room for rent.

I cut my own hair. Sometimes in stages. Usually while working my way through a bottle of wine. The mess doesn't get swept away until I've decided that while not perfect, the cut will "do".

At the end of the day, the last thing I feel like doing is straightening up. As a result, there's a trail clothing from the door to the couch. In the morning, the same trail is replicated in reverse. From my bed to the bathroom, pajama bottoms and tanks are tossed. An anthropologist might infer that I'm changing my clothes as I walk. They would be correct.

I go to bed by 11pm during the week and generally prefer inaction to action between the hrs of 8pm-11pm. If you ask me to work out with you, I might. But only after excessive nudging in the direction of the gym. The whole time I will whimper and in the morning, I will probably point to the various areas of my derrière that ache. I'm charming like that.

On occasion, when especially bored, I'll knit something. Whenever said project is complete, think "Watch yo'self Martha! I'm coming for you and your domestic empire!" This is also my response to completing basic household tasks like cleaning, or cooking a meal with more than one ingredient.

Last week I was gearing up for a ski trip. Every night I'd come home with a new purchase. Gloves. A hat. A coat with fleece on the inside. And, every night I'd try on the entire ski outfit just to be sure that A) It was warm enough and B) I didn't look like a total idiot. One key element of the outfit was my new bib snowpants. Pants that were so poofy and outrageous, that each night's dress rehearsal was followed by two minutes of giggling.

Apart from any considerations of the person living within it, the apartment itself has its own personality. Spewing water from the walls and lighting itself on fire whenever it feels it hasn't been given enough attention. But as much as I mock it, it's mine. My first New York apartment. The first place I lived alone. The first neighborhood that I was able to claim as my own. A neighborhood that moves beyond my ability to describe it, except to say, it is lovely. It's home.

Andre, my maybe-future-roommate, knows all this and yet still seems willing to tolerate living together for the sake of lowering our collective expenses. Dude is clearly a saint. Several decisions have to be made before either of us commit definitively. We're laying down the ground rules, thinking about it, and discussing our concerns like real adults are supposed to. This, after all, is the guy with whom I share Saturday morning breakfasts so we can discuss our dating lives (or lack thereof). The guy who knows me well enough to know that Christmas presents in the form of concert tickets, are right up my alley. Therein lies the rub. I refuse to mess up a friendship that I rely heavily on.

Internal debates aside, I am already contemplating what kind of super-power-vacuum I might buy with the spare rent money. A vacuum that could suck the tar off of a street corner, or maybe a new computer with all the programs pre-loaded so I can tinker to my heart's content, and maybe, just maybe, snowpants that don't make my butt look like the Michelin Man's. The options really, are endless.