Inverted Fish Bowl.

I very much enjoy my little apartment.

There are many reasons for this.

It is the only place I have lived in alone where I have had the time and money and inclination to think out what I wanted it to be like and how I wanted it to feel. When I’m here by myself sometimes I look around at all of the smooth empty surfaces that I’d seen in my mind awhile ago. Smooth empty surfaces that are smooth and empty because that’s the way I had wanted them to be. I’m not going to get all fetishistic about interior design right now (especially since my apartment, at best, probably just looks like a bachelor’s apartment or a picture in an Ikea catalogue), but suffice to say that with limited funds I was able to put together a space that is - more or less - what I had hoped it would be: simple, smooth, and with an appreciation of the beauty of empty space. I like to think that I’m going for ‘Very Small Library Chic’.

But that’s the inside of the apartment. I also like the way it is laid out. I like the way my balcony is above the pool and over the main entry area off the street. I like that I can hear people as they come an go. I like that I can hear the TV whispers from the black family to the right on the second floor and that I can feel salsa music tremble up through the floorboards from the couple below. I like that I can hear the baby laughing next door when the windows are all open. I like that I can smell the rice and beans sizzling when the people down the way make dinner. I can hear the guys across from my balcony cheering when they watch their cricket matches. I can hear the Upstairs Undergrad Girls across from my bedroom window when they watch Sex in the City on Netflix.

I don’t mean to come across as creepy or voyeuristic, I just enjoy that there is so much life happening around me. Especially since I spend a lot of my time quietly reading at my dining room table.

Just now I heard the buzz of the gate from the street and then heard people coming in and I listened - because that’s kinda what I do - and so I heard one of the Downstairs Undergrad Girls.

I was leaving anyway (some of us are out of wine). As I left I saw that the Downstairs Undergrad Girl has a dude hanging out in her doorway. When they walked in through the gate they were in the middle of an ongoing conversation. When they came in they were very much returning from an study date, rather than an actual date (They both have laptop shoulder bags and look like people who have some artificial common denominator.) As I went by the body language was very clear: him all keeping the conversation alive, leaned there with his elbow against the doorframe and her all standing just inside her apartment, her little white hand still on the door, about thirty percent closed. Him angling for an invite in and her eyes a little bigger than normal while her brain tries to figure out how to politely avoid giving one.

I like my little apartment because it is a good little apartment for casual eavesdropping, for watching the comings and goings of the cast of characters that have randomly been assembled around me. I feel like I’d like it more if it were more made of windows and less made of walls. The place is kind of like a periscope and I enjoy that. For me it is like living in an inverted fish bowl.

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