random tambourines. escape mental patients. they dance the way children do at an outdoor concert in the summer – all thrusts and head throw-backs, with no apparent awareness of how anyone around them, or how they’re being perceived. split his performance time between romping around onstage and frolicking in the crowd. range: Dear Believer, folk [...]
Read More...Operation Co-habitation
Four weeks into Operation Co-habitation, and I’m cautiously thrilled. After nearly two years of living out of my gym bag, and stressing over the logistics of who was traveling to whose place each night, there’s a certain relief to being able to just go home at the end of the day. I had never lived with someone I’m dating before – at least not officially. But even when my apartment became essentially a very expensive storage facility, it was still mine. I maintained my own place and paid my own rent, the physical manifestation of my “escape plan” compulsion.
Now I find myself in an arrangement that is locked down by both my relationship and my mortgage alike. The home-buying experience was a snowball progression of signed documents and short successive deadlines, culminating in a whirlwind of a closing that – once the dust settled – left me giddy, clutching the keys to my very own home. The whole process was so shockingly easy that it made me suspicious, and only now, four weeks later, can I take a deep breath and enjoy my investment.
Read More...Hunting for Houses
Buying a condo feels like being on a crazy reality television/game-show. There are people competing against each other. There are obscure rules that seem arbitrary and stress-inducing. There are count-downs to deadlines. There are prizes that seem amazing until you realize what it actually cost you.
I am about to become the owner of a third-floor condominium in South Boston. The thing is, I didn’t actually mean to buy it. The plan was to spend one full year living on my own, renting a downtown apartment mere feet from my office, and only then – once I’d tired of living solo and paying an obnoxious amount in rent just to be in the posh part of town – would I muster the guts to invest in a place for myself.
My mistake was window shopping right after the new year. There’s a strange competitive element to open houses, especially in Boston, especially in this buyer’s market. I found myself on the same track as other young urban professionals and energetic couples, speed-walking to beat them to the next stop on our Open House Tour. After seeing fourteen different condo units throughout Southie, I walked into a gorgeous little penthouse that stood above all the rest – half a floor above the rest, to be exact. The half-floor was a quaint “second story” window’s walk at the top of a winding interior staircase. At the very top of this covered roofdeck was a brass sailboat. Don’t you love when the universe spells it out for you?
The entire place had been redone in a “Back Bay” style, with spiral staircases and coffin corners (for when coffins were brought to the dead, rather than the dead brought to their coffins). The kitchen counter ends with a temperature-controlled wine refrigerator, which may actually be bigger than the economy oven and dishwasher (the current owners clearly had priorities on par with my own). Despite the Barbie-sized appliances, the kitchen takes on a larger feel since it flows into the living area in one open space. The sun floods the room during the day, and the view of the city at night from the tall widow’s walk is panoramic. And the condo includes a washer and dryer… that doesn’t require me to horde quarters like a street bum. And did I mention the private back deck!? Needless to say, when I heard those lovely couples at the open house whisper to themselves about how they “simply had to make an offer,” my competitive nature kicked into overdrive. Those yuppies weren’t getting their greedy hands on my condo. I made a modest bid at first. Then, relieved that the war was apparently still being waged, I upped the ante. And I got it.
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