Hollywood

My old apartment complex is famous.

You can see it in 0:07-0:09 of this trailer. With Christopher Walken! Thanks Miguel :)

Salvage Day Part Deux

We're getting another "salvage" attempt soon. I use quotation marks because I don't think there's too much else worth salvaging in my unit, but I'm using the opportunity to a) take a lot more pictures, b) have a chance to do some directed searching for a few specific items, now that I've had a chance to think about it, and c) say goodbye.

Exhausted

I got less than two hours of sleep last night. I just couldn't sleep. I must have spent a good 5 hours in bed, with my eyes closed, trying (and failing) to relax. It made work today extremely painful.

So, in an effort to treat myself a little better, I:

1. Took a 2 hour nap immediately after work
2. Watched two episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Lani
   
3. Took a long bath and a long shower
4. Used some of the lavender oil my mother sent me
5. Swore off alcohol and caffeine (well, maybe 1 cup of tea a day...) for the immediate future
   
6. Am going to 6am hot yoga tomorrow morning, will continue as-needed to detox
   

I'm hoping this will do the trick. And with that, I'm out.

Things I Am Incredibly Grateful For (Part 1 of ...?)

• My wonderful family.
• My fabulous friends who are scattered across the globe.
• My mother, who clearly spent a lot of time and effort putting together the most awesome care packages.
• Lani, who has given me ROCK SOLID strength, support, humor, and dance parties in a town where I have no family and few friends.
• Everyone at work for their overwhelming generosity and understanding.
• The tenants of 1410 Central SW, all of whom I have come to know or know better. Even though they might not realize it, they are all helping me understand and cope in different ways.
• All of the awesome people who have come into my life since the fire.
• Barbara and Dolores and the rest of the neighborhood folks who have volunteered through the blood sweat and tears (literally!) to help all of the tenants out.
• The kindness of strangers.
• Knowing how it feels to be homeless.
• Knowing how it feels to be dependent on the generosity of others.

It's a start...

Cause of Origin

Everyone wants to know what started the fire. I really can't say too much about this right now. The official report from the city did come out, but the conclusion was that the cause of origin was indeterminate (due to the fact that the city investigators weren't able to safely access the evidence they needed).

Unofficially, I think everyone involved recognizes that it was an electrical fire. And I will reserve any further comment on this subject for a later time.

First Books

My first books are in my bedroom. I ordered them from Amazon before the fire, and fortunately it took long enough for the packages to get through the postal system to miss the fire. I recently picked them up at the post office where they are keeping our mail for us.

They are:

• Time Out Tokyo
• Lonely Planet Japan
• Langenscheidt's Japanese Pocket Dictionary

I'm going to Tokyo on October 7. There is something about touching and smelling my first new books that is incredibly satisfying.

'cause you asked...

Two posts in one day, to make up for my silence over the past few days.

Lots of folks have asked to see my "Sorry!" Registry. I was hesitant to make one, because I don't want anyone to feel as if they are obligated to do anything, but for those who have been asking, I put some items that I'm going to eventually buy anyways on a Target list.

But again, please don't feel obligated in any way. I love all of y'all who are keeping up with my blog and sending me encouragement <3

The Salvage Effort

Thursday was salvage day for my quad. One "quad" consists of four apartments (two upstairs, two downstairs) connected by the same hallway. There are five quads in the building, and mine was the first to have a designated salvage time. The other four quads will have their chance to salvage items this week.

Like most of the residents, I was a little torn about the salvage effort. On one hand, I was excited at the prospect of maybe pulling some antique jewelry and a few other meaningful things from the remains. On the other, I was pretty sure just about everything was a loss, and I expected seeing and going through remains to be a very smelly, unpleasant experience. Aside from the smoke and fire damage, I was certain that water was going to be the main source of damage in my apartment. My apartment saw very few, if any, flames. But six acre-feet of water was dumped on the building within a 24-hour period, and shortly after the fire trucks left, the windows and doors to my apartment were boarded up. Then three weeks went by. I was fully prepared to see not my apartment, but a big, sopping, smelly, moldy, disgusting wreck.

I had seen the pictures of Dallas and Ren's apartment (apartment 38; the one right above mine). I was struck by how eerie the pictures were. Amongst the complete and utter destruction, one white chair stuck out and looked almost pristine. Everything else was unrecognizable.

