2006-12-15
The Beginning of the Debate
I'm still thinking about moving, not thinking about it like, "I might do it" but thinking about it like, "I can't fucking WAIT to MOVE!"
I have to make myself sit down and pour some of the excitement into a list of things that I want so that I am sure to find the right place.
There's 1920s dirt, which would be cool and funky and fun but I must admit that a complex is kind of alluring at this point.
I mean... there would be a pool.
And covered parking.
And living in a complex at this point in my life means that I would live someplace with nice carpeting and a fireplace. I would have mini-blinds but not the beat-up X-tra large size that attract dirt and that never seem to fold all the way up when you raise them.
I would have the kind of mini-blinds that are tiny, so tiny you hardly realize they're mini-blinds until you get right up close.
Or I would have the vertical ones, the ones that don't have a complicated tangle of strings to pull when they need to be opened and closed but instead, are easily manipulated with a discreet little chain at the side of the window.
A complex would mean extra people.
Now, this is tricky and one of the finer points that will need to be addressed when I do my analysis, titled The Right Apartment.
So I risk moving downtown and being disappointed by the lazy students and the bums? I mean, for now, it seems like downtown is full of funky trend-setters and laid-back grad students. I expect that there are professors who keep themselves on the fringe of the Fourth Avenue bar scene, people who are way smart but also have a slightly weird, almost deviant side that they allow out to voyeuristically watch their possible students partying and carrying on in ways they never allows themselves to when they were sophomores.
Those people would be cool to have as neighbors because they would probably have really awesome parties and they would dig to be elitist and bitchy with me.
Plus they're smart, so I wouldn't be trapped in conversations about, like, traffic.
On the other hand, in a complex, there are lots of people who might be surprising. They are people who are probably in sales and not home very much. They might fire up the Hibachi on the balcony and they might want to come by to see if the dogs want to play together.
In a complex, I would have to stand in the doorway to open the door, which would be weird because downtown, the door would be open and I could just go, "Hey! Yeah, just come on i........" No. Push THAT. There ya go. Hi. How are you? Totally let's get coffee."
And then I could walk to the Epic Cafe with my new professor friends and we could talk about traffic but like, how awesome we are for walking and not driving and how we do everything we can to not contribute to the Problem.
A complex would have Air Conditioning.
That's a big fucking deal.
I've lived with swamp cooler and the devastating effects it has in terms of blowing dirt straight into my already less-than perfect pores and making my face look like a map of land mines.
I firmly believe that a different apartment might have more pro-active service and instead of waiting 6 weeks to have my swamp cooler cleaned, the rotted pads from last year might be pulled out when the cooler is shut off for the year.
This would be huge since I would no longer face the difficult choice between blowing rotted and moldy remnants of a cooling system into my house vs. certain death from heat exhaustion.
But then again, why not avoid the whole mess and live someplace where there's central air?
And carpet.
I could walk around barefoot on carpet.
Downtown, though, I could walk around in flip-flops and not ever have to do things like drive or actually get dressed. I could wake up on a weekend morning and pull myself into The Outfit for the season. In the summertime, this tends to be a skirt and tank, and for reals, it tends to be the same skirt and tank every single Saturday and Sunday.
Right now, it's this long-sleeve tee shirt and blue velour yoga pants.
If I lived in a complex, I would feel like I had to be more careful with getting dressed on the weekends and actually, like get dressed instead of sliding around in an outfit that is as close to pjs as I can get without just not changing my clothes upon getting out of bed.
You just can't be smelly-funky in a complex the way you can downtown.
So, the Gauntlet has been thrown.
I am going to a party tonight and a bout tomorrow and I think I might be able to finish Zelda but mostly, I will be jotting down scribbled notes about all -things apartment as they come to me.
arizonasarah at 10:15 a.m.