move over, macgyver

i know, i know, too much radio silence, and i have much to report: meetings with living distant relatives, cemetery hunting for dead distant relatives, trips to exotic places like sheffield, bonfire night fireworks, and more. loads of photos waiting to be introduced to the world. but i feel it very important to state for the record that there are definite drawbacks to living alone in a large, albeit at times unbearably exciting, city in which one knows precisely nobody. one of these is that when you slice your finger wide open whilst attempting to slice your egg bagel from the local bakery and realize in a moment of horror as you watch the blood pouring down that not only are there are no band-aids in your apartment but that you probably need stitches but you don't really have health coverage here and the hospital is a mile away and walking to it with a finger wrapped in a dishtowel would be awfully inconvenient...there is nobody to run to the store for you to pick up some gauze and tape and, hell, some glue because a trip to the emergency room would be awfully expensive.

never fear: as i started going into mild shock while sitting on the kitchen floor with said dish towel wrapped around said finger, i maintained enough self-awareness to reach up to the counter and grab said bagel because blood sugar levels or something, and, after eating both it and a couple of oreos, fashioned a bandage of some sort out of strips of dish towel (sorry, landlord) fastened with brown packing tape. it's not soaked with blood yet, so i think i can forego both the er and the glue.

first the hot water, then the oven, then the elevator w/out working lights (i can affirm that riding in an almost pitch black elevator is, indeed, beyond the pale of creepy to the territory of blood curdling), now my finger. despite its best efforts, i won't let this apartment destroy me. i shall conquer it.

this is war.