Apartment Hunting: It Gets Better After the Millionth Time

Apartment hunting: it gets better after the millionth time. At least, that’s what I’m trying to trick myself into thinking. While it’s all fun and games being shown vast, luxurious spaces and imagining how your life can fit right in-where you’ll curl up with your favorite book, how you’ll wake up every Saturday morning for coffee and toast with a crossword at the kitchen island, the maroon velvet curtains you’ll put up in the second bedroom that will double as your office/writing space-the realization that you’ll have to move all of your already-acquired crap into yet another apartment suddenly makes your crummy two-bedroom, right above the neighbors you so lovingly call The Door Slammers, seem like a stay at the Waldorf Astoria. And if it were possible, you’d just as soon stay put, at least until you can save up the money to hire some burly men to do all the work for you.

But alas, we don’t get that luxury. Kansas City expects us to be settled down with full K.C. residency by the end of July and moving all of our crap is inevitable. Fortunately (for better or worse), because we haven’t even been in our current apartment for a year yet, there are still plenty of boxes that have yet to be unpacked. Although time isn’t completely to blame for our lack of unpacking- we simply don’t have the space to unpack everything. That’s just how much crap we’ve accumulated: books, comics, cds, old clothes that should have been dropped off at Goodwill years ago, etc. We’re not junky and we’re not necessarily hoarders. We just never realized how much crap we had until it was time to downsize at the start of the recession and we were forced to move out of our condo.

But back to the move. We've begun our search, which is, suffice it to say, going much better than searches in the past, as we now have the freedom to widen our prospects. There was a damn-near perfect apartment in the downtown area right across the street from the main branch of the public library. But it was without a balcony and balconies have become very important in saving my marriage, as Halbastram and I make it a point to take time out to sit and have a drink and a smoke on nice evenings and talk about whatever. Plus, every now and then the stupid cat likes to get outside and enjoy the “fresh” air, and I’m not even going to entertain the notion of leashing my lazy asshole of a cat, so that apartment is out.

Another apartment we looked at is in the middle of one of the more hip neighborhoods in K.C., with bars, restaurants, grocery stores and tattoo shops all within walking distance. After living in largely isolated places for the last five years, where I’d have to get into my car whenever I wanted a snack, this place is perfect. The only downside: because it is the “hip” part of town, there will be plenty of fresh-faced 20-somethings looking to have a good time, which works for me, except now that we’re on the road to fertility, I have to start thinking beyond my own selfish living arrangements. Not that you have to live in Boringland in order to start/raise a family, but a cramped apartment complex probably isn't the best choice, considering that we don’t even have space for our stuff, let alone another human being.

And a lazy asshole cat.

Then there’s one last apartment complex, which we’ll call Rip-Off City, that basically wants you to pay a king’s ransom in fees before you even make your first rent payment, all because it’s located near the university. And, as I've learned in five years living in two separate college towns, businesses love to rip students off any and every way they can, even if non-students get caught up in their fuckery as well- them’s the breaks. Despite the fact that it’s in a perfect location within walking distance of the art museum and the shopping district, they can bite my shiny metal ass.

As it is only February, we have a few months ahead of us before he have to make a commitment. And while it would be nice to have a cool apartment in the cool part of town across the street from the library or up the street from the hottest bar in town and a stone’s throw away from the museum, what I really want more than anything is a home that I can plant my roots in for a while, be it a house, condo or apartment. I’m looking for a final sense of stability and normalcy. And I know that I’ll find it somewhere in K.C. Eventually.

Hopefully by July, though. Because I got schedules.

My 2015

I'll keep this short and sweet (and a tad sour):

A few days before my 31st birthday I asked if turning a year older, if actually being in my 30s would feel any differently that just being 30. And I was told that it would feel different. Naturally I was skeptic; not just because I didn't believe that one year would make that much of a difference. But because I felt like I’d been the same person for a majority of my 20s, up to my 30s.

And while I didn't feel a magical difference the minute the clock struck midnight on my 31st, I have started to notice gradual changes I've made in my life since then- some important, some silly and superficial, but necessary all the same. I've cut ties, made adjustments, reevaluated my priorities, and stopped giving a shit how boring my life is compared to my contemporaries. If I spend my Friday night catching up on some historical fiction instead of clubbing or bar-hopping or running the streets, so be it. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with everyone else’s life instead of just focusing on my own. That’s not to say that I’m not interested in what people do- I still want to hear your stories and see your pictures because human connections are still important to me. But while I’m happy that you took an amazing vacation, I’m equally as happy that I made a decent attempt at teriyaki baked cod last night. Such is the nature of my life. I've slowed down a bit. And I’m ok with that.

This is the year of laying down roots: having babies, building houses, starting new careers. It’s time to get my fucking adulthood started. And I feel that now- I’m ready.

R.W.B.

I know I should ignore the people ranting about how we wouldn't be "targeted" if we weren't breaking the law.

But consider this:

Halbastram and I were traveling on I-55, leaving my mother's house & heading back to Kansas following some holiday.  Naturally, as with most holiday travel, there were plenty of officers on the highway.  We caught the attention of one trooper, who tailed us for at least a mile trying to run our plates before finally just pulling us over.  He approached the window and did his whole "license, registration" spiel and noticed that the insurance and his license were two different addresses (we had just moved from Manhattan to Lawrence and hadn't changed over our IDs yet).  For some reason, this prompted him to ask Halbastram to exit the vehicle and go sit in the squad car while he ran his ID.

After placing Halbastram in the car (with the police dog, no less), he then approaches my window and asks for my ID.  I hand it over; unfortunately for me, it was still an Illinois license.  As we moved to Kansas just to attend school, and my license wasn't expired, I just didn't bother because I didn't think we were staying here permanently.  He proceeds to play 20 questions with me, asking why we had two different licenses, where I went to school, how old I was, if we were married, where we were coming from, etc., i.e., questions he already had the answers to because he had just finished asking Halbastram those very questions before moving him to the squad car.

I don't exactly know what his game was, or what he was hoping to gather from that, but he kept Halbastram in the car for about five minutes before letting him go with a warning.

Why he had to remove him from our car to do so just baffles me, but I'm fairly certain race played a huge part here; and I feel confident saying that because I was harassed about my ID as a passenger once before, while riding with My Lady through Naperville.  And in the Naperville case, since my ID said "Chicago" while my lady's said "Joliet", this guy wanted to know what we were doing in Naperville.  As if it were utterly impossible for two people of different races from different towns to be friends on a little road trip.  Once we mentioned "college", he seemed a tad bummed that it wasn't something more worth his while.

And no, having a completely valid ID from one state while being a student in another is no reason to harass passengers.  What would have happened if I told him that I didn't have an ID?  Legally, I'm not required to have one on me as a passenger.

The point is, you don't have to necessarily be doing anything to arouse the suspicion of some; sometimes it's as simple as "riding in the car with your husband" or "being a black passenger in Naperville."

And yes, I know #notallcops; but #notallblackpeople also.