Pros and Cons of Living Alone

I live with my cat. No one else, just the two of us. I love it. However, there are some drawbacks.

Pro: You don't have to clean. Your mess is your mess. You clean it up when it's convenient. If your favorite pan is dirty, you have no one to blame but yourself. You can leave your dirty clothes laying all over the house (because we all strip naked in our kitchens from time to time, right?)

Con: You don't have to clean. The freedom to not pick up after yourself is a cruel, cruel trap. It takes a lot more motivation to clean when your place is trashed.  Also, you can't have company over without apologizing.

Pro: You have a lot more privacy. Remember that thing I said about stripping naked in the kitchen from time to time? You can't do that with a roommate (at least a platonic one, unless you're really really close). Heck, you can exercise naked. You can even talk on the phone about anyone without worrying that your roommate is overhearing and repeating later.

Con: It's harder to have a social life. If you don't leave your house, you aren't going to see anyone that day. And unless your friends lives across the street/down the hall, you have to plan a lot more. No more spontaneous dinners out, or a spur of the moment decision to go to for a walk with them. It takes some effort to coordinate things. Despite how Friends made things look, no one leaves their apartment unlocked while they're not home. Nor will your broke friends constantly hang out in the same coffee shop every day. That shit's expensive.

Pro: You can definitely be inconsiderate. Unless you have neighbors in the same building, you can play music, watch TV, exercise, dance, cook, etc at all hours of the day. Get up at 6 and feel like turning up the metal and doing jumping jacks? You can. Want to make curry at midnight while watching your favorite Bollywood movie? If you can stay awake til 4am, go for it. Who is going to tell you "no"? No one. Because you live by yourself, and as long as there is food in the bowl and no crap in the litter box, your cat won't care what shenanigans you get up to.

Con: You don't have to stick to a normal person routine. While watching Shahrukh Khan make a puppydog face a woman half his age while singing and dancing at 3 am may be really fun, it is definitely not a normal thing to do. Being asleep at 3 am is a normal thing to do. Granted, having a roommate can keep you awake sometimes ("Is she still on the phone? It is 3 am!"), turning off the noise and light so they can get up for work in the morning will also help you get up for work in the morning.

Pro: You don't have to compromise. Yeah, it may be there turn to call the landlord about a repair, but you really want it done now. That picture of that turtle may creep you out, but your beloved yet ugly painting of a tree is across the room from it. Yes, you do most of the cooking, but their food deserves a cabinet too. You think he just needs to put on a hoodie, but having the heat at 55 in January in Minnesota isn't something most people are used to, you guess. Reasonable, but really?

Con: There's no pressure to get stuff done. Yeah, the hot water isn't hot enough, but I can live with that. I should probably hang up the painting of a tree, but it's just me, and I don't really need it up. Yeah, I should probably clean the bathroom, but I'm ok with cat hair on the floor.

Overall, I'm bossy and inconsiderate and anti-social and bachelorish (yeah, it's a word now) enough where I prefer to live alone. Despite the fact that I am terrible at cleaning, exercise mostly nude, play my music at odd hours, and have trouble going to bed sometimes, I think it suits me better than having roommates.

First Sunburn of the Year

My face is pink! I love the feeling of being sunburned. It's just warm and cozy.

I got my sunburn by apartment hunting. I unfortunately have to move because rent went up, and my roommate moved away. And I don't really want to live with anyone else, so I should probably get a 1 bedroom or studio so someone can take the larger space who needs it.

So, I hoofed it around some areas in uptown and eat street and phillips to see if there are any rentals around there. I have a couple I need to follow up with, because they looked promising. I don't really want to live in Phillips, but it's more convenient than Uptown, and I get less angry about the privilege in our country.

For some reason, every time I'm in uptown, I just get upset that white privilege exists, and that wealth is so concentrated with one class of people. I know it's not the fault of the people who live in Uptown, but people jogging with their dog past the lakes, or pushing their children in fancy strollers past their beautiful gardens just makes me sad. Especially when I then go to Phillips, where people are taking the bus to work on a Saturday afternoon, and asking strangers to help pay their bus fare, and the sidewalks and road surface quality is noticeably worse than in Uptown.

