Monday, July 26, 2010

Homeless person finds home, ditches shopping cart, tchotchkes - packs nothing

So, here’s the scoop. Last Thursday I looked at two places in Columbia Heights, DC. It’s Green/Yellow line – which, if you know anything about the District isn’t the best place to live, but certain places are up and coming.

My desperation that night was at its peak. My anxiety about homelessness was about a 9 out of 10. I went home that night, laid face down on my bed and repeated into my pillow “I just can’t do this anymore”. I went to bed thinking about housing – I had a dream my car got towed from the one place that looked half-doable with an Asian chick and a 10x10 room with a dirty carpet and tiny closet after, in my dream, I had an “over night test stay” – and woke up thinking about housing. [I got an email from her today saying "unfortunately, I don't think we're a good roommate match. 1. Ya. Duh. I was desperate, 2. Just say you found someone else, dumbass, and 3. ARE YOU BREAKING UP WITH ME?!]

On Friday, still in full-on panic mode, I decided to reassess. Upon the suggestion of about 5 people and looking for any new outlets at all (since Craigs List is just getting weird and I’d been staring at blue and purple links for DAYS nonstop), I went to roommates.com. I answered one ad, she told me to stop by on Saturday at noon.

My roommate came home while I was watching LOTR on his sweet ass LCD TV, before he took it away, and perusing Craigs List when he came back with his previous/future roommates (I was an interim replacement). At this point, I had begun to laugh about the situation. I mean, panicking only gets you so far – the motivation is good, yes, but it was starting to make me lose my mind, e.g. face in the pillow dive. I kept making the joke that was going to be pushing around my things in a shopping cart (and then kept making the push-my-cart motion). Any time someone made any slight reference to moving, my invisible shopping cart came back. I lightened up and then discussed the possibility of asking our current landlord if I could possible renew the lease in the event that one of the 3 appointments I had set up for Saturday didn’t work. I wrote her an email: She’s a little loopy, and missed the “if” part. She started emailing people that I was definitely staying…so it got in my head that I was definitely staying too; though I wasn’t looking forward to switching gears to finding a new roommate now, after all this work to find a new place back in the District and closer to the metro. Regardless, I wrote a Craigs List posting to find a replacement for the very-soon-to-be empty room. I went to bed at about 4am – content with the idea that sometimes, if you have no place to go, it’s best to stay where you are.

I almost didn’t go to the one at noon. But decided for the sake of testing out all options, (and since it was close and in a neighborhood I wanted) that I would take a look and would skip the other two since my landlord had basically committed me to the place and the places I had looked at before had all been holes. Or they were nice enough, but I never got that feeling that they would be “home” to me. Or have any place for my "things".

I walked in the door of my noon appointment – yet again, awkwardly running into someone else who was looking at the place. The first thing the girl who was attempting to replace herself on the lease said to me was “I like your hair”. I felt comfortable around her. I looked around – still rather convinced staying where I was, was probably best – and she said “You want to live here. I know it. This is your house. It’s awesome. You should live here.”

I told her I was a Libra. I told her my situation. And I told her I’m more than awful at making decisions. We talked for a while...deciding we'd be friends if she wasn't moving.

Is this entry long enough yet? Don’t worry, it’s almost over. And the irony is to come…

My friend drove up from Richmond to visit a mutual friend – we were going to lunch. He called when he was at my place and I asked him to come up the street to help me make a housing decision. (You thought I was kidding about being an awful decision-maker, didn’t you?) He had a look – we discussed and decided I should go for the move. I wanted to be back in the District, I wanted to be closer to the metro, I wanted it to be cheaper. It's about $30 more a month, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad, we decided. Another deciding factor was the girl who was showing me the place told me what a wave of foreign people nightmare it was to try to rent it out – and I was so over anything that had to do with hunting apartments or people to live with. I met the owner, he asked if I had a job and for how long. I asked if they would be interested in a new couch and chest freezer. They said "yes". Then I signed a lease and gave him a check. ::slaps hands together:: Done and done. I was there for about 3 hours. I can start moving in Wednesday evening.

Afterward, my friend and I grabbed lunch. He paid for lunch. We came out to find out I paid more for parking…I forgot the ass of a state that is Maryland wants meters paid on Saturdays…and so I got a $45 parking ticket for a meter. No, really. Forty-five fucking dollars. But, at that point, I was just happy I had a place to live and it was all over. So I kind of giggled it off, but damnit. But seriously, oh well: I HAVE A HOME!

BUT, you want to hear the best part? Yesterday, after softball practice and a trip to Value City Furniture after (in which no one wanted to ask sweaty me if I needed help – haha), a storm came out of nowhere and our power went out as I pulled onto my road at about 3:30pm. I napped a couple hours then packed till dark - which wasn't much. But it has been out ever since. Reports are saying it could be days until it is restored. I don’t get home from work until 7-7:30pm and I can’t pack in the dark. So…in fitting with the story that is my life…I can’t pack.

Ha. Ha-ha-ha. My life…

1 comment:

Ashli said...

This is so something that would happen to me.

You do have awesome hair, btw