Well, We're Movin' On Up...And Down, And Up, And Down

When I graduated college, I moved back home with my mother for a time. That time was approximately .05 milliseconds, which was the maximum amount possible to elaspe before we were ready to strangle one another. I quickly scouted out a roommate (a friend from my college class), and we rented an apartment out in West County. It was a great apartment, and he was a great roommate, but the daily commute was killing me. I hate driving, and the congestion and hideous behavior of other drivers put me into a sort of perma-bad mood. Plus, all my friends lived in or near the city, and none of them would come hang out with me in my neighborhood, a fact I bitterly scolded them for.

After a while, I decided that I needed to live closer to my job and friends, and sought out a new apartment. This was actually the first time I was to live alone, which naturally came with pros and cons. I was able to find a reasonably-priced apartment in a good location. I immediately realized why my friends never wanted to schlep out to West County to see me, and I joined the ranks of people who only reluctantly went further west than the Interbelt. My new apartment was managed by a no-nonsense lesbian who kept a tight rein on the tenants. Then, three years ago, I met LabRat. He was stuck in an unhappy living situation of his own, and once we became closer, he decided to ditch his place and take one of the open units in my building. Let me just tell you how wonderfully convenient that situation was. Your significant other lives twenty feet away, but you each have your own space. Plus, you've got access to two bathrooms, two ovens, two refrigerators, etc.

Time passed. The lesbian moved on to greener pastures, and the building was taken over by a really, really, really, really, really lazy dude. Just getting him on the phone was like pulling teeth, and God help you if you actually needed something from him, like say...fixing the roof, because water has been dripping from your ceiling for a month. Not only was he lazy about taking care of the building, he was lazy about who he rented to. The lesbian knew how to pick a tenant. Sure, there were little problems here and there, but most people seemed to get how living in an apartment building should work. Lazy Guy would rent to anyone who flashed him two nickels. As each quality tenant moved out, their apartment would be taken over by a trashy replacement. The quiet hippie was now the jobless thug. The couple that spent their evenings peacefully cooking great-smelling meals was now the woman who spent every night gleefully cackling at the top of her lungs. These trashy neighbors would steal our parking spots, block the driveway, and prop the building's doors open so that any stranger could wander in. My hibachi got stolen. The final straw came when the unit across from mine went from Single Guy to Monkey Sex Girl (a nice woman, but for her marathon orgasm sessions that reverberated throughout the building) to Meth-Addicted Prostitute. Neither LabRat nor I could take this place anymore.

So, we hopped on Craigslist and began looking around for a new place. A place to move into...TOGHETHER. Now, this was a first. I've lived with people, but I've never lived with anyone. I had a very strange reaction to this decision. Normally, Big Life Decisions fill me with anxiety, and I spend a few weeks freaking out. In this case, my biggest worry was about the move itself; I was quite calm and content about living with LabRat. I guess it was because we spend most of our time together anyway, and I figured it wouldn't be that much different an experience. We scouted out a few places, but none of them seemed just right. They were too small or had the same shitty neighbors we were hoping to escape. In one case, a lady saw us hanging out in front of a For Rent sign, and called out from across the street, "You can do better!" She was right, too. That place was disgusting. We did eventually strike gold. We found an affordable two-bedroom in the same neighborhood as we were already living, so the move wouldn't be too arduous. It had all sorts of things our current apartments didn't: dishwasher, disposal, basement storage, dining room, deck, etc. It even has a nice view of the downtown skyline, Arch included. We put in our offer, and after a little wrangling, the place was ours.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've moved everything. Utilities have been transferred. Essentials have been unpacked. We left second-floor apartments to move to a second-floor apartment, so this entry's title should make some sense. Now that everything is in, we've arrived at the more challenging task of figuring out where everything should go. We don't have a lot of stuff, but what we do have is often in sets of two. We don't need two toasters, for example, so what's to be done with the extra one? On the flip side, there's also the challenge of buying things we do need. We ditched my sofa, which was literally coming apart at the seams, so yesterday was spent buying furniture for the living room. The previous apartment's decor could best be described as Hand-Me-Down Eclectic. Now, LabRat and I are actually trying to build a real home, which is terribly adult and exciting. Lots of mature discussions about how to handle money took place.

There are still mountains of work to be done, but it's slowly starting to come together. We're both really looking forward to a time when we can actually have people over. For a meal! And we could fit more than one person in! And they could eat at a table, instead of on the sofa! This is perhaps the first time my home has the potential to be an actual home, instead of just a waystation to eat, sleep, pee, and watch television in. It's a little scary, but I'm very optimistic.