So, I probably shouldn't live in Uptown. Plus the bus ride would be 40 minutes instead of 15 from Phillips. Even though Uptown is prettier and safer. Plus, Uptown is expensive and tempting! So many amazing restaurants and coffee shops. In Phillips, there are good bakeries and coffee shops and stuff, but most of the restaurants aren't so veggie friendly, so I will spend less.

Settling In

Well, I've just about settled into my new home. I just need some more furniture, like a bookshelf, more seating in the living room, something to put in my dining room, and maybe a TV stand or an end table. Most of these things, I can get for free at my mom's house, once I clean them out of my bedroom. None of my furniture will match, but I can just get matching furniture one day when I'm rich and buy a fancy condo or house custom-designed for me. :)

So far in my living room I have a bright purple rug, a bright red coffee table, a sage green couch, a purple bookshelf and a black table. And a pink flamingo. Blue curtains on one window and a rainbow sarong pinned up to the other window. See what I mean about not matching?

Anyway, I like the place. It's close to a lot of public transportation, which I like. I can take the light rail to work, downtown, the mall, or even all the way to my hometown.

Now all I need is a roommate. And a pet (other than the hamster and fish, because they're only temporary until August comes). I kinda like having my own place, but it's cheaper, safer and less anti-social to have one. Come January, I will probably go stir-crazy if I don't have someone to live with. Luckily, the U and Augsburg are literally within walking distance (I can even see them from the corner!), so finding a roommate probably won't be too hard.

PS: My basement is sketchy as all get out. Maybe I could clean it up and use it for something...

Work work work

Today, I woke up at 5:05.

It was really early. My weekend newspaper wasn't even delivered yet! I got up before the newspaper was delivered. I don't think I've ever done that before.

I got ready, and took a brisk walk to school (it's a 15 minute brisk walk while cutting through the football field, which may not actually take any time off. I slowly strolled up to campus in 22 minutes yesterday). It was still dark and very cool, but not cold.

I got inside Buntrock and oh man, it was so warm! I just broke out in a sweat, and had to wipe my face with a paper towel before putting on my visor.

Then I spent 8.03 hours setting up serving stations, making sandwiches and changing out desserts for work. The hard work was inside, the easy work was outside, but it was hot!

Still, money!

Now, I'm going to go and pay my rent. : ) We get internet on Wednesday.

New Apartment

Yesterday, I finished moving in to my new apartment. It's a nice place. Our living room is bare-looking at the moment, but all we have is a coffee table, a couch and a TV on a small table with an N64. We're getting another couch on Monday, and an antenna for the TV hopefully soon. My roommate's S.O. is allergic to dogs, and our couch has a light coat of dog hair on it. Poor guy. He had to change clothes after he helped us shove it up to our apartment.

My room is all put together. These are some pictures. When the living room and kitchen get figured out, I'll put pics of up those, as well.

This is my desk area, including my balance ball/chair.
This is my bed/futon, including my finishedt-shirt blanket. Yay! I finished it!
And my dresser and bookshelf. See the swords? My dad gave those to me yesterday, too. I managed to get them on the wall, balancing precariously on thumbtacks. Or pushpins? I don't know what they're called. Like my hula hoop? : )

Now I have to pay bills, too. Suck... yay adulthood?

I start work tomorrow. 6:30-2:30. Good times......

New Apartment

Yesterday, I made the journey to Northfield to sign the lease of my new apartment. I am renting a two bedroom with my friend Sokun. We signed the lease, then went to move some of his stuff in. We live in number 100, on the 3rd floor. Luckily we have a wide stairwell, so we were able to carry things up easily. We also found a couch in our garage, but apparently it's janky, so Sokun didn't want to bring it up. WM is taking it away unless another resident wants it.

Our fridge is short, but spacious. Our toilet is broken, but being fixed tomorrow. Our range hood needs fixing, but will also be fixed tomorrow. Our carpet squares aren't glued down (but that's not really a problem). Other than that, it's a really nice place. Oh, also, both of our names are spelled wrong on the lease. It's still legally binding, though. Just funny. My last name is Jorden (Jordan) and his name is Sokum (Sokun).

