sub-$300/month rent.
[gasp] Good Christ. [gasp]
I can't wait until I can afford to live alone.
1: It ain't the Ritz-Carlton. And that's not including any utilities.
The cats purr while they swim? Of did you teach the fish to purr?
2 gets it exactly right. How I long for those days!
In other news, I've been asked to name three albums from the last ten years that have meant something to me. I'm completely at a loss. (I'm pretty sure NickS has this same task in front of him, too, as it's part of the annual mix-CD swap I've mentioned here before.)
Yeah. That's why I have no money. Living alone, too good to pass up.
Huh. I actually live with a roommate out of choice. Like, I'm pretty much subsidizing rent in a nice place to keep a roommate.
I guess I got enough living alone as a kid and through college, so it doesn't really appeal to me anymore. Though everyone I've lived with as an adult has been frequently out of the house due to work and social life, so I guess that also changes things.
re: 7
Because you don't like a lot of recent music, or because you like to much? Or like it just fine but don't connect with it particularly?
I was thinking that recently, re: the lack of stuff I've really liked this past year or 18 months, but over the past decade I could def. come up with a decent number.
I'm sharing again (out of choice, and with a close friend) after living on my own for three years. I've got to say they both have their own appeals, and of course their own downsides. And it's a nice change of pace switching between the two.
I've never lived alone for any length of time, I've always either shared or lived with a girlfriend/partner. I can see the appeal, though, the few weeks I've spent living on their own definitely had a charm!
You know what's SO GREAT about housemates? When they make a huge commotion at FIVE IN THE FUCKING A.M., necessitating that you, with your bum knee, grab the big flashlight and the Irish blackthorn walking stick and hobble downstairs to check all the windows and doors for somebody breaking in. That part of living with housemates is JUST FUCKING AWESOME.
Just to clarify: This commotion was on the order of someone rapidly and vigorously pounding on a door for 20 seconds or so. I'm still not sure what it was exactly. Furthermore, this is not the only middle-of-the-night commotion I've experienced in the past week or two. In fact, there have been several. I'm 'bout ready to just start screaming at people now.
Never really lived with a roommate in the American/British sense, but nevertheless it was a revelation not to have to share a kitchen with a dozen or so people anymore once I got my own apartment. (The student flat I'd been in before having shared kitchen facilities but separate showers/toilets fortunately).
On the whole living with room or flatmates is something you only do here when you're a student starting out; few people stay in that sort of accomodation once they got a proper job.
re: 17
I expect that sort of thing is partly a function of rental prices. On my current salary I could pretty easily afford to rent a really quite nice 1-or-2-bed flat in Glasgow, say. Or a somewhat less nice but acceptable one in Oxford. I'd be shit out of luck doing it in London, I think. I mean, I could do it, but it'd leave less money for books and music and wine and the things that make life pleasant.
Never really lived with a roommate in the American/British sense
Those are decidedly not the same sense.
House prices/rent in London preclude most people from living on their own unless they're willing to put up with a bedsit.
I'd murder a roommate the first time one asked when I was going to get some comfortable furniture. Complaining about my feral living habits is only for women, imaginary pal.
OT: This seems the broad side of a particularly broad barn, even given our usual targets (cough Brooklyn parents cough), but what the hell:
20: Now I'm curious about your furniture. What is it? Sharp? Made of poorly hewn rocks? Or do you just sleep on piles of uncured bearskins?
I've only lived alone for a year, and it doesn't really count because I was dating Buck in that 'living together in two apartments' kind of way. I do love it when I've had small chunks of it: in the Peace Corps, there'd be occasional holiday weekends where the school compound would empty out, and it'd be just me and the pack of wild dogs. That was great.
The only time I ever lived alone was when I lived in the back of a '78 Chevy pickup.
separate showers/toilets fortunately
The combined shower-toilet (or shoilet) is indeed disgusting.
Anyway, I lived alone for maybe four or five years, but I never crapped in the shower.
I lived alone for seven years before I got hitched. I loved it.
