Can I Bum a Smoke?
Heat. The mere flicker of the small candle sitting in my windowsill seemed to be rocketing my apartment's temperature into thermonuclear levels. I had to do something before sanity left me.
I strode out of my apartment, fumbling with the keys in the pitch black darkness of both my apartment and the external hallway. (I guess it's better late than never to learn the hallways have no emergency lights.) I suddenly felt as if I was trapped in a horror movie; a storm was thrashing outside, I was trapped in a dark, foreboding hallway, and I dropped my keys as I tried to slip them into my door to lock it shut. The only thing missing was someone with an ax (or perhaps a jolly band of zombies).
I walked to the rear alley door leading to a long-stretching partially-covered alley where my building's trashcans reside (along with most of the smokers in my building on any given night). I walked out (intending to duck into the huge brick-enclosed alcove/hallway) to get air and a good view of the storm's oncoming second wave.
"Can I bum a smoke dude?" An unfamiliar voice echoed from around the corner off the crumbling brick.
I walked toward the voice. "Sorry, don't smoke." I turned the corner and saw him. Wearing a StL Cards hat, a Black Sabbath t-shirt and some grey-ish cargo shorts and flip flops, the guy was a walking straight-boy-next-door advertisement.
"Oh wait, there it is." He pulled a lighter out of one of his many cargo pockets. "You new here?"
"May," I responded. "You?"
"Moved in last September with my girlfriend. She and I are on the second floor."
We talked for the next few minutes as the storm rolled in (again). He offered me a beer and company, and I gladly accepted given the hot, dark alternative inside my apartment. We stood under the alcove watching the beautiful storm pass over as we talked about his work in a Halsted restaurant by Fullerton, my luck with stepping in puddles in exactly the wrong place, and everything else we could think of in between.
Three beers, a lot of time, and good conversation carried us through 1am and the majority of the storm's second wind. Sometime around 1:30 we walked back into my apartment for another beer, discovered I was out, and decided to hang out a few more minutes before he went to his apartment to pass out.
"Your music sucks. You need more metal." He smiled.
"Effin' metal head." We laughed.
"It's nice to know more guys in the building I can drink with. We should hang again soon." He stood and realized he dropped his keys somewhere between my door and the couch.
A couple of minutes later, after finding his keys right where he'd left them - on my kitchen table as we were checking for beers - I sent him home, sat on my couch a while longer petting Suki, and tried to get some sleep. Sleep was intermittent and torturous. I dreamed all night of my electricity coming back on, of me turning on my A/C, and feeling great - only to wake up a moment later sweaty and blind from the darkness.
When my phone's alarm went off early this morning, I got up, noticed the electric was still off, and tried to shower (unsuccessfully) in the dark. I got the basics - but anything involving razors had to be skipped for fear of accidents and mutilation.
It's odd. Last night had to be simultaneously one of the best and one of the worst nights this summer. The weather was magnificent and dangerous; the power outage was annoying and helpful in meeting new people; and the entire experience, despite it's insistence on causing me headaches, gave me a lot of LJ fodder. And I can't really ask for much more than that these days.
I strode out of my apartment, fumbling with the keys in the pitch black darkness of both my apartment and the external hallway. (I guess it's better late than never to learn the hallways have no emergency lights.) I suddenly felt as if I was trapped in a horror movie; a storm was thrashing outside, I was trapped in a dark, foreboding hallway, and I dropped my keys as I tried to slip them into my door to lock it shut. The only thing missing was someone with an ax (or perhaps a jolly band of zombies).
I walked to the rear alley door leading to a long-stretching partially-covered alley where my building's trashcans reside (along with most of the smokers in my building on any given night). I walked out (intending to duck into the huge brick-enclosed alcove/hallway) to get air and a good view of the storm's oncoming second wave.
"Can I bum a smoke dude?" An unfamiliar voice echoed from around the corner off the crumbling brick.
I walked toward the voice. "Sorry, don't smoke." I turned the corner and saw him. Wearing a StL Cards hat, a Black Sabbath t-shirt and some grey-ish cargo shorts and flip flops, the guy was a walking straight-boy-next-door advertisement.
"Oh wait, there it is." He pulled a lighter out of one of his many cargo pockets. "You new here?"
"May," I responded. "You?"
"Moved in last September with my girlfriend. She and I are on the second floor."
We talked for the next few minutes as the storm rolled in (again). He offered me a beer and company, and I gladly accepted given the hot, dark alternative inside my apartment. We stood under the alcove watching the beautiful storm pass over as we talked about his work in a Halsted restaurant by Fullerton, my luck with stepping in puddles in exactly the wrong place, and everything else we could think of in between.
Three beers, a lot of time, and good conversation carried us through 1am and the majority of the storm's second wind. Sometime around 1:30 we walked back into my apartment for another beer, discovered I was out, and decided to hang out a few more minutes before he went to his apartment to pass out.
"Your music sucks. You need more metal." He smiled.
"Effin' metal head." We laughed.
"It's nice to know more guys in the building I can drink with. We should hang again soon." He stood and realized he dropped his keys somewhere between my door and the couch.
A couple of minutes later, after finding his keys right where he'd left them - on my kitchen table as we were checking for beers - I sent him home, sat on my couch a while longer petting Suki, and tried to get some sleep. Sleep was intermittent and torturous. I dreamed all night of my electricity coming back on, of me turning on my A/C, and feeling great - only to wake up a moment later sweaty and blind from the darkness.
When my phone's alarm went off early this morning, I got up, noticed the electric was still off, and tried to shower (unsuccessfully) in the dark. I got the basics - but anything involving razors had to be skipped for fear of accidents and mutilation.
It's odd. Last night had to be simultaneously one of the best and one of the worst nights this summer. The weather was magnificent and dangerous; the power outage was annoying and helpful in meeting new people; and the entire experience, despite it's insistence on causing me headaches, gave me a lot of LJ fodder. And I can't really ask for much more than that these days.