NWC Day 2: Apartment Life

I'm participating in a daily writing challenge for the month of November. It's modeled after NaNoWriMo, except I don't have to write 1,667 words a day. I can do it. I just don't want to.

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Prompt #2: Why do you live where you do? Does it feel like 'home'?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG NO.

(That was in response to the second question.)

Simply put, I live where I do because it's cheap and I can't afford to move. Yet.

I'll keep the woe-is-me tale that is living here to a minimum, mostly because I'm sure I've already blogged about it. And because my friends have heard me complain ad nauseum and I'm surprised they still take my calls.

I live downstairs from noisy boys with erratic schedules. It's not uncommon for me to wake up at 5:00 a.m. when one of them comes home from wherever he's been. Work, drinking, cow wrangling, whatever. Stompy McThunderfoot wrestles his bike, which is apparently alive and fights back, as he stores it in our small, shared foyer. He stomps upstairs and unceremoniously dumps whatever he was carrying on the floor of the bedroom above mine. And then the puttering parade begins, often lasting at least an hour (if not longer). He apparently finds every heavy thing at the far end of his apartment, trots it back to the bedroom, and dumps it on the floor. Shoes, laundry baskets, boulders -- I can't tell. I just know that I always hope to sleep through it and rarely do.

There are other offenses -- late-night drinking that leads to lots of WOOOO!!!ing, backyard parties that last until 3:30 a.m. (see also: last Thursday), and marathon furniture-moving sessions. There's really nothing like the sudden and prolonged sound of a couch being dragged across a floor. And then pushed against the other wall. And maybe put back in its original position let's move the bookcase instead. These are the same people that I had to yell at last spring when they and their friends were tap dancing. Seriously. It sounded like a band of drunk elephants had broken in and were going nuts.

I continually tell myself it's not forever. I have my sights on a new apartment and think fondly about the day when I'll be able to go to sleep when I want and STAY asleep. I won't share an entrance or have clompy footsteps overhead. I won't get into a passive-aggressive Post-It-note war with Stompy after complaining to the landlord, who is a nice guy but completely non-confrontational.

Thankfully, I have a lead on a possible job that will supplement my freelance writing/editing income nicely. And then I can save my pennies and get the hell out of Dodge before arson starts sounding like a logical solution.