| 8.16.00 |
What is this roughness in my throat that begs me feed it and threatens to keep me from work? Is it my body changing seasons or the thrashes left by guilty love as it escaped into the air? At the end of last month I found the apartment for me and signed a lease on it expeditiously. Ever since, I've been waiting, and the important thing about the waiting is the time to let the excitement build. This is the last hurdle toward an independent life. More and more, visions of furniture arrangements and plants growing and fantastical living fill thoughts that pull at my cheeks. If I'd gotten to move sooner, I would've been too occupied with logistics to experience the significance of it. It really is better this way, even if waiting feels like ecstatic torture. Of course, it goes without saying that nabbing this apartment was the culmination of a stressful apartment hunt. I'd been searching... searching... searching morning and night and weekend by bicycle, becoming disillusioned by going rates for tiny spaces in excessive disrepair. Moreover, renters were snatching them up in mere hours, apparently unbothered by the high cost of dilapidated dwellings. Are people really getting paid that much? For my part, I thought I was going to have to pay more than I could afford to live in a place that felt comfortable. I'd even decided to put down a deposit on an apartment I liked well enough but didn't feel 100% sure about. It was one of those tall and old former hotels flanking Boren. The unit was sweetly located and under-priced, being on the fourth floor with southwest exposure and leaded glass windows. It had leaded glass French doors too and a cute kitchen that received lots of light -- every room received lots of light. I didn't like that it was $100 more per month than I wanted to pay. The fact that it was carpeted and part of large community wasn't ideal either. I'd hoped for a small old brick building with hardwood floors and a small enough community that I might get to know my neighbors. But increasing disillusion left me thinking I should take the first thing that would "do." I'd visited the Boren apartment twice trying to override the ambivalence. The first visit, I lingered long and even asked the cute manager to measure room dimensions because I just needed to be sure my furniture would fit. He happily obliged. On the second visit I caught my finger in the front door of the building and the wound bled and bled. The manager dressed the cut for me, allowed me to stand in each apartment once more, and then asked me to coffee. But I couldn't shake the doubt, and so decided to schedule appointments at two more buildings. I told myself that if neither one of those was "the one" I'd take the apartment on Boren. The first one wasn't the one. But the second, as soon as I walked in I knew I wanted it and I didn't care whether my stuff fit, because if it didn't fit, some of the stuff could go. Like that. The lesson is that if you have to go back a second time, it's not the one you want. So the apartment is in an old brick building. It's on the top floor facing northwest with as many windows as could be built in - even the closet has a window! Many of the fixtures are original and the hardwood floors are in good shape. The current occupant painted the walls pleasing colors that I will maintain. Downsides include the lack of an elevator and no bike storage. But the price is right. |
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