dear internet,

for the last six months i was subletting an apartment in a neighbourhood that was quiet and green, where at night i heard birdsong, and the hum of the refrigerator, and one time the flats on either side of me simultaneously playing robyn's dancing on our own, and occasional planes and ubiquitous sirens. subletting was like walking on tiptoe, as if nothing i was doing really counted, not even the time i broke the washing machine or had to fix the pipe that was spewing kitchen-sink water across the floors. now i'm in an apartment on a street parallel to the main station which means that there are always layers of sound: the blaring playlists of the people who linger outside my window, and the cars whose lights travel across my walls and ceiling, and people coughing and shouting and, unfortunately on the weekend, throwing up; and the tuneless shouts from the club down the road; and sometimes the rhythmic thunk of someone dribbling a basketball. it's nice to feel like i am in a city again: to step out of my doorway and smell weed and pee, to ignore people's half-hearted heckling. i like that the man serving me at the asian restaurant on the corner of my street took one look at me and said, statement not question, "extra chilli". it's overwhelming, but i like emerging from my doorway into a sea of people that have somewhere to be and are all going in the other direction. my room is only halfway set up—i have posters washi-taped to my wall, but also cardboard boxes and dismantled (unmantled?) ikea furniture—but at night when the lights flick on in the stairway of the apartment opposite me, and i think of all the other people around me living their lives, it feels like home.

love,
t