Thursday morning, I ran out to Big 5 to buy some running shoes (up until then, I had been getting by with just my new flip-flops and my work flats). Almost everyone commented on my bright white new shoes in contrast to the ashen task in front of us. I just shrugged… all shoes have to be broken in sometime, and I feel nerdy when I wear super white sneakers, anyways.


Dallas and Ren went in first. I saw them come out with a few treasures. A box of diaries, badly damaged but perhaps archivable in some way. A clay handprint from a daughter from when she was a child. The infamous white chair from the pictures.

I wandered around the outside of the property and took pictures for a while so I wouldn't get in anyone's way. There was a series of large piles of debris in the courtyard. Most of it was just gray, unrecognizable matter: a mixture of ash, wood, insulation, paint, concrete, dead skin cells, and cat hair. Within the gray matter were various treasures. Unopened bottles of wine and beer and ouzo. A rubber ducky. A refrigerator magnet. A Les Miserables CD. A Jersey Girl DVD. Shower gel. A book with a handwritten inscription from dad, the cover charred to the point of unrecognizability.


Leticia, Jeb, and Lauren went in shortly thereafter. I saw Mr. Vigil excavating loads of clothes and shoes from Jeb and Lauren’s closet. Leticia's electric bass came out of her closet looking damaged, but maybe okay. I was still outside waiting for the boards to be screwed off my windows and doors.

Ren was kind enough to take up the power drill and open up the outside door to our hallway. I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified when the boards came off. The door to my kitchen was open. The first thing I noticed was that the photos on my fridge were mostly still on my fridge. I saw Megan, Biz, and David. I saw dad and me. I saw Lani. I saw Mike. I saw Matt and Navin. It was absolutely thrilling for about a half second.

And then I realized that my kitchen had sunk about two feet below where it should have been. The floor was at about a 45 degree angle, with the low point at my fridge. The cabinets looked to be in a state of tenuous stability. The floor was covered with at least six inches of debris (the same gray matter in the piles outside – there was a Weeds DVD sticking out of this debris). Dinner was, of course, still on the stove. A bottle of olive oil and an unopened package of pasta were still on the counter.


The structural engineer wouldn't let me go through the doorway, but he did take a few steps inside and grabbed a few things for me. The pictures from the fridge. Diana and Jim's STD. A stainless steel water bottle that looked okay. Five bottles of wine.

Then the boards were taken off one of my bedroom windows. Again, I wasn't allowed to step inside, but I was able to stand on a ladder, look in through the window, and give instructions to the guy on where to look for specific items. I was thrilled when he found my jewelry box. The box itself was swollen and the hinges were rusted. It didn't contain anything especially expensive, but it did have a necklace in it, along with some other meaningful things.

This was my bedroom as seen from the window. It looks a lot brighter in the photo than it was in real life. It had ceased to be my bedroom -- it was just a damp, dark, stinky place. The structural engineer was surprised at how much ash and debris there was in my apartment (you can see some of it on my bed at the bottom of the photo).

My Gibson J-185 was pulled out, but it wasn't even close to salvageable. It was cracked badly in multiple places, the strings had completely rusted through, and the mold was already devouring it.


Some other things that were pulled out: Kabul Beauty School, (badly damaged and tossed), a dream diary that went back to 2005 and a real diary that went back to October 2008 (both badly damaged but kept for now), a pair of noise-cancelling headphones that hadn't yet been used (I had bought them for my trip to Japan, now they stink terribly), a small teapot from Japan that Aunt Jane sent me when I was in high school, art from my sister-in-law, cigar boxes from my other sister-in-law, my high school diploma, protective eye wear from chemistry lab, a picture of me and my cousins at my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary, a picture of some BJ speech kids at our high school graduation picnic, some cabling.

I asked if he could find my computer (in the hope that there might be salvageable data).
"Look to the left after you enter the living room from my bedroom, and there should be an entertainment stand that at one time had a TV on it. Next to that TV was the computer..."
"What TV? What entertainment stand?"

So I walked away with some things. Most of them I will probably end up throwing away because even the metal things stink with this unique combination of smoke and mold. I really want to piece apart the Gibson and make it into art, but I need to do some more research on what kind of material would properly preserve it so that it wouldn’t be a piece of, um, disgusting living art. So if anyone reading this has some knowledge of how I might be able to do that, please contact me!