Di!
So people, what is it about roommates that annoys you most? Or, if not necessarily annoying while there, is appreciated in the absence?
The main time I've spent without any roommates in the adult world was probably also a period when I didn't have that many friends immediately nearby. Plenty of people to see on weekends, but it meant that I could go through an entire workweek without seeing anyone but co-workers. I think that's what ground on me the most over time. Plus, a large, totally empty apartment at night does kind of creep me out a bit.
27: you could get a small apartment instead.
28: That's stupid. Get a large apartment and start hoarding.
you could get a small apartment instead.
And sell my rollerskates!!?!??
I lived alone for seven years before I got hitched. I loved it.
This is me, too. I loved living alone.
Living with Jammies exceeded my expectations, as in I was worried I'd find it intolerable, and in fact it's fairly nice. But it's not deeply peaceful the way living alone was. It's like there are small noise machines going off.
(Aside from the kids, though. I just found living alone to be deeply peaceful.)
Yes, for me living alone was really great. Except when it wasn't.
Because you don't like a lot of recent music, or because you like to much? Or like it just fine but don't connect with it particularly?
I can't think of a particular *album* (let alone three) that sticks out. Tons of great songs, but no album.
33: Because you don't listen to albums, anymore?
I'm in the "great, except when awful" camp. The cat somewhat mitigates the awful part, though roommates would have the advantage of not compulsively licking my hair, or most of them would.
Anyway I've lived alone for all but a few years of my since-18 existence. Roomate freshman year who fucked his gf while I was in the room. Apartment-mates senior year one of whom was an acid-tongued sociopath. (and a special ed teacher) Decent roommate after college, one year with a roommate in grad school wherein we were both having nervous breakdowns--my anxious symptom was ceasing to do laundry or pick up after myself; her depressive symptom was becoming obsessively tidy. So yes these were not on the whole experiences that made me want to keep living with others.
Amorous cohabitation would be a different story. But still I'd like my own bathroom.
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Off topic, but fucking wonderful.
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re: 33
Interesting. I stopped downloading music [that I hadn't paid for] a couple of years back partly because I wasn't listening to albums any more, I was just flipping tracks, and listening to things in snippets. I'm back much more these days to just listening to entire albums, start to finish, and I think I probably get more out of it. I also listen to a fair bit of vinyl, so in that case I just chuck it on and leave it. Although, to be fair, most of the vinyl I've bought recently has been old music, not new.
I could probably name a dozen or more albums from the last decade that I've really really liked, although I don't know how many of them I'd describe as 'meaningful' as the list of albums I'd describe as truly meaningful to me is pretty tiny.
re: 36
It makes the heart skip with joy just to know that letters like that exist in the world.
Pretty much every album I really liked this year was electronic of various varieties. Rock and rap, it was really just tracks.
What I don't quite understand is the widespread love for the new Kanye album. It's got the amazing single or two, just like his first three albums, but it's also got the fair number of clunkers, just like his first three albums. Probably half of it is great, and I don't ever think that an album I'm forwarding through half of should be getting this kind of across-the-board praise.
Yes, he's tempered his usual "I'm the fucking greatest" bravado with some humility, general acknowledgement of his massive issues, and songs about the issues of personal relationships when famous.... But really, without a good beat, "So Appalled" should've just been released as a published compilation of tweets rather than as a 6:30 song.
36: That's spectacular. Now I want to be the general counsel for an NFL team.
I'm paying 8-10x the rent you are OP. And it's not an upscale place.
Last time I paid <$300 a month it was like 1998 in a student ghetto apartment. It was a filthy disgusting hole.
38: probably fake, though.
So people, what is it about roommates that annoys you most? Or, if not necessarily annoying while there, is appreciated in the absence?
It wouldn't be so bad if I actually liked my roommates and could have picked them, rather than been forced by Craigslist. I did have a roommate for my last year of college who wa a friend and that worked out ok.
45: What just happened? I guess I'll take it as a sign that I wasn't supposed to reveal that info.
