emptiness.

photo title: leaving idaho avenue.
my photo friday entry for this week's challenge: "emptiness."

this was my very first "adult" apartment that we converted into an office after we got married. leaving this apartment was bittersweet. the place represented my single life, the start of my business, where i lived while developing personally and professionally.

there was more sweet than bitter leaving the apartment though. the entrance was through an alley. it was tiny, tiny. the paint was chipping all over the place. the squirrels drove the cats crazy.

and the walls were paper-thin.

my next-door neighbor, with whom i shared a bedroom wall, was our landlord's elderly brother and he was not very friendly — or considerate. he would turn on the spanish news at around 10:30 every night. i think he was hard-of-hearing because the tv was blasting. he would then proceed to snore thunderously for the next eight to 10 hours.

we tried everything to get him to stop. we tried stomping on the hardwood floors. we tried dropping books. we tried banging on the walls. we went to bed before the news started. we didn't speak spanish, so we couldn't tell him to stop. and this went on for months.

one night, we had enough. i couldn't sleep from the noise and look out if i don't get my z's. since none of our other tactics were working, i thought to myself, "let's call him." i'm a pretty good detective and since we knew our landlord's surname and my neighbor's first name, we got his number from information.

the phone rang and he woke up saying "eh. huh?" and shuffled over to the phone. "bueno?" he answered. we hung up our receiver silently and my now-husband had to put his hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter. we giggled endlessly under the covers that night and did get the rest that we wanted.

since we also shared a bathroom wall, i could also hear my neighbor doing other things. every morning (and of course it had to be as i was getting ready), he would go into the bathroom, sigh, fart, then pee. like clockwork. sigh. fart. pee. sigh. fart. pee. his routine became such a part of our morning routine that my better half would pretend he was farting in there just for effect. i'm sure my neighbor must have looked at me in a new light after that.

it was great to leave that apartment, but it did leave me with an empty feeling. it was the beginning of when our business began to decline and it was sad to close it down — especially since it was rent-controlled at $587/month in a prime spot in santa monica.

we moved on to a better house (where we work from home), in a better location with lots of hope for a better life. last time i checked, they were tearing that building down, so i'm not sure if it's even there any more. but, i will always remember the start that it gave me and all that it represented.

even the snoring, farting neighbor.

photo credit: me.