You Know You've Lived In An Artist's Community Too Long When...

I know that at the beginning of this month I announced that I was going to post every single day and I have already messed that up by missing yesterday.

That's because yesterday was the sort of day that inspired me to look out for my own mental health take a brief hiatus at my parents' house in the country (which is where I am now). Nothing significantly terrible happened, it was just a combination of...

- the bed bug scare
- over-hearing the people that smell like dead hamsters loudly declare that they definitely don't have any corpses in their room
- locking myself in the basement while doing massive loads of laundry
- waiting for an eternity to get back into my apartment (the maintenance guy stayed up all night playing video games and I had to wait for him to wake up and take a shower)
- flooding my bathroom floor while taking a shower (my drain has problems).

There was definitely a point in there when I was near tears. It was the bathroom flood that did it.

So I did what any mature twenty-something would do: I cleaned up all the water on the floor, threw the rest of my dirty laundry in the car, and drove to Mom and Dad's house.

I'll go back tomorrow, armed with a supersonic cover for my mattress and a stomach full of home-cooked food. But sometimes, a mental health day or two away from the city is necessary.

I know I've talked about wanting to move out before, but this time I think I'm actually going to go through with it. This bed bug thing has made me wake up and realize that my beloved artist community is actually pretty gross.

I think I'll make a snarky list about it...

Ten Ways To Tell You've Lived In An Artist's Community For Too Long:

1. When you hear a dog barking in the hallway, you're not sure if it's an actual dog or just your eccentric neighbor.

2. Whenever ANYONE offers you baked goods of ANY kind, you ask them to recite the ingredients to make sure there won't any weird surprises an hour later.

3. All of your friends refer to you as "the heterosexual one."

4. The very thought of your next door neighbor's constant cloud of incense and marijuana makes you want to vomit all over her hemp door decorations.

5. You are the only person you know who doesn't have an event in their past that can be referred to as "the nervous breakdown."

6. "RENT" used to be your favorite movie but now you can barely sit through it.

7. You're tired of eating stinky vegan food at potlucks.

8. Your friends call you by your existential commune nickname, "Sweater."

8. The little old Asian man at the local mini-mart has a one-dollar lottery ticket ready for you when you walk in.

9. You put two 8's on this list because it is your creative right to do so. You are willing to argue with anyone and, if prompted to, will even deliver a 3 - 5 paragraph statement regarding the meaning of this artistic choice.

10. You are the only girl you know who shaves her armpits.

11. You keep a list in your journal entitled "People Who Are Likely To Go Postal."

12. One of your birthday presents was a gigantic can of PBR wrapped up in festive wrapping paper.

13. You've seen way too many naked people just by being in the wrong room at the wrong time.

14. When you're coming home and you see an ambulance nearby, your instinct is to worry that someone finally either over-dosed or committed suicide.

15. The friends you had in college now refer to you as "the hippy."

16. You know several ways to cook Ramen.

17. The very word "kombucha" makes you want to hurl.

18. Whenever you tell stories about your living situation to people who don't live there, they can't stop laughing and probably think you're making it up.

19. You can make fun of hipsters in approximately 999 different ways, despite the fact that some people mistake you for one at times.

20. Your diet consists primarily of coffee and sandwiches.

Ack. In case you couldn't tell, most of these apply directly to me. I'm exaggerating a little bit for the sake of comedy, but not much.

It's probably time for a change...

I'm not always good with change. Hmmfph.