It has come to my attention that my apartment sucks. Objectively, that might be too harsh an assessment, but it certainly feels true right now. Don’t get me wrong: It has big, sunny windows; appliances that are functional, albeit old and ugly; and an amount of closet space that I would describe as “enough.” But the many things the apartment leaves to be desired— cheap fixtures, landlord-beige walls, and an ancient tile kitchen floor that never quite looks clean—have become unavoidably obvious to me as I’ve sat inside of it for the better part of this year.
The longer I sit, the more the flaws taunt me. The shallow kitchen sink, combined with the low slope of its faucet, makes it im possible to fill a pitcher straight from the tap, but most of my daily drinking water used to come from a machine at the office. The back wall of my kitchen, swathed in white paint, has borne the brunt of gurgling vats of spaghetti sauce and sputtering pans of fried-chicken grease, but I failed to notice the unscrubbable spots when I wasn’t standing in front of the stove preparing three meals a day, every day. The dusty ledges and shelves, unsightly window-unit air conditioners, and scuffed, jaundiced paint job weren’t so irritating when they weren’t my whole world.
Esta historia es de la edición November 2020 de The Atlantic.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición November 2020 de The Atlantic.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
THE AIRPORT-LOUNGE ARMS RACE
Inside the ever more extravagant competition to lure affluent travelers
Hypochondria Never Dies
The diagnosis is officially gone, but health anxiety is everywhere.
Miranda July's Weird Road Trip
The author's midlife-crisis novel is full of estrangement, eroticism, and whimsy.
The Wild Blood Dynasty
What a little-known family reveals about the nation's untamed spirit
The Engrossing Darkness of The Crow
Can a cult hit point the way forward for the beleaguered comic-book movie?
The Godfather of American Comedy
The funniest people on the planet think there's no funnier person than Albert Brooks.
The History My Family Left Behind
A gun, a lynching, and an exodus from Mississippi
Ozempic or Bust
America has been trying to address the obesity epidemic for four decades now. So far, each new \"solution\" has failed to live up to its early promise.
THE ART OF SURVIVAL
In living with cancer, Suleika Jaouad has learned to wrench meaning from our short time on Earth.
DEMOCRACY IS LOSING THE PROPAGANDA WAR
AUTOCRATS IN CHINA, RUSSIA, AND ELSEWHERE ARE NOW MAKING COMMON CAUSE WITH MAGA REPUBLICANS TO DISCREDIT LIBERALISM AND FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD.