelligent and loud and questionable and me-getting. Late nights, bonding, marginal papers, Denny’s runs.
Home cuatro: Evergreen Hall. Industrial type building. I think we studied too much. Not as many memories. I do remember a smell. I think it was rotting pumpkin that no one cleaned up until January.
Home cinco, siete, and diez: The non-sanctioned crew house off campus. I drifted in and out for years, as did others. Owned by the local “slumlord” (but not really, we just thought so) Pinkney, who owned a dozen other run-down college rentals. I went to college in a bad area, even just 6 blocks off campus. I remember looking over my shoulder a lot walking late at night to or from my boyfriend’s house. Owned by the same landlord. What I miss about that house is that people were always just stopping by. Anybody in our group of crew-associated friends knew they were welcome. No one does that anymore. One single coffee date with a friend takes a few emails and then calls and then maybe a text just before. Drives me INSANE.
Home seis: Dorm in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, E. Africa. The one and only home I was mugged near. Someday I might write more…
Home ocho: A room in my future-in-laws house in a nice suburb of an industrial city. My future husband, though, was off at an internship out-of-state while I job hunted. So not as great a gig as it might seem. I did love my FFIL though. I still wonder how he’s doing, as then he was my FFIL but now he’s my XFIL. I randomly got a pee request from PJ while nearing that exit this summer and drove by. Appears he still lives there. Unless he sold the truck to the new owners too. And now you know, I’m a one-time stalker.
Home nueve: Low income apartment housing in the retail area where I had a job for six months before they laid everyone off. The joke about that city is STILL that they all have big hair. Clean but bare bones apartment, smelled constantly of the neighbors’ smoke. Lonely. There’s nothing like the neighbors partying next door to make you feel lonely at night. And driving by countless fast food chains on the way to work the next morning.
Home once: A 4plex near downtown Seattle. Ahhh, busing to work, never having to drive, and 2 bedrooms is a lot of room with no kids. A cab home from downtown after bar close was less than $5. I wasn’t at my happiest, as I was trying to live the wrong life- wrong husband, wrong job, wrong church. But it wasn’t the apartment’s fault.
Home doce: We’d tried urban married life, so now we tried rural married life. It coincided with a job change for me. We moved 50 miles outside Seattle, just outside a rural town that’s becoming more suburban by the minute as the sprawl encroaches. It was too far. Too far from my friends and sister in Seattle, or any good shopping or culture. And really, I didn’t enjoy the guy I was there living isolated with, whether or not we had room for a worm bin. So….
Home trece: back to the city. The cutest TEENY apartment in Fremont, in Seattle. I named my son Fremont. Ok, his middle name. Loved my building, built in 1906, same year my above-mentioned Grandma Betty was made. The eclectic, walk to restaurants, bars, and everywhere but work, urban life. That apartment was my refuge, with its tall breezy windows and bedroom that fit, literally, only a bed. It lasted the end of my marriage, some single craziness, and meeting my 2nd and current husband, MJ. But alas, raising twins was not going to happen in 550 sq ft.
Home catorce: An old rental house in Greenlake, Seattle. It didn’t last long. The summer the boys were born my sister and I walked everywhere. I have lots of fond memories, as I’d guess most people do of the home they first brought a child into. I kinda wish we never left. But we wanted to buy, and MJ was tired of parking on the narrow street. In retrospect it seems like that last one is a silly reason. I guess I was feeling societal pressure to own a home, now that I had kids. And that meant moving away from the city, again. You might think I’d have learned.
Home quince: A disgusting, moldy apartment that would go month-to-month while we house-hunted. Same city as Home nueve.
Home diecisies (finally): Our home here in Surburbia. There’s nothing wrong with the house, persay. Except that the carpeting was old when we moved in and after 5 years of 2 then 3 kids its nothing short of I’m-not-sure-I-should-invite-people-over-anymore-disgusting. It’s the location. Not only do I hate strip malls and yet have chosen to live among them, we did not realize when we bought that the two lane road at the back of the yard was soon to be widened to five lanes and a 14 foot cement wall was erected at the fence. So very pretty. If I walk to the grocery store, I have the constant feeling that all the people driving by at 45 mph are feeling sorry for me because they assume I don’t have a car. I dearly hope a move is in our future. But probably not soon, with the whole housing bubble unemployed bit.
JaRuuds 