Cleaning House

For those of you who don't know yet, I'm moving.

Don't look at me like that. I know that I had said in the past that I would probably never move. The hassle of moving eight years ago is still pretty fresh in my mind. I'd had a falling out with my roommate back then, and after a few tries to solve the disagreements amicably (one of which Rosencrantz attempted her best to moderate), she'd given me notice around Thanksgiving that she wanted me out by the end of the year. (Mind you, she was all but unemployed, had dropped the two college classes she was taking because they were too stressful for her, and was living off her parents for everything. She seldom did dishes or cleaned the litter box. All she seemed to do was lie on the couch in her grey sweatpants and chain smoke while she watched TV. But her name was on the lease, and her mother was still willing to pay her bills, so I was the one who got the heave-ho.)

I scrambled for a new place to live, viewing efficiency sized apartments that were able to be designated one bedrooms by virtue of a single well placed wall. All of the complexes listed in the glossy apartment guides were way too pricey, didn't allow pets (or wanted a sizable deposit to cover my kitty), or were particular about the quality of vehicles that might be parked on their property. (I kid you not about this. I knew someone who lived in a complex run by a particular management company, and they sent him a nasty letter when his 10 year old car started to show some rust spots.) One place I looked at was a basement apartment with tile flooring, and when I say "tile" I'm not talking attractive floor laminates. I'm talking the tiny one inch square tiles usually found in a bathroom. The monthly rent was just barely within my affordable range, and I would have been able to get maybe half of my furniture in the apartment. When the resident manager ran through the application process, complete with a hefty application fee and painstaking scrutinization of my credit history (and possibly a full review of my entire life, a blood test, and DNA testing), I politely declined and went out to my car and panicked that I would be ringing in the new year in a cardboard box under a bridge. Luckily, I found the ad for a decent-sized place in Clifton who didn't care that I had an ill-tempered cat, a car that was being held together by bungee cords, and a questionable history with credit cards. I moved in between Christmas and New Years, and have been here ever since.

But after eight years, two car break-ins, the removal of a door lock that I was never given the keys to (leading to Roger Mexico kicking in my door and leaving a big splintered dent when I got locked out), the dismantling of a smoke alarm when I discovered it went off every time I took a shower, the replacement of a toilet that was coming loose from the floor and a garbage disposal that stopped disposing, it's time to move on. There's very little left in Clifton for me anymore. When I moved here, everyone I knew lived in Clifton (or a few minutes away). Now everyone I know has moved. I've gone through numerous next-door neighbors who have played horrible music (Celine Dion) that rattled the picture frames on my walls, have fought loudly with each other on the morning of New Year's Eve (after I'd worked back to back shifts at Best Buy and the Warehouse, and was trying to get a little rest before doing all over again), and let his ferrets run loose in his apartment while he sang Metallica off-key in the shower. I've been stranded in my parking lot during the winter, unable to get up the ice-covered hill that separated me from the rest of the world. (Thank goodness for the corner store, which was open and well-stocked on the day I trudged up the hill through eighteen inches of snow because I was out of cat food and people food. And the fact that they have a good beer selection, carry clove cigarettes, and stock Ben and Jerry's ice cream is a bonus. They're all fabulous people, too. One clerk spotted me a bottle of Liquid Plum'r once when she couldn't find a price for it and I was running tight on funds.)

I serindipitously stumbled into the knowledge of the new apartment when my car was broken into last month. I'd called my mother (she also works at the Zoo), and one of her co-workers walked past after she'd finished talking to me, and asked her what was wrong. Mom explained the car break-in and her co-worker correctly surmised that I lived in Clifton.

"Do you know if she might be looking for a new apartment?" she asked. It seems that Mom's co-worker's mother (who also used to work at the Zoo - in my position, no less) owned a four family unit in the city where I grew up, and was looking for a new tenant. The apartment was cheaper than my current place, and included a garage, storage space in the basement, and free laundry. It was at least worth a look.

My new apartment isn't perfect. The carpet's pretty worn, and the bedroom is considerable smaller. But it's got charm. There are large windows in the living room and dining room that swing out from the building, a (non-functioning) fireplace, and a kitchen that is actually large enough to cook in (with a pantry!). There's a back entrance so I can access the garage without walking around the building, and I've been told that I'm more than welcome to use the yard if I develop a green thumb between now and springtime.

My new landlady is possibly one of the most laid back people I've ever met. Rather than giving me a lengthy application and requesting a fee to check my references, she simply asked if I wanted the apartment and what color I would like to have the rooms painted. Last night I dropped off the check, signed the lease (the first one she's ever had a tenant fill out), and picked up the keys. While I was doing this she showed me the china cabinet that she was giving me and asked if I wanted to put down a security deposit or not. Instead of having to pore through a ten page lease full of legalese trying to determine if I could put up a wallpaper border, I was give the verbal OK to do whatever I wanted with regards to decorating, so I get to play Trading Spaces for the next few months. (More along the lines of Vern's tastes though. There will be no "Magenta! Taupe! Magenta! Taupe! All! Around! The! Room!" in my household, thanks.)

So since I'm having to box up my life and transport it across town, I'm going to be tossing a lot of stuff. I have a tendency to be a bit of a packrat and will hold onto things for the hell of it, thinking maybe someday I might need it again. As a result, I have entirely too much stuff, and I've needed a good excuse to go through it and decide what is essential to me and what is just taking up space for no reason. I plan to be ruthless; I'm trying to be Minimalist Girl to make the move (and my life) less complicated.

And while I'm sorting through crap that I've had since stuffed in desk drawers since I was a teenager, I'm thinking about doing the same thing with me. My need to hold onto junk has long since transcended the bedroom closets and there is no more room in my mental storage space for my emotional bagage. Lately it's been spilling out and making an awful mess. It's time to get rid of some things. Of course, that's easier said than done. I've tried to clean out my physical and mental closets before, to little or no avail. Somewhere along the line I seem to have confused "getting rid of things" with "burying it in a secluded corner and pretending it never existed," and of course, those things never stay buried for long and end up in the way again.

So rather than fighting the crowds at the mall to accumulate more stuff, I'm going to be spending the month ridding my life of excess stuff so I can start the year off right. (Chrismas will be coming a bit late in the Myopic household.) New year, new place, new me. It looks good on paper. We shall see.