By Sarah Frankfurth

I left my house this morning and was reminded of how much I love living in the Tenderloin and especially in my building.  There was a sign taped to the door, warning us that the water was going to be shut off for an hour at noon and to plan accordingly.  I was rather surprised at this sign since having the water or the electricity shut off is a fairly common occurrence here and never before had we been given warning.  And those other times usually lasted much longer than one hour.  There have been several times when the hot water has mysteriously disappeared for days on end without any explanation much less a warning.  In fact, I have been living without hot water for about a month now.  I’ve had warm water, but not hot.   Not hot enough to take more than a hurried shower, not hot enough to feel like your dishes are sufficiently clean.  I’ve been washing my hair much less these days in response to this lack, since I don’t like to stay in the shower any longer than is absolutely necessary.   So once a week I boil water on the stove and add it to my bath to soak the built up dirt out of my body and wash my hair. Which isn't such a big deal.  I keep thinking, I should call Tony (the manager) and see what's up. But then I don't. And at first I thought, well there is an energy crisis after all, but I think that the water is heated the same way the building is heated and that's steam heat (for the radiators), because once the heat went out, and we didn't have hot water either until they replaced a valve.  At least that's what they said... But be that as it may, I was beginning to feel like heating up the water a couple more degrees wouldn't be SUCH a bad thing for the environment, now would it?  But really, I like these jabs at my fat and happy existence.  When my power goes out or my water disappears, I can pretend that I’m not in America for a moment.  I’m reminded that all these things that I have are just conveniences and not necessities (of course water is a necessity, but having it piped into your apartment is a convenience).

What made me smile and made me happy this morning when I saw that sign wasn’t the warning that it gave me.  It was the note that some other tenant had scratched at the bottom.  It said, “When it comes back on, will it be hot?”  I laughed to myself when I saw it and felt that everything I love about this neighborhood and this building I live in was somehow poignantly summed up in those words. 

Here is this building of totally random people who probably have nothing in common other than their utter passivity about their environment.  Their willingness to accept that all these strange things will work themselves out and the only voice they raise is in this anonymous note.  But I don't see this as a sign of weakness in any of us. I feel like it's a sign that we have more important things to worry about in life than having Alles in Ordnung. That's always something that's bothered me about life here, the fact that so many people freak out if they're made the slightest bit uncomfortable. They're totally disconnected from the reality of LIFE and existence. They don't have any concept of what fuels their little cells and what it means to live and breathe and be in touch with the whole humming buzzing vibration of existence.