If you're not living in one now, chances are you've lived in one in the past: those enormous, impersonal residential affairs that advertise state-of-the-art fitness centers and multiple swimming pools. I've lived in five different large-size complexes of varying quality, from places that featured mold to places that featured fresh-baked cookies daily. All were significantly different from each other, save for one characteristic: my neighbors simply didn't interact with each other.

Despite all my friendly smiles and greetings, my neighbors at these complexes never seemed to want to enter into conversation. They were content to keep their heads down, avoiding eye contact when we passed on the stairs or at the mailboxes. Defeated, I abandoned my efforts and began to accept the evident reality of anonymity. And then I moved into my current residence.

I just might live in the best apartment building ever. Okay, maybe not, but it's pretty damn great. It's old and not well maintained, and crackheads regularly wander through the neighborhood, but no matter. As long as I live in Houston, I'm not moving out of this place. Seventeen units are arranged around a courtyard – "It's like a ghetto version of Melrose Place without the pool," a visitor has noted. Instead of a pool, our courtyard sports a deck with ample outdoor furniture. It's a popular gathering spot for residents and friends, even though the cheap, untreated wood used for the deck is rotting and full of holes. A simple night of hanging out quickly turns into lounge roulette, with everyone wondering whose chair will go crashing through the planks next. Welcome to Montroach Place.

"Uh," you might be thinking, "I thought she said this was the best complex, not the worst." I just haven't described the awesomeness yet – my neighbors. I'd rather risk falling through a deck than move away from the unique atmosphere that thrives here. Everyone is very different from each other; many of us would not be likely candidates for friends in the world outside of our little haven, but in here it doesn't matter. Of course, there's always an exception – one girl doesn't speak to anyone else, perhaps out of shyness or lack of interest. But the occupants of all the other units are friendly to the point that I was a bit taken aback when I first moved in. Now that I've become accustomed to it, I can't believe that I put up with anything else. We all know each others' names, occupations, relationship statuses; we hang out with each others' friends; we borrow each others' stuff. If someone's car gets towed or is in the shop, we don't hesitate to turn to each other for help. If I'm leaving town for a few days, I know that I can easily find someone to look in on my cats. If I'm bored and in a social mood, all I need to do is sit in the courtyard for awhile and someone is bound to join me. I love this place.

On election night, Eggs and I dragged a TV outside and sat on the deck to watch the voting results roll in. Before long, ten neighbors had joined us and an all-out celebration ensued. When Hurricane Ike hit a couple of months ago and we were without electricity for a few days, we all staved off our boredom by playing board games in the candlelit courtyard. It's definitely not an ideal environment for the anti-social, but it's perfect for those who crave an alternative to anonymous living situations. If that describes you, I encourage you to scout out a similar place. They might be harder to find than generic corporate-run complexes, but they're out there. Believe me, the atmosphere is worth the search.

Why is it that no matter how strategically I attempt to position myself at shows, I always seem to end up behind a refrigerator? Short people of the world, I solved this mystery last Friday. But you're not gonna like it.

Eggs and I went to a Widespread Panic show on Friday, and during set break, we moved closer to the stage. "Nice!" I thought, scanning the area in front of me. The only tall people around were dudes with short girlfriends who, no doubt, were engaged in the same mission as I was. Was I really going to actually get to see a show?!

Not so much. I don't know why I'd never noticed it before, but it all makes so much sense now. Short people, who have lived their whole lifetime being vertically challenged, cope at shows by staking out spots early. The hope is that they'll get there before The Beasts (aka anyone over 5'10") arrive, and maybe, just maybe, they'll for once be able to clearly see the band.

I saw the flaw in this way of thinking for the first time that night. The Beasts, who are accustomed to being tall and perpetually having a great view, are in no hurry to get back to standing amid the crowd. They're hanging out at the bar, lingering as they smoke their cigarettes and laugh with their fellow giants. They know they'll be able to easily see the stage from wherever they're standing, so why rush back?

Meanwhile, we short people are huddled near the front of the stage, sneaking suspicious glances over our shoulders. And no matter what we do, these ogres always return and somehow ooze into spaces in front of us. And we wind up staring at a bloody Bonnaroo 2003 t-shirt for the rest of the show. I've never really paid close attention to the process, typically looking up just before the show started to find that my plan had been sabotaged. But now I know the truth - these Beasts, they know what they're doing. They're tall and dangerous, and they're out to steal your view.

Short people, I say we band together and combat this crime against our stature.

Or, you know, just bitch about it to our friends at shows.

I just purchased a new phone online (my current one desperately needs to be retired), and had to extend my contract to get the upgrade price. This means that I'm going to be giving T-Mobile business until at least 2010...and that got me to thinking.

The most constant aspect of my life for the past several years has been (drum roll please) my cellular provider. Is that incredibly sad to anyone else? Everything else in my life has changed (excluding family, and even then relationships have fluctuated over the years) - my car (or lack thereof), hair, friends, city of residence, career path, weight, significant other...and on and on. But my cell phone for some reason has been a different story.

