Wednesday, June 6, 2007

being neighborly

I never lived off campus before I moved here, but I always had this vision of what it would be like to live in an apartment, mostly shaped by “Melrose Place”. There are mild differences, of course.

The people who lay out by the pool are significantly older, since my apartment complex has a lot of retirees, and no one has ever fallen into it during a fight, during a wedding, or while staggering drunk on platform heels because Billy told them he wanted a divorce.

The laundry room here has windows and a television, so it’s bright and cheery, rather than basementy, and I’ve never found Sydney tied up in it while Kimberly wires the building with explosives.

On that same note, the building has never blown up or caught on fire, even though we did have a power outage when our building was struck by lightning Easter weekend.

I guess I just always had this picture of living in a building where everyone knew each other and sat out on the steps at night chatting and got really involved in each other’s lives even though they had nothing in common. Also, I assumed everyone else would be really hot, but people here pretty much keep to themselves most of the time. Every once in a while they surprise you, though.

Today I was pulling in and Porch Pots Lady was outside watering her plants. I was grumbling internally, vowing once again to get at least one plant to try to offer up a little competition. She waved and I waved, as we do when we see each other, but then she called me over rather than letting me scurry into my apartment.

“Do you cook?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Here, let me give you some herbs!”

fresh herbs

She gave me a handful of oregano, and when I said I’d probably make spaghetti with it she said, “Oh, you’ll need basil, too!” and picked me off a big handful. I was so touched and surprised. My neighbor gave me something to put in my mouth, just like that time Jake decided to start dating Allison.

My dinner involved much less raging alcoholism, faking blindness, and also dating Kelly from “90210”, but it was still good.

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