When I first moved to New York, my friends and I shared a one-bedroom apartment with a pitbull named Penelope. It was very clearly her apartment and not ours. After a month of Penelope’s antics-–and having to feed her raw chicken three times a day-–we finally moved into our own apartment! It was far from perfect, but it really felt ours. Our bright little sitcom apartment. I could always count on coming home and laughing with my friends. Outside our door I spoke spanish with our neighbors, learned to use a laundromat, and bought groceries at a little store under the Williamsburg bridge. On the best days I walked to a pool the size of a lake and swam then headed home to throw little dinner parties.
So, while my current apartment far exceeds this little one in the categories of square-footage, amenities, convenience, and non-toxicity, I think the bright little apartment is worthy of a blog post.
What’s that, tucked in the trees? Why, it’s apartment number two!Meet its former residents.So many windows, so much light.The light made even solo breakfasts exciting.This bookshelf? Anda found it on the curb.Outside there were always unattended cars playing really good salsa and reggaeton.The school down the block had the biggest blacktop!And this was the view from one of our subway stops.
Last time I told you about why I love roommates in general. Today I’m here to write about one of the reasons I’ve loved living with my current roommates. Two words: taste tests.
It all started last October when Marika pointed out that we had a lot of hot sauces & offered to conduct a blind taste test. Anda, Tasha, & I tried five hot sauces without knowing what they were. And since this blog is my personal place for bragging about myself on the internet, I will humbly admit that not only did I correctly identify each of the hot sauces, I also correctly guessed how I’d rank them.
Last Fall, we also developed a love of break-and-bake cookies. I credit Penelope the pitbull who only ate raw chicken (three times a day) for introducing me to the joys of sort-of baking. See, when I moved to New York, we rented a lady’s furnished apartment for a one-month sublet, and even though she hadn’t advertised that she had a dog, the lady kindly left her pitbull behind for us to take care of. Before sharing a one-bedroom apartment for a month with two friends and a pitbull I was fairly sure wanted to eat me, I’d never even thought about break-and-bake cookies. Overnight, my life philosophy became ‘Have a bad day? Pick up a pack of break-and-bakes! Feeling good about the state of the world? Pick up a pack of break-and-bakes! Watching Mad Men tonight? Pick up a pack of break-and-bakes! See a pack of break-and-bakes? Pick up! That pack! Of break-and-bakes!’ Soon our apartment was break-and-bake central. What did Penelope the pit have to do with this? I don’t know. Just go with it.
This post is dedicated to all my trill roommates, past & present.
Oh, roommates!
A few months ago I stumbled upon this blog post about the benefits of living alone. At the bottom of the post, readers were asked to post their own roommate horror stories. It bummed me out times one-thousand. As I read, I noticed a pattern in the comments (and the preceding post), they all reflected the belief that the most desirable trajectory for adult living situations is this:
Roommates until you can afford to live alone—->Live alone—>Live with a romantic partner.*
That trajectory doesn’t sit well with me. I’m sure there are a lot of valid reasons to live alone, and I don’t doubt that for some it may be ideal. But I don’t think it would be ideal for me, and I think it’s problematic to consider it ideal for everyone.
There are the obvious reasons. Number one: it’s expensive. Not everyone can afford to pay 100% of rent, utilities, and household expenses. Number two: our planet’s pretty crowded. I’m not sure it can support 7 billion private kitchens, living rooms, and bathrooms. Even 3.5 billion seems a little high.
Then, there are the less-obvious reasons. Perhaps my biggest reason for questioning the ‘roommates suck’ paradigm is the general consensus that living with roommates is the WORST but living with a significant other is the BEST. I mean, helloooo, isn’t a live-in partner just a roommate with benefits? Well, sort of. The primary reason for moving in with a significant other isn’t usually saving money. (I have heard of some couples moving in together because ‘the rent is too damn high‘, but I’m pretty sure that’s mostly a New York thing…)
This might sound kind of crazy, but I think roommate-ing would be so much more fun if we treated it like living with a significant other. No, I’m not suggesting everyone forms weird cults. What I mean is that living with other people is much nicer when the primary reason for living with them isn’t that you can’t afford to live without them. For me, living with roommates is fun because I am the nosiest person in the world (no, really. I find even the most mundane details of other people’s lives interesting. What did you have for lunch? I would love to know. Feel free to text me about it every day!). I love learning people’s favorite foods, hearing childhood stories, catching up on everyone’s days, and being able to ask for recommendations for things to do. Living with other people has broadened my horizons. All of my roommates have prompted me to cultivate new interests; they’ve helped me have spontaneous fun; they’ve shared some really good music, movies, and TV shows with me.
I will admit that living with roommates is hard in some ways. But living all by yourself is hard, too.
As a lone dweller, I couldn’t call someone to let me in if I locked myself out. I’d have to take out the trash all the time. Nobody would remind me to pay rent if I forgot. I’d have to eat or discard all my food because I wouldn’t be able to share with anyone. No one would say ‘Welcome home!’ after a hard day at work.
I have a bad case of the Januaries tonight. Do you ever get those? A case of the Januaries is like a case of the Mondays writ large. It’s cold; you can’t listen to Christmas carols to make up for it; and just when you are thinking about leaving the house, it gets dark. To top it off, you’re out of Swiss Miss. Ugh, January!
I just said to Tasha and Anda (hereafter T&A), ‘Sorry, I’m in a weird mood,’ and they replied, ‘Me, too!’ PROOF. The Januaries Are Real.
When the Januaries strike, I try to be productive and do things I can feel good about. This morning I woke up and made myself breakfast.
It was good but not good enough to ward off the Januaries. Blah. Anyway, then I tidied my room until I could tidy no more. It’s still not in good enough shape to photograph. Sorry. Maybe someday soon. (Don’t hold your breath.)
Seeing that I had done all I could in the physical realm, I moved on to the virtual and made some changes I had planned for this blog.
#1 The header now reads, ‘living every teenage girl’s idiotic dream (according to my uncle).’ About a week ago my uncle G suggested that I ‘start a webpage since [I am] living every teenage girl’s idiotic dream of moving to New York City and living in a tiny rodent-infested* apartment’. My cousins informed him that I already have a blog, and he was appalled that I am not charging for all this great content. (Teach me how?)
#2 There’s a bunch of stuff in the column to your left. Me! Archives! A subscribe button! Tags!
#3 My blog now provides quick access to the best Betty Boop clip art I could find. Would you kindly have a look at the top of this page? Right below the blog header is a link to Betty Boop clip art. Despite what this suggests, I am not an authority on the matter. I’m sadly not even a fan of Betty Boop clip art. The scoop is this: I mentioned B. Boop once, which led to many people finding my blog by searching for clip art of the aforementioned cartoon. It quickly became the number one way people find this blog, and I am all about giving the people what they want. Betty Boop-ers, I hope you’ll stick around! Though I don’t know much about Ms. Boop, I happen to share her most famous physical attribute (five feet tall, justlike her).
Those are all the changes for now, but I hope to spruce things up around here more often.
smoothliminal 