I'm very excited to move in on Wednesday. : )

However, the journey back from St. Olaf was fraught with mild inconveniences. Sokun dropped me off at MOA for the light rail, and I went downstairs to the transit station, intending to put money on my Go-To card. Apparently there was a Twins game that night, because there was a line about 20 people long waiting to buy tickets. Good lord. So I waited in line for about 5 minutes when I remembered the morning bus driver accidentally charged me for disability, only 50 cents instead of $2.25. So I still had 50 cents left on my card! Joy! (With the Go-To card, if you have any money on it, it'll just go into the negative when you charge the ride, and you pay it off when you put more money on your card). So I went to the Go-To pole, and a Metro Transit officer was leaning on it. Ugh... I just politely asked him to get off the pad, scanned my card and got on the very crowded train.

Luckily I found a seat. Unluckily, the train was really crowded. The woman sitting next to me kept staring at me in the reflection on the glass that was in front of us. The bike rack area was full of standing Twins fans, so bikers had to hold their bikes upright because there was no room for them to put them up, or even to let them sit with both wheels on the ground. (BTW, don't stand in the bike rack area. Just move down the aisle. it's really rude). Anyway, I eventually made it back downtown, where I put money on my card for the transfer home.

It was also really cold outside. Earlier in the day, it had been nice and sunny, if a bit breezy. By the time I was heading home, it was cold and cloudy and windy. I took refuge in the Central library, where I decided to go to the bathroom. Out of the 6 stalls, one was occupied, 3 had piss on the seats and 1 had crap on the seat. As I was walking back to the empty one, someone else took it. So I waited for the person in the occupied stall to finish (she left pee on the seat...), and carefully went potty (after wiping the seat down thoroughly).

Then I went to Dunn bros, and bought a chai latte and picked up a Lavender magazine. The chai was a little cold, but warmer than I was at the moment, so I didn't complain. I walked to the bus stop, balanced my chai on the railing, hopped up myself, and started to read. About halfway through my chai, it fell off the railing. That's more my fault than anything (I really should have been holding on to it), but it was still aggravating. Then not one, not two, but three other people waiting for the bus pulled out cigarettes and started smoking. They were both a respectful distance away, so it'd be rude of me to tell them to stand elsewhere, but like I said, it was windy. So I walked further away, and then something good happened: I ran into Nik, a friend of mine from high school, who was also waiting for the bus. We chatted pleasantly on the bus.

And that was the end of the mildly inconvenienced journey home.

Shchool ish cool.

I am beginning to get excited to go back to school.

Don't get me wrong, I love home. I love the peace and freedom that comes with home and summer. But I do miss actually doing things and having a purpose. I miss stress. I miss being with my makeshift family constantly. I miss new experiences and stimulating conversation. I miss grocery shopping and Target runs. I miss stealing pizza from the Pause and napping on the janky couches in Fireside. I miss work, and homework, and professors.

I went to see my apartment today. It's nice. It's on the 3rd floor, so I'll need to find a couple friends to help me move. We have a dishwasher. Yay! We'll just have to get used to not having a custodian this year and cleaning things ourselves. : ) I'm excited. I can take the elevator up the hill in Holland (because almost all of my classes are there) when I get to school, and in the winter, I can sled back down the hill. It's a small hike to campus from the apartment, but that's okay. I could use the exercise.

I'm very excited to move in. We have some stuff that we still need to buy, but we have the important stuff, such as large furniture and some dishes and all of our personal stuff. BTW, if anyone is looking to get rid of a comfy couch or some end tables or pots and pans, let me know. I will take them off your hands. : )

I'm also getting my schedule together for the year. I have mainly Polisci and Soc/Anthro classes, with 2 Women's Studies and 1 Religion class left to take for the rest of undergrad. I want to take another stats course as well, though. I'll see if I can squeeze it in.

In other news, I played my mom in Trivial Pursuit today. I won. I just bought it today at Goodwill for $3. : )