Transplanted Life
Thursday, October 11, 2007
 
Living Arrangements
It looks like I'm going to have to move or find a roommate soon, but for the best of reasons: After serving overseas for as long as I've had reason to be interested, Gertie's boyfriend has finally gotten a transfer stateside. It may not be for long - Gertie says he's going to be working with some people at MIT on a project that they can't really discuss, and once his part is over they might transfer him back to the Gulf - but in the meantime, they want to spend as much time together as possible.

And, of course, lay the ground for much more than that. Gertie didn't show up back at our apartment for at least seventy-two hours after going to meet his plane, and I'm pretty sure that was entirely because she was starting to need a shower and change of clothes badly. Somewhere around hour sixty-one, she says, was when Mark popped the question, a totally spontaneous thing once he realized that the long time apart hadn't changed how they felt about each other at all. Gertie said yes immediately, and later confided to me that this was the best way for it to happen - it means she gets to choose her ring.

As you might imagine, they're trying to pull a wedding together as quickly as possible (and, yeah, I'm going to get to be a bridesmaid), but in the meantime, they're also moving into an apartment closer to the MIT campus. It's also more convenient for Gertie; she's managed to land a job on the Somerville police force with the promise of being fast-tracked for detective (she finished the last course she needed for the Master's in criminology this summer).

Which would leave me with a two-bedroom apartment that I can sort of afford - as in, I can cover the rent all right, but it would leave me with seven hundred dollars less per month in spending money, and I'm not exactly thrilled with the prospect of curtailing my movie, DVD, comic book, and other habits by that amount (setting aside how much more underwear, shoes, and the like cost than what the first thirty years of my life tells me they should...). I was going to have to find a new roommate, a smaller place, or do the logical thing and find an apartment closer to where I work in Waltham - the suburbs aren't quite so expensive as Cambridge. I really didn't want to do that. Once you get out of the city center, you either need a car - which tends to reclaim the money you save from not living in Boston/Cambridge right away - or you need to really think about "how will I get home" if you come into the city for a concert, movie, or anything else. Not the situation I wanted to be in.

Or Kate, it turned out. As soon as she stopped squealing about Gertie getting married, she decided that she could use a new roommate as well, and the lease on her place was coming up at the end of October. So, three guesses on what she and I have spent the last few weeks doing? Looking at apartments.

Which, in case it's been long enough since the last time you did it, sucks. Half the ones you look at still have people living there and it's not always clear which problems are intrinsic to the place and which go with the slobby tenants (or, even with good tenants, how much needed repair work they're covering up). Some you could only see before work, others after, others during the weekend. The most hilarious thing was when we had two lined up in one night, and one was actually Kate's apartment... and the other was in my building. We passed on those.

Ah, well, we've got a couple more weeks. Kate may just wind up moving in with me for a while, although I think she sort of likes sleeping over more than she'd like staying there for any length of time.

-Marti

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Note: This blog is a work of fantasy; all characters are either ficticious or used ficticiously. The author may be contacted at JaySeaver@comcast.net