I signed up with T-Mobile before they were actually called T-Mobile; anyone else remember the VoiceStream days? I opened an account in 2000, which means that I have been making payments to the company for over 30% of my life. I can't say that about any other area of my life - I tend to be a bit finicky and flighty, not the most loyal of customers. It's not even as if I've had a great experience with T-Mobile. It certainly hasn't been horrible, but I have had some occasional issues with their service. Maybe you're thinking that I've been trapping myself into the affiliation by upgrading and changing plans continuously (and thus being forced to extend my contract), but that's not true either. My contract has expired a few times, and I always voluntarily stayed, no verbal abuse necessary.

It turns out I've been in a steady, exclusive relationship for eight years, and I didn't even know it. It could quite possibly be the healthiest relationship in my life - we have our ups and downs, but we always manage to work it out. T-Mobile, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think I love you.

The always-funny ImprovEverywhere delivers again, this time crashing a little league baseball game in a way the young players won't forget for some time:

Improve your English vocabulary and help end world hunger simultaneously! As someone who enjoys reading the dictionary and is also sensitive to global issues, I absolutely adore FreeRice.com. The site uses a custom database with thousands of words ranging from beginner's level to advanced. Users play a definition-matching game that adjusts in real time to their performance, ensuring that it's challenging without becoming too frustrating. And here's the truly great part: for each word you get right, the site (a sister site to Poverty.com) donates 20 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program to help end hunger.

In just five minutes, I managed to help donate 1120 grains of rice - plus I learned several new words! So far, over 25 billion grains of rice have been donated. Head on over to make your contribution and smarten yourself up!

I left my makeshift office at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and walked briskly in the direction of the nearest bus stop. [By 'bus stop', I mean a mound of dirt adjacent to the road.] I couldn't resist the urge to stop in one of the stores advertising their happy concoctions of juices and milkshakes. I ordered my new favorite flavor - chirimoya - then continued my journey. Walking in Lima was a hazard in itself - I always had to stay alert, lest one of the maniacs on the road accomplish what seemed to be a city-wide goal: running me over.

I safely made it to the main road and began to climb the precarious pedestrian bridge that extended to the other side. I never managed to overcome my fear of that bridge. Children would go streaking by me, laughing giddily, while I tried to shuffle along as quickly as possible, my heart in my throat. But this particular day, I spotted something that actually made me halt while still on the bridge, prolonging my time on the structure of death.

But no matter - I was mesmerized: on the road below me, I saw...a goat standing on top of a bus. Just...standing there, looking at me as if to ask what I thought was so out of the ordinary. What further baffled me was that this goat was on a bus with a luggage rack, indicating that this was not a city bus. Does this mean that the goat traveled on top of the bus for a rather long distance, from some outlying town? I'd never before encountered this method of goat transportation, and was thoroughly baffled.

And of course that was the one stinking day I didn't have my camera.

So. I was spacing out in the direction of the TV a couple days ago, when a commercial actually made me snap out of my reverie and pay attention. It was for a new show called Step It Up and Dance, to be hosted by Elizabeth Berkley. I glared at the TV in horror. Aren't there enough dance competition shows out there already? And what the hell is up with Saved by the Bell alumni popping up as hosts? Mario Lopez - fine, I get it. He was named runner-up when he competed on Dancing With the Stars, so maybe it makes sense that he's now hosting America's Best Dance Crew. Kinda.

But Elizabeth Berkley? You can tell me till you're blue in the face that she trained in dance growing up, but I ask you: what the hell has she ever done professionally that would land her a hosting role on a dance show? I searched 'elizabeth berkley dancing' on Google images, and all I found were pictures of her and a pole from that blockbuster hit Showgirls. Maybe none of the dance show hosts have anything to do with dance, but I have to admit that I'm worried about the sudden resurgence of washed-up Saved by the Bell stars.

I can see it now: America's Best Headbangers, hosted by Mark-Paul Gosselaar; The Illest Step Kru in the Nation, hosted by Lark Voorhies; Cheerleaders Are, Like, Really Good Dancers Too, with Tiffani-Amber Thiessen; The Nation's Best Dancers With Two Left Feet, hosted by Dustin Diamond. Oh jebus, I think I need to take some ibuprofen immediately.

I lost myself a few months ago, and I've been struggling to relocate my identity and purpose in life ever since. In the past month, I've learned that one thing is certain: a technical support agent, I ain't. Hey, I tried it on for size, so you at least have to give me that. But some people simply aren't meant for the customer service industry, and I have discovered that I'm one of them.

