You enter the process with so much excitement. The possibilities seem endless: hardwood floors! 1000 sq ft! Mountain views! Close to Skytrain! In my price range! Utilities included!
You do a drive-by. Walk around the area. “I could live here,” you think. You find yourself dreaming of the future like it is some kind of golden age just around the corner; this beautiful utopia that finally seems within reach. Is this not the kind of adulthood you were always told you would have?
But then you dig a little deeper. Make a couple calls. Some internet research. Find out about the bed bugs. The past history of murders and muggings. Find out that we live in frickin’ Vancouver, where the kind of money that gets you a mansion in Toronto gets you a crackhouse here.
You cross a few things out on your list.
You widen your parameters a little. You try to tell yourself this part of town is “the next big thing.” That “I’ve heard they’re planning on gentrifying.” But, as Boyfriend noted: “This is definitely east East Van. See that big shadow on the horizon. That’s Burnaby.”
“But the price is good,” you tell yourself, “And the building is nice.”
Compromises are kicking in.
And this goes on. And on. Until you just find yourself thinking “I just need to find somewhere before the end of the month. Fuck it, anywhere.“
I divide my time between a variety of poverty-inducing ventures: writing for fun and writing for torture; watching far too many movies and reading far too few books.
I have lived previous incarnations as bookseller, bureaucrat, filmmaker, zinester, student, and wayward traveller. I studied Film at Langara after seven years at Simon Fraser entrenched in English, Archaeology and about every other Liberal Arts and social science topic you can imagine.
I am very good at Trivial Pursuit.
I am related to Dr. Samuel Johnson, writer of the first English dictionary, which explains my perfect spelling and penchant for black cats.
I once lived in a house in the South Hill neighbourhood of Vancouver with six people, four cats, one goldfish, and a vegetable garden for a front yard. We called it The Commune. It was where I lived with my husband before he was Husband, before he was Fiance, before he was Boyfriend, back when he was just Boy Roommate. Life was a sitcom and we were the “will they/won’t they.”
We did.
Once we ran away to England because we like having adventures. But we didn’t like it that much, so we came home again.
I have the personality of a superhero’s alter-ego. Only I don’t fight crime. At least not yet.
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But then you dig a little deeper. Make a couple calls. Some internet research. Find out about the bed bugs. The past history of murders and muggings. Find out that we live in frickin’ Vancouver, where the kind of money that gets you a mansion in Toronto gets you a crackhouse here.
One thought on “Apartment Hunting as a Metaphor for Life”