the home sweet home search on craigslist

for my readers who only choose to read one or two paragraphs- i would read paragraph 3, 4 or 5.

It was a test. The test of finding the right fit. The right fit for a roommate. A roommate in an urban area. A test. It always is. Because it doesn’t matter how well you read the craiglist ads or find a friend who has a place or use your guts to decide you can in fact live with someone, live with someone. The test of urban living is one no matter how long you do it, is a test within itself. I started to think about the other day about the passing the test of being chosen as the roommate. The roommate- I have passed the test- the initial smiles, and interview like questions, and the formality of the first date of cohabitants without the cocktails without food in the formal dining room or one room bedroom. Some perfectly cluttered others messingly clean. Still awkward always is. I have passed this test, test to be chosen. Because I seem to have a good first impression. I am chosen they will write or call. And always I have thought this time it will be different. Different. Because I passed the test. But the multiple choice of city college or community college of roommates is easy to pass and study for but the blue book essays of graduate school no way you can pass through without studying, without trying, without making concessions and making friends.

And after living in urban domain for the last few years 14 to be exact- I have lived through the test and trials and tribulations of urban roommates and what you will accept for a place to live a place to live in the city, the city of new york, or san Francisco, or boston, or dc. What you will put up with to have a place to live. Live. Fuck the suburban space of conformed spaces. I want to live in the city and swallow what I will to have my own room in a victorian or on the upper west side or on the u street corridor.

I have came home before to find, find my roommate an older jewish woman walking around the house at 3 am after my night of drinking she stayed in. Braless in an oversized t-shirt- leggings with holes in the crotch and not just kneepads but also elbow pads on her walking around, around the house. Now I if she had a guest and they were being adventurous in the bedroom that would make sense but no she was just walking around the apartment like that. But for an apartment on the upper west side for under 700 dollars you will accept crotchless leggings and kneepads.

For my first noe valley apartment- I accepted notes, emails, and requests from a man, a man who was a self-proclaimed fashion designer but not once did I see him make anything. Anything except maybe a bowl he perpetually smoked or the “love” he made to a different lady each night. See he was also a narcissist and a possibly closeted gay man. 4 black and white pictures of him framed in dramatic poses around his room. Throughout our apartment sorry more like his he hung his dresses- with attention to detail and work of a child around the house. He wrote me emails I needed to put down the toilet seat- I am a female- no one needs to tell me. Or I should wear flip-flops in the shower because I have dirty feet- well you have a dirty crotch. Or my dirty laundry caused ants. Ants to come in the house. And I should return from Sacramento to fix it. Or how he awoke me with his lady friends who thought my room was his more than once. They were lost. Lost. See we take what we can to live in a good neighborhood for good rent.

So finally finally I got to my current residence. Which is great except for the white board. The white board- I wanted to take the passive aggressive token and break in two. People would write shit like whose dishes, whose compost, who took my, who, who, who. It drove me crazy. I never played the white board game and finally it went away. Away. Relief. But the other morning. Went I went to the bathroom first thing in the am and not only peed but took a shit and I saw that someone in fact had not replaced the tp again- again- and no one was at home- to help me, as I walked around the house with my panties and pj bottoms around my ankles, with an ass that needed a wiping. I thought about how much how much I wanted the white board. The white board to say who took the last of the tp. But the white board was not longer. No longer. I found toilet paper wiped my ass and accepted it. It.