The cool thing about Belgian architects is, they love their light. Most apartments come equipped with large bay windows and every room of my humble abode has a natural source of light coming through some cleverly devised source or another, while the open space kitchen/living room/dining room boast wall to wall floor to ceiling windows on one end and a huge semicircular lot of windows on the other. As a DIY challenged single girl I had qualms about living here when I first moved in, but if poor people elsewhere can live without a roof over their heads I can certainly make do with curtainless windows. So no, there's no unexpected Poulette-like twist in the tale at this point, for indeed I did manage quite well. The human capacity to adapt is amazing people, I tell you, ah-maze-ing, and pretty soon I was living my own little Truman Show in my very own little glass box. I'm not a complete doofus mind you, so I was vaguely aware that the neighbouring apartments had a pretty clear view of the goings on within my castle. But bah! reasoned I, it's not like these people know me so why exactly should I care (because most people are born with a healthy sense of shame, you might cry out in reply, but perhaps this story will shut you up and you will realise that my sense of proportion in life can be way off at times)? And I didn't. What I did do was a number of embarrassing things we all do when home alone (oh no bitches, don't you go all hoity-toity on me and pretend you don't. Because I know. You do). So yes, I practiced some Britney dance routines to her videos in front of the TV. Uh-huh, I did my yoga stretches too. There might have been some mouthing along to the lyrics of my favourite tunes into empty beer bottles invovled and I wasn't always careful about ensuring that only my fully clothed body would be in plain view. Ok, here goes: UNTIL. Until a few months ago I went down to my friendly local White Nights DVD rental place, told my friendly local DVD rental guy I'd forgotten my membership card, to which he replied: oh never mind, you live on Rue xxxx xxxxxxxxx right? Wicked meaningful wink. Wicked. Meaningful. Wink. I mumbled my reply, grabbed the DVD in a floury of activity and left, my brain empty save for the flashing red letters that read: NOTE TO SELF: BUY CURTAINS.