Actor Housing

Actor Housing
1/6/08

Tonight little miss plumber went into action. I managed to get the shower nozzle off and removed the hideous water saver. So much water was being saved that I could barely rinse myself off. I mean really. There ARE limits. If it takes you 20 minutes with a drizzle to rinse yourself vs four minutes with a waterfall - what are we SAVING????!! STUPID, HATEFUL, DUMB IDEA water savers. And those hideous new toilets that you have to flush three times to get you-know-what down when the old one-gulpers would do the trick quite nicely. Dumb! Where's Mr. Crapper when you need him? Ah the ecologically minded have wonderful aspirations and no sense whatsoever. Or let's say their execution of the ideas are dreadful. Let's not drill in the Anwar, let's be dependent on foreign oil oh yeah....but don't get me started. That's for another blog called "How Stupid Can You Get" or "The Other Point of View" or actually what I'd call it is "180 Degrees" which is sometimes what my internal temperature feels like when dealing with idiots or water saving devices.

Actors housing: this is a brand new place recently constructed. Cheaply recently constructed - in certain areas. Hollow doors, of course, plastic fake wood floors. Nice kitchen cabinets. But whomever designed the apartments' interiors must have been nuts or should have stayed in Architectural School a little longer. Somebody should have seriously questioned some of the design choices. Two features in particular: The bedroom has a partial glass wall with a door in it. Actually half a wall with a glass door . You enter your apartment and right there on the left or right side (depending on your apt.) is the glass windowwall/door. Ergo no privacy whatsoever. And it's not like the view from your bedroom windowwall/door is interesting for it just looks at the entrance hallway. And you can't put any artwork on glass (unless you want a suction cup frog decal) so it's totally useless and an incredible stupid idea. We tacked up a blanket and a sheet we'd brought to close it off - from the morning light.

But the worst design of all, bar none, is the bathroom sink. Ever so pretty to look at. It's made of hammered copper I believe (and I do think it's real copper), a round sink in a square wooden unit. The unit is higher than normal which must be nice for tall people. But the faucet, which is a very graceful goosed necked thing is positioned too far to the rear, so that you cannot wash your face without getting water all over yourself, the sink unit, and the floor. AND because the sink has no overflow drain hole, no air is getting where it needs to get in order for the sink to drain properly. I bend over the tub and wash my face that way, husband uses the kitchen sink. Whomever designed that sink faucet combo should be forced to live with it themselves for their lifespan.*

The closet is another absurdity. It has the ubiquitous, cheap do-it-yourself plastic hanging racks that look not dissimilar to what you find in your older refrigerators. You know, that lovely open plastic shelving - like an over rack. And because the closets are too narrowly constructed for the placement of the rack units, when your clothes are hanging, the folding accordion style doors mash everything as they are opened and closed. Another 6 inches in depth would have done the trick, but that would have cut into your 9 X 11 bedroom. But then the accordion doors aren't latched correctly on the top of their tracks, which actually helps the situation.

The furnishings - by Triad Stage, aren't too bad. The Board gave us a nice greeting packet of toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, soap, dishwasher fluid, etc. VERY helpful to an actor who has just arrived and is starting all day rehearsals, memorizing script at night and doesn't have a whole lot of time to shop for such. Especially that first day.

Our Company Manager, Jimmy T did a nice job of decorating the place with various pictures and vases filled with strange tall grasses. I understand that Preston's creativity was also involved. Apparently he found some Japanese writing which he framed and put on the wall. It's as homey as it could be.

But "City View" (the name of the place) it is NOT. We look out on the BENNETT water tower and a huge electrical tower (or was it a cell tower?). To the left is the train depot. And trains go through several times an hour (all through the night) with whistles blaring. (An actress moving in as we were vacating said she enjoyed the sound of trains. Good for her.) The place is also not far from the Fire Dept. So you also hear the sirens days and night. AND because the place is still under construction there's constant noise going on. Sleep is hard to come by.

*Sink update: the handyman (a great guy) came over and discovered a piece of wood??? in the faucet which golly gee was slowing down the water flow from the tap. Once he removed it things got a little better. But we still washed our faces in the tub.