New York Apartment/Roommates

Living situations have plagued me since I've moved to New York.  

Briefly:

Staten Island:  What was I thinking? I'd always oversleep, and run to that ferry thinking: "This is sad, this is sad." When I was on the ferry, I'd ruminate, depressed: "My God, what have I become?I'm a ferry woman, I'm a ferry woman." However, my roommate was good, and the apt, cheap ($500). I was in theater school. It happens. My instincts had said Greenpoint. I ignored them.

That was about 12 years ago.

Washington Heights: German boy, who resembled the Muppets character, Beaker. Pretty crazy. Rent was $500. Apartment had a lot of cockroaches I sometimes kicked down the hall, but it was pre-war, beautiful, and large. He starting having personal problems, and slept in the living room, often. I asked him not to. He walked around in his underwear. I asked him to stop. I usually encountered him first thing in the morning, as we walked towards the kitchen from opposite ends of the apartment. I contemplated getting a water gun so that I could shoot him in the balls when he'd saunter towards me, snickering and half-naked.

Avenue Q - Older lady. She slept in the living room, with many books, shawls, dusty things, and memories. Usually opened the door for me when I came home late in the evening. In general pounced on my ear and spoke of many things from literature and men, to the downfall of Winona Ryder (of whom she spoke of pityingly: She had no sex appeal, she couldn't grow up.)

Montrose Ave - I lived with 2 women, in the Mckibben Lofts, one of whom wouldn't clean, aside from mopping  her path through the apartment. The building became known as "the ATM" due to constant muggings, and I started running home from the subway. Expensive rent, no window in my room. Didn't last very long. Even the mover thought the room sucked.

Astoria - Cheap rent. Nice apartment. The mover thought so, too. My Italian-American landlord was something of a racist. I think he expected me to wear a scarf, have a camel, or be something of the walking, talking stereotype that he was. I got along perfectly with my roommate for months (because she was never home), and when she started to be around we drove each other perfectly mad.
 
Greenpoint 1 - A railroad apartment. Roommate had her own entrance, but constantly chose to walk through my room. Eventually I was given the boot so her girlfriend could move in.

LIC - Crazy/Cheap theme continued.

Greenpoint 2 - I lived in the converted living room. Also cheap. One of my roommates liked to spank his girlfriends during sex with the door open (for his cat).

Greenpoint 3 -  The best hook up for me at the time. My roommate was a painter, and never home. She'd interviewed me in her kitchen, we got along and I moved in. It slowly dawned on me that all of her paintings were of bugs, which I hate. She literally studied them (sometimes live), before painting them. I was more creative/productive than I had been in quite awhile, but I also habitually chugged jugs of wine alone, watched Gossip Girl, and fantasized about my mean boss.

Greenpoint 4 - Here, where I've been for 2 years. My first time as the lease holder. Mostly good things - some sad, and some strange:  I can look out my window see into the backyard, where my landlord's father started a giant magical castle before he died. Now a single gnome stands before what looks like a large,half-melted, cement igloo.