It was a hot Sunday, the temperatures meddling in the high 80s with a callous easterly breeze.

I had started to take note of the weather again more in the past few days, preparing myself for a move back into an apartment without climate control. Office-dwelling is a unique brand of homelessness that brings with it the comfort of a thermostat, something seen as more of an extravagance in the low-end rental market of Los Angeles. In summers past, I had spent many a day opening all five windows in my flat, anticipating the rush of the calming crosswind. Sleeping under behind desk required no such faith. Just a click of the digital controls.

Today’s reminder of impending move-in came courtesy of a voicemail from Rob, assuring me that he’d be out in two days’ time. Appropriate, I thought, that Rob should endeavor to surrender my apartment to me on a Tuesday. One of the smattering of little known facts I picked up from my college education was that of the naming of certain calendar days for figures in Norse mythology. Tuesday, as it is in English, derives from the Norse deity Tyr, the god of war and victory. I wondered if my first day back as a common domestic resident would feel so victorious.

Looking around my office–a place I had on multiple occasions unwittingly but literally called “home”–the idea of moving again seemed like no small task. Duffel bags of clothes ergonomically crammed beneath my desk. Various items spread out inconspicuously about the office–my suits hanging deep in a storage room, a large suitcase containing shoes and belts tucked under a supply drawer, a tower of boxes hidden in the corner of the small, largely unused closet. A delicate balance of utility and subtlety. And after forty days of it all, I felt a sense of pride in making it all work. Never was I seriously questioned about my place there, and I trusted that was due in great part to securing that balance.

But despite the sentimental kinship I felt with the set-up, I was very much looking forward to the move. My back now harbored a familiar ache from the daily discomfort of sleeping on temporary bedding. My eyes seemed to take on the hazy redness of a marijuana smoker more and more with each passing day. The stress of constantly posturing to conceal my lodging there had taken its toll. I was no longer the peppy socialite I had been a month earlier. Once the party whip, I had slipped down the pecking order to a measly attaché.

As that thought crossed my mind, I felt a nagging urge to take a nap. Remembering being walked in on a few weeks earlier, and honestly far too lazy to manage the three-step setup, I opted not to set up my air mattress and instead retrieved a couple of oversized cushions from our two armchairs and arranged them side-by-side on the floor. Then I did something I hadn’t done since I moved into the office. I reached for the thermostat and clicked the air conditioning off. By the time my nap was over, I’d be just uncomfortable enough to wake up and move to make a change.

Which is exactly what I was looking forward to.

– TOH