45: Now that I'm a slumlord, I charge.
46: you typed a "less-than" symbol, which gets interpreted as beginning an html tag, and therefore eaten. Instead, type an ampersand followed by lt followed by ; and you will be good.
The only thing I don't absolutely love about living alone is the occasional fear that I'll slip in the shower or have a heart attack or stroke and die because there's no one to find me right away.
49: That's where these cats I'm pet-sitting come in. They'll totally help if I slip in the shower. I can just tell.
44: 38: probably fake, though.
Because I am a natural born stalker am a bitter old man who hates the baby Jesus know people related to people on the first letterhead, I did some googling around a bit. One person claims to have contacted the lawyer who wrote the initial letter and gotten it confirmed (there is a Dale O. Cox practicing law in a small town in Idaho who moved there in 1977 from northern Ohio). I suspect given the notoriety it has gotten, James N Bailey (or snopes) will confirm or deny the response, he stayed with the Browns as an Executive VP through their move to Baltimore and the last reference for him is in conjunction with the nascent AAFL. Unless he's dead.
In other news, I've been asked to name three albums from the last ten years that have meant something to me. ... (I'm pretty sure NickS has this same task in front of him, too, as it's part of the annual mix-CD swap I've mentioned here before.)
I just finished that and put it in the mail yesterday. I'm a little bit behind, but I've been kind of a mess for the last month or so (nothing major, just a little bit too much of, "oh, here's one more small thing that we need you to do" at work).
Thankfully I already did a list of albums (plus this. Unfortunately most of them are new versions of old material, but I can pick three.
They'll totally help if I slip in the shower. I can just tell.
Alternatively, they'll eat your face off.
Roommates were fine while we had a chain of friends-of-friends replacing occasional vacancies. Then a bunch left at once. Showing a room on Flakeslist every other month to keep a 4-bedroom full got old fast. Then the landlord had to sell and I got a place of my own with a $5 signing bonus.
The last time I had a land line was in a tiny studio apartment when I went back to college. When I called to cancel it, the Qwest guy was all "But what if you're injured and you can't get to your cellphone?!" While I appreciated his concern, it seemed like pretty specious reasoning to me, as the cellphone would be more likely to be in arm's reach, and in any case I was no more than 16 feet from the door to the common hallway in any part of the apartment. Rent was 102x $5 per month.
33: Tons of great songs, but no album.
Stretching the meaning of "meant something" I came up with:
Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
The Decembrists, The Hazards of Love
Gorrillaz, Demon Days
And in each case, I find hearing the songs in the context of playing the album much superior to hearing them individually. However, among the reasons that I am full of shit, the immediately preceding album from each group/individual was arguably better.
Weather Systems better than Mysterious Production of Eggs? I'm not seeing the argument.
re: 56
That Gorillaz album might appear on my list [of a dozen or two]. However, the one [of Albarn's] that I come back to more often is the The Good, The Bad, and the Queen. Another couple that I find myself listening to repeatedly are albums from Acoustic Ladyland, and Polar Bear [essentially the same line-up for both albums, more or less], Camouflage, and Dim Lit. Also, the first Matthew Herbert Big Band album, in much the same vein.
The only thing I don't absolutely love about living alone is the occasional fear that I'll slip in the shower or have a heart attack or stroke and die because there's no one to find me right away.
Arguably a comforting thought!
59: You'll have to spell that one out for me.
Rent was 102x $5 per month.
That's some confusing rent.
They only accepted payment in very small bills, 3 times a day?
The first time I worked out what I was paying daily and hourly for rent, I got depressed. It felt like paying to exist.
I pleaded with them to rationalize it somehow, but they were adamant.
I thought rent was usually rationalized by complaining about property taxes and upkeep.
60: I suspect it is "possibly agonizing but relatively quick death at home" winning over many plausible alternatives in which you are discovered while still among the living.
55: I actually sleep with my iphone in my bed most of the time because of irrational semi-conscious stuff to that effect. Also sometimes I wake up from a scary dream and want to play Fruit Ninja.