Never mind that I didn't know a whole lot about web hosting; I knew that I would quickly learn everything necessary to assist clients. It was the getting yelled at by complete pricks that finally did me in. It made me cry. Pathetic, I realize, but true. No amount of coworkers and supervisors instructing me to not "take it personally" and to "not take it to heart" could alleviate this problem. Looking back over my life thus far, it's evident that I am overly sensitive. I know this about myself, and I've certainly tried to correct this flaw. If it were so simple to just turn it off, to let the insults "just roll off" me as suggested by those surrounding me, I doubt I would have made it to 26 still wearing the crown of The Biggest Crybaby in the Universe. Honestly.

I still remember the first customer who yelled at me on the phone. It bothered me that much. His name is Jay Rodrigues, he's a freshman at UPenn (and therefore thinks he's superior to the rest of the world, apparently), he's a complete and total douchebag, and he has a particularly ugly Adam's apple. Ah, the joys of Google.

Anyway, this jerkface called in on behalf of an organization with which he didn't even appear to be directly involved. When I asked for account information, he replied, "I don't know, they just called me in on this." I should have ended the call there, as the company doesn't provide support to individuals who are unable to verify the account. However, I thought that I would do Mr. Rodrigues a favor and see if I could locate the problem for him. I found that the website of interest had incorrectly set name servers, an issue that must be rectified with the domain's registrar.

When I gave this asshole that information, he exploded. He flooded my ear with a cacophony of ignorant insults and screams, vehemently insisting that this must have been our fault. Even though there was no way the DNS changes could have been made on my (former) company's end; even though the the mistake clearly was made by someone associated with the website. It was an easy fix - it was just a typo that needed to be corrected with the registrar. But Mr. Jay "Ultimate Douchebag" Rodrigues refused to accept that. He instead informed me that there was no way anyone associated with the organization could have made this mistake, because "they don't know anything about servers." Looks like Lord Ivy League doesn't know anything about servers either, if he's unable to distinguish them from name servers, which were actually the cause of the problem at hand. "I run an internet business," he kept telling me screaming at me. Then he started cursing at me, pitching his pathetic little conniption and threatening to move the site elsewhere. Good luck with that, dude. Switching hosts won't change the fact that you're an idiot. I would not recommend doing business with this guy. Unless, of course, you enjoy being unjustifiably yelled at by ignorant, egotistical bags of douche. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

Are all UPenn/Wharton students ignorant douchebags? Or did the admissions people just make a mistake in letting this one in?

There were more assholes after this one, but Jay still sticks out in my mind. You never forget your first, or so the saying goes, eh? Maybe I can't blame Jay, or any of the other pricks. Perhaps I spent too long in my false ivory tower at grad school over the past couple of years, where people were always treated with at least a modicum of respect. When I decided that I did not actually want to pursue epidemiology, I was faced with the prospect of having to start again from the bottom of a different industry. So I guess I should have been prepared for how ugly it could be.

I lasted a month before I just couldn't take it anymore. I died a little bit every time I walked in the building, and it was starting to cause problems. I loved my coworkers, and the company itself was great - everyone was super nice and the environment was totally laid-back. But outside of work, I had begun to morph into someone I didn't like. I kept picking fights with Jim for no real reason, I had a headache all the time, I was constantly stressed, and I never got enough sleep. So I quit.

So here I am again, with no bloody idea what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Other people out there seem able to pick a path and stick with it, but that's proven rather difficult for me: neuroscientist, physiatrist, dermatologist, disability evaluator, optometrist, veterinarian, epidemiologist. I'm done with the whole health field. I clearly can't sustain interest in it for long enough. Too bad my BS in Neuroscience and MPH work in Epi aren't really conducive to pursuing career paths outside of health care.

Damn.

Ah, the joys of public transportation. Me, I like the unpredictability of it all, never knowing what I'm going to encounter each day as I approach the bus stop. Often my fellow wayfarers are Spanish-speaking women; I lower the volume on my not-an-iPod and try to follow the conversation. Eavesdropping, you might call it. I prefer to think of it as practicing a foreign language. There's usually a homeless person or two along for the ride, some obviously mentally ill, some not. They always seem to disembark at random locations. They don't seem to solicit donations from me as often as when I'm in a car; perhaps they figure that if I'm on the bus too, I don't have much to offer them.

I occasionally encounter stranger characters, however, and it's often a challenge for me to decide how to behave. Last week, for instance, I found myself without an umbrella during a rainstorm as I left work. I hastened to the bus stop which, I gratefully remembered, had a shelter. However, as I approached, I noticed an elderly man slumped over in one corner of the shelter. He had a walker in front of him, 2 empty bottles of MD 20/20 beside him, and drool hanging from his agape mouth. And the entire shelter was filled with the distinct, pungent aroma of urine. What does one do in such a situation? I considered calling the police, then I thought maybe I should call METRO, but was ultimately unsure which course of action I should follow. Two women soon joined us in the shelter, and the three of us waited uncomfortably, desperate for the bus to arrive so we could escape the odor and the rain.

Of course, the bus was 30 minutes late, leaving me ample time to berate myself for my inaction, but apparently not enough time to build up the courage to do something about it.

Bus 1, Cereal 0