I have this weird phobia about apartments I used to live in. I hate the thought of going back into them if I’ve moved my things to the new one. For a while, I don’t even like going to the neighborhood. There’s this paranoia that, I dunno, someone’s going to accuse me of trashing the place or leaving the oven on or throwing out my domestic garbage in the public receptacles.
I think it’s mostly derived from numerous experiences in which I didn’t so much move out of a place as flee it. First, moving would be a big hassle, and I wouldn’t have time to clean up after the movers left because I was following them to the new apartment, and plus I always had to leave the iguana behind for awhile waiting for a new cage or for someone to help me tear down the old one. Invariably the landlord would hear that I moved and decide to come in and start renovating or whatever, even though my lease hadn’t yet expired and legally I still occupied the space. Then a day later when I came back to feed Trendy there would be some hateful note taped to the wall (next to the notice that I was still in the process of leaving) and the cage door would be swinging open and I’d have to run around the dirty apartment looking for my lizard who was apparently set free in retribution.
I guess it’s not really a phobia if there’s a rational reason to dislike something.
It’s become so ingrained in me that even though my iguana’s dead and my last move was totally flawless, I was still pretty freaked to go back to the downtown loft and clean it after we moved. I hadn’t been back to my old block since, but it had been awhile and it was a beautiful warm night and we were running out of ingredients that can only be bought in Chinatown, so tonight I swung by.
I had no problems — the phobia’s faded. But it’s weird how a homeless guy humping a trashcan is actually a little disturbing when it’s no longer your neighborhood.