Oh the Pain of Loving You

We once lived in a bi-level apartment in Boerum Hill here in Brooklyn, a neighborhood I'm sure we'd never be able to afford again even though it's still exactly the same. Nothing has changed except the value of rental apartments in the area.  It was too big for us but it was quirky and one of those places I'll always remember fondly because so many things happened there.  The landlords lived in the large house downstairs, an older, hippie couple.  They were cool when I lost my job and couldn't pay the rent and we had to get a boarder for a year.  Brit or Bret I think was his name. A perfectly nice man, not young, a bit of a loner. He had long toenails and played extreme Frisbee, whatever that is.  We basically gave him the entire downstairs, which meant I barely cooked for a whole year.  He had to come upstairs to take showers but had a 1/2 bathroom downstairs to himself.  My landlord being a nervous sort, probably stressed quite a bit about this, came one day complaining about the length of showers being taken.  I told him P and I sometimes took one together or overlapped each other, so maybe it seemed like we took a longer one but instead it was two in one.  He said, no that he had timed it and it was definitely our tenant.  He said sometimes it would be almost 15 minutes and how we didn't realize it because we would be gone.  How our landlord knew all that was a little creepy but clearly he had studied this.  He and his wife were cool but they did some odd things like held some type of spiritual meetings in their bedroom on the bed, and with the most annoying people.  I say that because they would wait outside like scared children looking as though they were beamed in from another planet.  That bed which was custom built and giant sized housed he and his Vietnamese wife along with their 11 year old daughter.  This was none of my business but unfortunately the skylights in my room looked directly onto that bed so it became a curiosity.  So even though they were very nice, I always had that doubt that something weird was up in that house.  Plus they were wound a little tight for hippies. He seemed too angry at Brit, and that made me unclear on what this was all about.  When I assured him we'd talk to Brit about it, he backed down.  He stated maybe Brit was so unhappy and the only allowance for luxury he would give himself each day was a 15 minute shower.  I thought that was equally bizarre and incredibly compassionate logic.  It's always stuck with me.  I never fully understood where my landlord was coming from and we never talked to Brit.  But the premise of considering some far off notion on why someone is acting a certain way is something I've adopted. 

Sometimes people upset the hell out of me and I don't even understand the reasoning why or if it's warranted.  I give them the benefit of the doubt and just try to concentrate on other things like this cheap steak that was great fried up fast and high along with this tangy beet and tomato salad over dressed baby spinach.