Okay, that's a lie. I had to lie -- I don't remember any other Shakespeare quotes, and I don't have any of his plays with me. They are gathering dust in some cardboard box, packed up with my college posters and my unmailed beauty school applications. It used to be if I needed a quote I would spend another couple of hours trying to stuff everything back into my closet. Now those boxes are as unreachable as the new moon because that closet is in my mother's apartment and I am not. I, you see, have moved.
That's right, I've moved. I've taken the first big step toward the rest of my life and picked myself up by my bootstraps and packed my bags and hit the road and moved on, moved out, moved in, moved ahead, moved along, moved over, moved beyond words. However you put it I have relocated. Don't bother looking for me at that old address, because it is yesterday's news. As opposed to today's news, which is stuffed in the windowsill in an effort to stop up the arctic draft.
This new apartment is not just any apartmenet; this is my first post-college, real life, home-of-my-very-own, bona fide apartment. And I know that like my first day of school, my first kiss, and my first set of handcuffs, this apartment will hold many memories for me. Already I fondly remember dashing up the five flights of stairs. I look back and laugh at the days my bathtub was clogged (Thursday and Friday). And I recall cleaning the mildew in my closet just this morning. I love the smell of mildew in the morning.
Given all these advantages, not to mention the astronomical rent and the molecular size of my pad, one might ask why I have moved from the spacious accomidations of my previous abode. As Mr. Bill S. once said, why buy the bread when you can get the chicken for free? Not because I broke up with a lover. Not because my lease ran out. I moved out because I was going crazy. See, I used to live at home. With my mother.
Don't get me wrong, there are definite advantages to living with a 'rent, first and foremost of which is living without the rent. And, compared to several of my college roommates, my mom wasn't such a bad deal. She didn't smoke or listen to loud music, she did here dished without being asked, and not once have I had to lie to her girlfriend, explaining that she was out at three-thirty in the morning because our next-door neighbor needed to borrow a cup of flour. And Moms do things other roommates would never do, like making chicken soup when you're sick or tucking you in at night. It did put sort of a crimp in my romantic life -- never, to my knowledge, has someone successfully picked up another human being with the line, "So, what do you say we get out of this joint and head over to my mom's place?" And "My mom's place or your mom's place?" just about guarantees sleeping alone.
Furthermore, it was anti-evolutionary. Those slimey little green things that crawled out of the primordial muck never looked vack. And once them apes jumped down out of them trees, the thought of returning for thanksgiving dinner didn't even cross their minds. But there I was, out of school, out of cash, and back in my old bunk bed. I feel I must state for the record it was never my intention to return. I mean, when I was in grade school, I am pretty certain I didn't want to get into the right junior high school so I could get into the right high schoo; so I could get into the right college so I could move back home. Had someone told me I would be returning to the nest at the age of 21, I would have treated my parents a whole lot better at the age of 12.
Let's talk a little more about evolution. The working theory here is that it used to be we didn't need a home, we were soup, just need a giant tureen and a couple million saltines. Then we evolved and our shell became our home, sort of the equivalent of today's studio apartment. A while later we lived in caves. There were big caves and small caves, leaky caves and dark caves. (This is abou the time the real estate broker was born: "I've got one with some nice stalagtite formation, western exposure, a solid quartz foundation, and I'll throw in a couple of bear cubs the last tenant left behind -- they make great pets.")
Once we got this food and shelter thing down, we quit evolving and started civilizing. Some of us lived in castles and some of us lived in hovels, but we all strived for western exposures. (I don't know why I am saying "we," as you had nothing to do with it. I, on the other hand, have been reincarnated 28 times. Documented.) The basic theory behind western exposure was that your life could be shit, you'd work 23 hours a day, eight days a week, but on Saturday morning you were sleeping in. Hell, the plague could come, grab your entire family while you were out for dinner and leave you with the check, but so lnog as your windows faced west, you were one up on the Jonses.
The next step was the move to the city. This might strike a familiar chord to the modern day reader. Tales of streets paved with gold are nothing new. As early as the middle ages, serfs piled into their little serf-drawn carriages and followed the serf-beaten trail to lead them from their lowly serf-like existence. There was absolutely no good reason to move: Cities were dirty, necessities were more expensive, jobs were far from abundant, and subway service was unreliable any time other than rush hour when you could be sure they wouldn't come. So the cities were no great shakes, but it was better than the country, 'cause only hicks lived there. Well fed, clean, employed hicks, but hicks nonetheless.
Not much has changed in the last 800 years. My city is underpaved, overpopulated, and overpolluted. Some days it seems half the population carries around Evian bottles while the other half holds out empty coffe cups begging for refills from passer-bys. The streets aren't paved with gold and the nickels aren't plated with nickel. Fifty percent of my paycheck goes toward rent, and most people think I got a great deal. And I don't even have a western exposure.
But I do watch Nothern Exposure (Monday nights on CBS). And as much as I complain, I've got to give the thumbs up to this living on my own experience. There is something to be said for opening your own door, taking out your own trash, sleeping in your own (and only) room. Every day seems to be an adventure. Maybe tomorrow I'll open the door and run into my beautfily downstairs neighbor as we are putting out our trash, and she can show me where to recycle my cans. One thing will lead to another and we'll drill a griant hole in my floor, drop a ladder down, and call it a duplex. The world is full of possibilities, and the worst thing that can happen is that I'll run out of money. Hey, I can always go home again.
Lorin Wertheimer is ...