66 Anything would be better than having to write this dissertation? Is that nosflow's condition?
67: I do this too. It sometimes results in oddly worded emails in the middle of the night.
You iPhone sleepers weird me out. Since I use my phone as my primary alarm clock, it absolutely must be plugged in and across the room, lest I accidentally leave the screen illuminated overnight, draining the battery.
Wait, now that I wrote that out, I'm weird, too.
70: Fortunately I don't seem to move that quickly, because I do sometimes forget briefly upon awakening that people won't necessarily find it hilarious that you had a sex dream about them.
22: I think the extent of my domesticity can be summarized in the fact that I sleep on a mattress on top of a dozen or so boxes of books.
Ladies....
72: Right?? Also that they do not, in reality, find it incredibly important that you prove your case wrt the "is Mitch McConnell in fact a cartoon turtle?" question, and that they don't actually agree that the people at Staples will be able to help you present your evidence.
74: Sure, he's a turtle, but he's not King of the Turtle People.
The Senate's basically turtles all the way down.
I sense a thesis topic somewhere in there.
Hey, you know what would be neat? Having two pet turtles: one named Senator...
Seuss has stated that the titular character Yertle represented Adolf Hitler
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Any suggestions for things to do in small Swiss village for a week? About equidistant from Zurich & St. Gallen. I don't really like winter outdoorsy things. Or time with family.
In hindsight, this "vacation" may have been badly planned.
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Or dip pieces of bread into cheese.
83: That's what nosflow already said.
Hey, you know what would be neat? Having two pet turtles: one named Senator...
and Senadel rey?
84: I think I'm going to be either celibate or anorexic now.
You can't make a grilled cheese sandwich without bread and cheese, you know.
Weather Systems better than Mysterious Production of Eggs? I'm not seeing the argument.
The song "Skin" from Weather Systems came up on shuffle just after I read this, and I said, "you know, it's got the virtue of brevity, and this is a really great track." Then I realized it was actually "Skin, Is", from Mysterious Production etc.
Then: five dollars.
86: You think that's bad? Let me tell you about the person who brought a veggie tray to the workplace holiday potluck. A veggie tray including sausages. People! Don't put sausages on your veggie trays. Inevitably, the sausagitos get dipped in the veggie dip, and that's like crossing-the-streams-level bad.
Don't put sausages on your veggie trays.
Demanding abstinence never works. Instead, you should try to educate them about the importance of keeping a layer of saran wrap between the two.
Saran wrap? Use tin foil if you want to be safe.
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http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2010/11/neil-young-and-bruce-springsteen-whip-my-hair/
The vocal is uncanny.
>
93: Yeah, I've never understood his appeal otherwise, but that's freakishly good.
91: I have a ladyfriend visiting the Bay Area this very moment. Do I need to warn her to give a wide berth to any sword-wielding, grammar-correcting nebs?
Screw nonstop.
Fuck you too, nosflow.
95: Is she otherwise inclined to seek out such nebs?
God, are you people really all completely unfamiliar with the supposed chivalric practice of sleeping with one's sword (which is, let me assume I have to remind you, cruciform!) between oneself and the passing fair maid in love with whom one has gone, so as to preserve the virtue of all concerned? Look, here's some random stuff from an essay about a poem concerning Tristram and Yseult (here "Tristrem" and "Ysonde") making referene to it:
George Meredith alludes to it in bitterness to signal the in this case loveless chastity of his marriage in the first "Modern Love" poem: "Like sculptured effigies they might be seen / Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; / Each wishing for the sword that severs all."Their joy comes from the fact that "For love ich other bihalt, / Her non might of other fille" (2496-97). When Mark and his knights find the lovers sleeping with a sword between them, they decide that "Thai no hede nought of swiche play" because "trewe love it is" (lines 2549 and 2552)
It isn't wielded. Christ on a crutch.
Anyway, Stanley, the proper course of action is obviously to direct her to, not away from, me.
After all, I no hede nought of swiche play in far too long.