While packing up my current apartment I came across a picture that reminded me of my first apartment.
I was desperate and crashing with my friend Henry, who lived in Berkeley. He woke up one night and found me sitting at a desk naked, playing solitaire. The actual solitaire, with playing cards. I'd forgotten he lived there. So he drove me into San Francisco and I found a place on Ellis Street, below Polk.
The apartment was a furnished studio, on the ground floor. $110. a month. A stone cold drunk lived on one side of me and often knocked on my door in the middle of the night so he could crawl through one of my windows out to the fire escape and into his own apartment. Upstairs were a bunch of transvestites who used to push Seconals under my door so I could sleep at night.
I had this giant poster of Mick Jagger on my wall. My friend Albert, a guy I went to school with in Paris and also a friend of Henry's, was visiting the States one year and took this picture. I used to keep the photo in a frame and every single person who saw it thought it was really me talking to Mick. The fact that he's on a stage singing and I'm standing in front of hanging beads didn't register with anyone. Also? That whole two dimensional thing.
I remember my shirt. It was black and had tiny red and black sparkles on it. I'm loaded down with all my Indian jewelry and wearing a hand-tooled belt I bought in Corsica.
Now I can't fit into that belt unless I wear it as a thigh tourniquet. Which could totally happen if someone happened to sever my femoral artery by accident and the belt was lying nearby.
This was the apartment I left after I found the heroin addict in bed with my gay hairdresser Eugene.
I abandoned my Calvin Klein sheets and the forest green hanging beads. And Mick Jagger.
The landlord was upset I was leaving. He offered to lower my rent to $100 because he said I was the best tenant he'd ever had.
I'm pretty sure I was, too.
I was desperate and crashing with my friend Henry, who lived in Berkeley. He woke up one night and found me sitting at a desk naked, playing solitaire. The actual solitaire, with playing cards. I'd forgotten he lived there. So he drove me into San Francisco and I found a place on Ellis Street, below Polk.
The apartment was a furnished studio, on the ground floor. $110. a month. A stone cold drunk lived on one side of me and often knocked on my door in the middle of the night so he could crawl through one of my windows out to the fire escape and into his own apartment. Upstairs were a bunch of transvestites who used to push Seconals under my door so I could sleep at night.
I had this giant poster of Mick Jagger on my wall. My friend Albert, a guy I went to school with in Paris and also a friend of Henry's, was visiting the States one year and took this picture. I used to keep the photo in a frame and every single person who saw it thought it was really me talking to Mick. The fact that he's on a stage singing and I'm standing in front of hanging beads didn't register with anyone. Also? That whole two dimensional thing.
I remember my shirt. It was black and had tiny red and black sparkles on it. I'm loaded down with all my Indian jewelry and wearing a hand-tooled belt I bought in Corsica.
Now I can't fit into that belt unless I wear it as a thigh tourniquet. Which could totally happen if someone happened to sever my femoral artery by accident and the belt was lying nearby.
This was the apartment I left after I found the heroin addict in bed with my gay hairdresser Eugene.
I abandoned my Calvin Klein sheets and the forest green hanging beads. And Mick Jagger.
The landlord was upset I was leaving. He offered to lower my rent to $100 because he said I was the best tenant he'd ever had.
I'm pretty sure I was, too.
"if someone happened to sever my femoral artery by accident and the belt was lying nearby"
ReplyDeleteDYING!
Some of the best stories ever are coming out of this whole packing thing.
ReplyDeleteI am a sucker for a good storyteller, I just am riveted on every word.
And yes, *sigh* to the belts we can now use as thigh turniquets.
I remember how itty bitty I used to be.So itty bitty.
You can tell from your native hotness as well as the expression on Mick's face that, had this picture been real, we would totally have been reading about you all those years instead of that bitch, Bianca.
ReplyDeleteThat pose is so Rumours (Fleetwood Mac variety). I love it! You should write a blog about all your adventures. I think people would totally read it.
ReplyDeleteI need more coffee.
Casey
all your friends were stoned, even back then? 'tsk'!
ReplyDeleteNo wonder you're so good at spotting a Photoshop job--you were doing them before anyone else.
ReplyDeleteI've got several decks of cards, anytime you feel like playing nude solitaire feel free to drop by.
ReplyDeleteThat's an awesome picture and a totally bitchin' belt!
ReplyDeleteYou realize that you are tormenting Mick through a trans-dimensional wormhole thingie. You stalk his dreams. I can see it his eyes.
ReplyDeleteI know this is really selfish of me, but can you put all these great stories in a tidy package like a book so I can sit down and read it and then brag to everyone how I email with you sometimes?
ReplyDeleteIt's really the laughs I'm after. The bragging is just a bonus.
Also, re: that age thing? please make the book be in big print so I don't have to wear my goofy reading glasses. Thx!
Gorgeous picture of you.
ReplyDelete