She Was.

We were naively excited to get the keys to our new apartment today. To say that the last tenant left without cleaning the place up might be a teensy weensy bit of an understatement. Ok, yes, I know, in Greece it is standard practice for the incoming tenant to clean the apartment, paint it and so on. But, seriously, I don’t understand how you could leave this behind for the next person to deal with:

Behold The Galaxy of Mould and Peeling Paint Bathtub

What my overtired brain truly fails to comprehend though is how the hell Mr Leave Behind My Glamour Shot (keep scrolling down for more photographic goodness) could bear to stand barefoot in this putrid mess.

Also, bonus (!) – aside from his family of toxic spores, Mr LBMGS also saw fit to leave behind these special treats:

one bottle of Amoxcil penicillin in the wardrobe (this seriously disturbs me and I’m not quite sure why)

one sleeping bag

one fold out 80’s palm tree and pink flamingo beach chair

one box of man size tissues in the bedroom

three half full bottles of spring water in the lounge room

one baseball cap with the word Paris embroidered on the front

one terracotta dish that had been used as an ashtray

a no longer functioning really fucking heavy vintage fridge – on the veranda of a third floor apartment (!)

a collection of putrid brooms and mops

one filthy toilet brush

one cane laundry hamper containing an assortment of jugs and buckets (this one creeps. me. out.)

an inflatable Eiffel Tower (ok, I kind of dig this. kind of.)

half a block of dark chocolate

a half metre high really heavy and really ugly chef statue

the base of a vintage child’s pram

a rusty metal cabinet, again on the veranda of a third floor apartment building (!)

two metal director’s chairs

and lastly, this:

Yep, he really did leave this framed photograph of himself propped up like this in the middle of the lounge room floor. Ok, I understand that after living in the same place for five years you may develop a sense of connection to the place. Perhaps he also felt moved to establish some sort of connection with us? Perhaps this gesture is some sort of grown up version of ‘i woz ere’ grafitti so popular amongst primary school students? Perhaps he thought he was contributing to some sort of Apartment No 4 Time Capsule? But considering what else he left behind, it all strikes me as obscenely fucking arrogant. And that’s why I don’t feel the insiest bit guilty about uploading his photo.

Apparently Mr I’m Leaving My Crap Behind For You To Deal With also suffered some sort of ankle injury in the last few years:

Is it just me or is this quite a bizarre collection?

So, now, not only do we have four days to clean and paint the fucker, before we can actually move in, we also have to spend half of tomorrow removing Mr LBMGS’s rubbish and lugging a fridge and butt ugly chef down the stairs.

Sigh x 500.

I was going to write about tiredness today. I was going to write about how we may have found an apartment. Finally. About how it comes with a huge veranda and equally huge holes in the wall that I will, if I’m lucky, be attempting to repair on the weekend. I was going to write about a bathtub sporting its own galaxy of mould. And I was going to write about the irony of feeling lucky to have found this smelly place with potential. But, instead, I want to write about ease.

I’ve missed the ease that exists between two people, two friends that have known each other long enough to be able to simply sit together, two people who care for each other enough to be brutally honest. I want to remember the ease that comes with time, with knowing one another.

I didn’t realise until just now that life kind of sucks when you don’t have friendships like that. And I’ve realised that just now, because today, after an entire year, I know that I finally have that ease again. The ease of making a joke that’s immediately understood. The ease of knowing just how someone will respond to me. The ease of knowing just how to press someone’s buttons. The ease of knowing exactly what to say to provoke a laugh, a look of surprise, a questioning glance. The ease of being able to tell someone something about me without feeling that I will be judged, or, worse, feeling like the weirdo who spills her guts to anyone and everyone because she’s damn lonely. And so, all I really want to say, is that I’m grateful today, really grateful, for the two people, right here in this 4 million person city, that I can actually call my friends.

I am bitterness and want, absence and longing need.

Irreparable.

i want your taste on my tongue.

I am softness and pain.

Patient willingness.

Pliant, quiet, complicity.

I am hidden liquidity.

i want the sight of you.

I am sorrow, loss, rage.

I am petulant sullenness.

Defiance despairing in need.

I am aggrieved.

i want your mark on my skin.

Anemone by Jim @ www.unprofound.com

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Recently we’ve been looking for a new apartment to make our home. Yesterday we found ourselves willing to pay 100 Euros over what we had originally budgeted because a place we’d found promised a back yard. In the centre of Athens, finding an apartment with a backyard, of any sort — even if it is just a concrete square, is akin to finding a comfortable pair of super high, strappy stilettos. It just doesn’t happen. The backyard didn’t happen either. It just turned out to be a rather ugly passage way between two adjoining apartments. However it did get me thinking about why we both wanted a backyard so much, and I remembered this:

When I was about 10, I was a huge fan of the Enid Blyton Secret Seven book series. The Secret Seven are a group of school friends who double as neighbourhood super sleuths. As super cool super sleuths they share a secret password, a group badge, and most awesome of all, super secret headquarters comprising of a tin shed in, I think, Peter’s backyard.

Fortunately for me, I was not the only kid at school who had developed a slight obsession with The Secret Seven. Several of my friends also read the books, and one lunch time, we decided that we too would become Super Sleuths. After deciding on a secret password and constructing a badly designed cryptic badge we realised that what we really needed was headquarters.

I remember going home that night and sitting down with my Dad to discuss the possibility of him building us a tin shed in the backyard. My dad, generally willing to go along with my schemes, wanted to know why my school friends and I wanted a tin shed in the backyard. Looking back now, I can’t imagine that he was worried that we were planning on building a crack den, but nevertheless, my out of the blue request must have seemed a little strange.

I remember his question resulting in my feeling torn between my oh so strong neeeeeed for headquarters and the solemn vow of secrecy which I had undertaken just that afternoon. I mustn’t have been torn for too long though because I caved pretty quickly and showed him the books. I guess my desire for secret headquarters appealed far more than the notion of secrecy. Once he knew why we wanted the shed, he agreed immediately. Actually, he offered something far cooler than a tin shed. His idea was for him to buy all the materials we would need in order to build our very own headquarters, with his help of course.

Dad’s idea was a huge hit at school, and we began planning construction for that weekend. Several blueprints were made before we decided on a simple box like structure with a door and window. It was myself and the two other girls that held out for the admittedly superfluous window, but we really wanted snazzy gingham curtains. By the end of the week the rest of the group had raided their parents houses and we now had cutlery, crockery, some simple furniture and even paint.

That weekend was probably one of the best weekends in my ten year old life. I remember Dad and Toby (the boy I had a huge crush on and the unofficial leader of our group) doing most of the building while the rest of us stood around excitedly getting in the way. Early on the Saturday, Toby had pointed out that the small gate in my back fence which led to an alleyway behind the house, made the location of our super secret headquarters so much better as we would be able to hold covert night time sneak-out-the-bedroom-window meetings.

When I close my eyes and think of that weekend I can feel the warmth of the late summer sun streaming down on me. In my mind, we’re all in sepia tones as towards nightfall on the Sunday we sit inside a slightly off-kilter shed, red and white gingham curtains fluttering in the breeze. We’re whispering secrets to one another while eating tim-tams off plastic plates and drinking lemonade from metal camping cups. I see six shiny, happy, faces contemplating a future full of possibility and adventure. And I can almost actually hear my Dad, back in his vegetable patch, humming his favourite Greek folksong.

Photograph: National Museum of Australia