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LIVING HERE? LIVING THERE? KEEP IT UP

January 5, 2026 by

Whether living here, or wherever, it’s getting easier to see a different image, where things look tight.
How tight?
Reddit has an idea of how tight.
But I’m thinking tighter with more people in smaller spaces.
I’ll start at the beginning, a one room ‘studio’ on NW Lovejoy, Portland, Oregon at the top of a three story building.

 

Q:Why is a studio apartment called a studio apartment?
A: I understand what it is, typically a small one room apartment but why is the word “studio” used to describe them? I usually associate that word with like a music studio or a dance studio etc.

 

its an attempt estate agents to make terrible living conditions sound fancy or romantic. Like ‘fixer-upper’ sounds better than ‘total fucking dump’.

 

Are studios really considered terrible living conditions? I actually prefer them

 

You’re saving money that way. Low square footage and having your sleeping area in plain sight are not considered positives by the average renter.

 

Generally speaking they are at the very low end of the property market.

 

The Ladies Man Studio

I associate the studio apartment as the lair of the Ladies Man, a balding, recently divorced, middle aged man who loved the ladies a little too much, or as he said, “They couldn’t keep their hands off me.”
He had had a good life, a good job, a house. Then he didn’t.
He was still well-dressed and well-spoken, just no house, no garage to park his car in, no one to smoke with.
That last part came into focus when he knocked on my studio apartment door and asked if I had a match.
I handed him a lighter that he flamed up to the cigarette hanging from his lips . . . backwards.
I watched him light the filter and take a big drag before it hit him.
He turned and opened the door to his studio across the hall and disappeared with his embarrassment.
This was a cool cat kind of guy, a head back, looking down his nose, kind of cool.
I didn’t say anything, but I thought, ‘If I do take up smoking I’m going non-filter in case I mess up, get messed up, too messed up.’
He lasted a few months.
One morning he was late, grabbed a quick smoke, tossed the butt in an ashtray on his way out the door.
The butt hit the ashtray, then the couch, smoldered, and caught fire two hours later.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. I was across the hall, hearing sirens, banging on doors, then quiet.
When I opened my door the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see across the hall.
After a quick review of grade school fire drills, windows open or closed, I closed them, put on a coat, left my door unlocked, and low-crawled out the back.
The firemen used my studio as a base, broke down the fire bug’s door, and put it out before chopping the window frame out of the opposite wall and throwing the charred couch out in the alley.
I asked how it started. They gave me the couch story.
The question I asked then: Can one person live in a small studio apartment.
A: Yes.
Q: Can two people live in the same space?
A: They’d have to be the right two.
Q: Three people? Four?
A: They could, yes, but they’d need experience living in tight quarters. It would take tolerance and cooperation and a schedule.

 

Living Here, Living There

This is a picture of the top American military commanders.
They were following orders to report in, to show up for a televised talk from the secretary of defense and the big guy from a stage in front of them.
This is their happy face, their work face, their sad face, their ‘what the hell is this’ face.
What stands out to me is their age group, which I’d say goes between forty years old and sixty.
As someone who has lived on Army bases, I can say without any reservations that these men have survived terrible living conditions that make a small studio apartment feel like a luxury penthouse.
They’re not silver spoon men, and if they are now, they’ve still gone through the grind of military lifestyle living.
I can only speak of boot camp, advanced individual training, and permanent duty station, and out after two years.
These guys have signed on for the long haul, no matter what, no matter where.
They know how to follow orders, and give orders.
Unlike too many non-service people who see themselves in their fantasy life as generals and admirals if only they’d signed up, that’s not where you start.
These guys remember where they started, how hard it was, and how rewarding life can be.
They are the same people assigned the task of making life unrewarding for others if ordered to do so.
Do they question their assignments, or just do the work?

 

Follow These Orders

You don’t have to be a nurse to know this: We are here to help others.
Not a nurse? Yes you are.
You’re a nurse when you put a bandaid on, wrap a sprained ankle, give your wife or husband a back rub.
You’re a nurse when you perform the activities of daily life, when you clean things up, put things away, and help others.
But not you? You’re no nurse?
Of course, my mistake Dr. Bodine. You are obviously a brain surgeon.
And you are also a General Admiral and an Admiral General.
Most of what we are, what you are, is an accumulation of education showing what you’ve learned.

 

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

 

I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

 

That’s Nick Carraway remembering his wise father at the beginning of Great Gatsby.
This is Nick at the end:

 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

 

The Soprano’s had a line, “I tried to get out, but I got sucked back into it.”
What do you do when you start feeling pulled away from what you’re trying to accomplish?
Do you go with the flow, or stand your ground?
Do you give in, or draw a line?
Do you lean on your learning, your experience, your self-respect?
That’s what our men in uniform are trained to do. Will they?
Or will they cave to the blundering bluster of an undecorated, unqualified, but effective, ass-kisser?

 

PS: In an equitable society the rising top lifts the bottom the way a rising tide lifts all boats.

 

PSS: In a back-assward time in history the rising top sees how other societies use force and ask, “If not now, when. If not us, who?”
Let’s be good nurses and citizens and avoid putting force in the hands of neglectful power mongers.
Last reminder: We’re living here and there. Let that be your guide.

 

 

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About David Gillaspie

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