Chris and I moved to Rochester last June. It was too good to be true. Perfect place. Everything we were looking for. Hardwoods. Claw-foot tub. Gas Stove. Natural Lighting. Washer and Dryer. Internet and Cable included. Great Location. Don't do it, it's a trap. We love our apartment. We really, really don't like our landlord. He lives above us. We hear everything he does, I mean everything. Phone conversations. Loud music- if I liked country music before, I really don't anymore. We hear long baths. Stomping. Dog paws. Sometimes I am seriously certain someone is going to fall through the ceiling. And he has. While working on his bathroom (above ours) He came through the ceiling. And he assured us it would be fixed in May, which of course it wasn't. And still isn't. Instead we have a makeshift ceiling, a piece of wood that is secure thankfully. Christopher painted it so that it wasn't plain wood. It's yellow, like sunshine, to make us happy.
I guess Chris and I moved in together to be on our own. Together. We are very independent people. We don't have a lot of friends. Maybe because we are too critical. Probably because we prefer to be alone. We are very good housemates. We work really well together. When we were looking for housing, we never considered having a third roommate because we never ever wanted one. Our landlord is almost like a third roommate. Not because he lives in our apartment but because it feels like he does. And we h a t e it. He sends us texts about everything. He treats us like we are young kids in our first apartment (we are). He takes advantage of that. And it really, really sucks. We are extremely good tenants. We are quiet. We get our rent in on time. We are self sufficient. We don't ask for much. You could compare us to the elderly: Quiet, clean, and like to sleep at least 8 hours. It's very hard to explain to you how much he drives us crazy. It's no use to do all of this complaining. Chris really grounds me. I love that about him. There are people out there who don't have a roof over their heads. We have thought about moving before our lease is up. But we are too poor to lose our security deposit. So I guess we can only count down. Now a lot of our energy is being put into finding another place to live.
We need to cut our expenses and housing is probably where it has to happen. News flash to anyone who isn't living on their own yet: It's harder than you think. My advice: find someone to go through it with. I don't know where I would be if I had to face all of this alone. Thank goodness I found a mate before I had to do this growing up stuff.
Do we want to stay where we are, in Rochester? We don't know. If we had our way, we would move out west and live in a cabin in the woods. Okay, no first we would move to Europe and work for a year. Not sure where maybe France, Italy, or Greece. I want to go to Israel, but Chris warns me that there is a lot of civil unrest. It's on my bucket list though. We will move to Europe for at least a year. I want to work in a vineyard, on a farm, or in a fish market. So when you think about cost of living. Dreams are crushed. Maybe we won't be able to move ourselves to Europe right away. Or haul a bunch of stuff (mainly Christopher's library) out west. U.S. cities on my list include D.C., Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. Cost of living in those cities: A TON more than Rochester NY. Hmm quite the dilemma. So moving is on my mind, but where to? The world's your oyster right? Briney and slimy? Hard to swallow?
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