Today is a day that, when I let myself into my studio apartment, the antique Iranian wool rug that reaches almost baseboard to baseboard and the comfy corduroy couch and the art all over the walls and the windows that go all the way up to the cove in the ceiling don’t give me the cozies. They give me the lonelies. There isn’t even a woman-of-a-certain-age cat to slide out of a windowsill and greet me. Not even a goldfish to swish its tail and surface for flakes. There isn’t even a fucking plant. Why don’t I have a plant?I turn on the stereo, but the music is irritating. Peeking behind the sandalwood screen I use to divide my sleeping area, I see I didn’t make the bed. Which is also irritating. When I rummage around my teeny galley kitchen, all I find is yucky take-out leftovers and a quarter-bottle of amaretto, which I don’t even remember buying, let alone drinking three-quarters of. No real food, no wine. No cats. No plants. No good music, no housekeeper. It’s like the saddest version of Goodnight Moon ever.Work has been a nightmare since yesterday, when the city handed down some upsetting funding realities.
