Free at last, free at last...

Thank God Almighty. I cannot stress enough how people over the age of, say, 23 should not have roommates. It's fun and cute when you're fresh from the family and/or in college/just out of college, but past that...Jesus. Let me just say that on my one-year anniversary of arriving in New York City, I finally, gratefully, have a place of my own. Free from unwanted knocks on my door at 2 am and unwanted lyings-on-my-bed; free from having to "go to my room" whenever the owner of the apartment came home (despite my paying 2/3 of her rent) and having to listen to her psychotic friend leaving phone messages (must have been a Pisces); free from having to tiptoe around a guy when he's on the down-side of his mood swing/drug cycle (and putting up with his loud shit, and the neighbors complaining about his loud shit, when he was on the upswing)... I'd always thought I was a nut, and that I drank too much, but these 3 people that I lived with over the past year have made me feel incredibly sane and rational (and relatively sober!)...and wanting nothing but to never have to live with people again! ;p

At any rate, I'm in a fucking "mansion" now. Way too big for me. It's 2-and-a-half bedrooms, plus a living room and huge dining-room area... I keep looking at it, wandering around, going, "If you cut this in half, this is all I really needed..." And I have no furniture, no art... In the living room, one futon couch (that I'm also sleeping on) and the TV. In the "dining room," my computer and cheap Target bookshelf. The bedroom, my bedroom, has a curtain that I bought when I first arrived in NYC. The second bedroom has my cat's food dish and litter box. (This is my planned "guest room.") The half-bedroom has the one huge closet, so I've just been thinking of this as the "clothes room" and dumping all of my dirty clothes in there. (Really, eventually, this will be the "dressing room," with makeup mirror and wardrobe.)

This shocks people in Texas, who are used to house payments of half this price, but I'll go ahead and say it: I'm paying $1500 for this place. But there're a couple of caveats. For $1500 in Manhattan, I could have gotten one room. ONE room. And for $1200 in Weehawken (where I now live), I could have gotten a dingy, crappy one-bedroom. I LOOKED, and I had brokers show me places... This $1500 place is beautiful, and a real find. I'll just have to get the furniture and art to grow into it.