Thursday, June 25, 2015

Almost an Announcement

I signed a lease today.

It was a completely electronic, online transaction, but
let me imagine I signed on parchment with a fountain pen.
I signed a lease. On an apartment. An apartment into which Precocious Daughter and I will be moving come August.

Just us, and the Siamese kitten, and the guinea pig. 

They don't look like this, but isn't it amazing
what Google can find?

The last time I rented was 1996. My spouse and I lived in a condominium in a small, upscale complex in which everybody either owned their unit or rented it from the owner. 

Before that, we lived in a tiny apartment over his mom's garage.

Before that, we lived in a downstairs flat in Milwaukee. It didn't matter that it was an ancient piece of crap, because it was our first place and the landlord didn't care what we did with it.

Before that? Well, the last time I actually lived in an apartment was 1973. I was five.

Representative five-year-old, not me.
I didn't smile that much when I was five.
Still, I'm about to be an apartment-dweller once again. I'm scared to fucking death, Drunkards.

This place is upscale, and hip, and new, and centrally located, and secure, and nigh perfect.

It's at (OK, over) the top of my price range. I decided the price tag was worth it because 1) it's secure, 2) it's too new to be falling apart, and 3) PDaughter loves it. I feel sort of too old, fat, and dorky to live there. But I also feel as if I deserve a place that is super-nice because I've been denying myself nice things for 25 fucking years.

I DESERVE THIS, YO.

I will not regurgitate the conversation between my spouse and me when I told him we'd found a new place to live. Suffice to say, it was bizarre. It involved pet custody and similarly weird topics of conversation. I think it turned out well. I don't know. The bottom line is...I've signed a lease so it doesn't matter one goddamn bit if he approves of my choice or not.

Still, I'm scared. Nervous. Apprehensive. Whatever you want to call it, that's me.

August, you guys. That's the reset button on my life. Wish me luck.

Soon I hope to make a similar announcement on my IRL Facebook page. But not yet. Let me get used to the fate of a fictional character before I admit to relatives and former classmates that my fucking mariage has failed.

Thanks, guys.

5 comments:

  1. You don't need luck. You're an extremely strong woman and you're going to take life by the throat, luck or not.

    By the way, except for a couple of brief periods - three months was the longest - I've never lived in an apartment. But come 2017, when I'm determined to move from this stone age Tribalistan to a civilised city, I'm pretty certain I'll have to.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh yeah, I just discovered Blogspot world's perfectly on Google Chrome on my cell, no matter what it does on bloody Opera Mini :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would wish you luck, but I don't think you need it. I think you've done an elaborate gymnastic routine and you're about to stick the ending. When I say "stick it" I mean that in the most positive way possible. And it's even more impressive because you've improvised the whole thing.

    Instead I'd like to give you a fountain pen. I have some and whenever I write with them I feel like whatever I write is special, even though it's usually meandering thoughts about why we should have a blue dot appear on our forehead when we need to pee. But a fountain pen is a very personal thing. Buying another person a fountain pen would be like buying another person underwear. There's too much chance it would ride up and be generally uncomfortable.

    Yesterday I was going to share an anecdote about a squid I had in a jar when I was a kid, but instead I'll share this: the Humboldt squid was long regarded as a vicious man-eating predator because it would gather around boats while fishermen were chumming the water. A researcher found that just swimming among them as they made their nightly ascent from the depths to the surface they were quite calm and gentle.

    There's a metaphor somewhere in that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. There are pros and cons of any style of living (house vs condo vs apt). There are only cons, however, in living with someone who makes you feel bad about yourself. So, yay you! Movin' on up!

    ReplyDelete

You're thinking it, you may as well type it. The only comments you'll regret are the ones you don't leave. Also, replies to threads make puppies grow big and strong.