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2002-07-29 | 9:45 a.m.

My old apartment in Oakland was so beautiful. I had always assumed that I needed a light-flooded place, but now I know that's not exactly true. I need light, most assuredly, but I can abide darkness.

This place had hardwood floors that had been stained dark as mahogany with matching doors, doorframes, and even picture rails in the dining room and hall. There was a stone fireplace, built-in china hutch in the dining room and built-in bookshelves in the living room, and a single French door leading to a small stuccoed balcony overlooking the tree-lined street below. There was a door leading from the dining room out to an inside stairwell, with another flat across the stairwell from our door, so the cool thing was that the door had pebbled glass, so it felt as if we were living in an old Hollywood detective agency.

The apartment was also one short block to Lake Merritt.

I often wished that I could buy the building outright. When I moved into this house, with its bland open spaces, I immediately wanted to remake it in the image of that old flat. Stain the floors dark, and so on. Frank urged me not to; he thinks the colors are right the way they are.

I have this big fantasy about coming into some money and buying this place from Duff's parents, then redoing it however I want. I'll add a big built-in hutch on the dining room wall with a pass-through shelf to the kitchen, just like in the Branciforte Street flat I lived in with my mother. God, that place was beautiful. It hurts to think about it. The owner offered to sell it to my Mom for, like, 15 grand. And she could have done it if she'd appealed to her mother. But she didn't want to appeal to her mother. Not that I blame her, but when she didn't buy the place, he sold it to someone else, and then we had to move, and we never lived anywhere as nice as that again.

The kitchen in that place was huge, with a full pantry. Gorgeous dark woods, moldings, wainscoting. My Mom insists it was all real mahogany. I don't know. There were even sliding doors between the living room and dining room. Gorgeous built-in china cabinet in the dining room next to the fireplace. There was a paneled phone alcove. When you first came in, you had to go upstairs to get to our flat, and there was a brass handle that would open the door at the bottom of the stairs, though only if the door were unlocked, which it pretty much never was. And at the top of the stairs, there was a window seat.

Ah, hell.

I guess this is why they say it doesn't do to dwell on the past. But I sure do love old places with darkened corners.

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