Is this home...

I alluded to this point in my last post, but I've been experiencing some apartment drama lately.  I don't know if I've talked about my apartment on here, but I got very lucky last year.  I live in a gorgeous, full-service building right outside of Washington, DC in Arlington, VA.  My building has soft lighting, a DVD library, wonderful concierges, a gym with the latest equipment, a business center, conference rooms, a washer and dryer in each apartment, balconies...it has been glorious and I feel so lucky.  It has vanilla-frozen-yogurt-colored walls that the lights seem to caress.  My kitchen has a roominess that I completely lacked in New York.  I am within a 2-minute walk to the indie coffee shop where everybody knows my name (literally) and I don't have to feel like a corporate sell-out.  And now I might have to leave.  I might have to leave the wonderful little quirky cottage existence that I have created in this building that spoiled me with both safety and luxury, for a very reasonable price tag.

My roommate told me a few days ago that she wants to move into DC, which I have no urge to do.  I teach in Virginia, so it doesn't make any sense to move further in, and I honestly feel like most areas of DC that would be affordable lack the safety that I have in my little nook of VA.  My lease is up on May 31.  Because I don't know if I will be able to find another roommate (who is sane-- I refuse to chance it with Craigslist), we had to give our notice today.  I am hoping that I will in fact find someone and be able to avoid moving.  I've developed certain standards of living-- and a need for space (the "teacher stuff": takes up an entire corner)-- that simply cannot be met if I move somewhere on my own.  Every place that I've found would cost me somewhere topping $1700 a month.  The more reasonable places are in an area where a friend of mine got her car broken into a couple of months ago and where I would never feel safe.  And let's face it-- I am not good with change, and I don't know if I can handle another move.  I am still recovering from the last one.  

My roommate has it easy.  She is not the one who hunted for apartments last year, so she has no idea what a hassle it is.  She does not have any furniture to move-- everything is mine.  She has lots of friends who will be possible new DC roommates.  Unfortunately, I feel like I have fewer and fewer real friends here.  I've recently discovered that my graduate school friends are shallow, lack empathy, and are really not worth my time.  My friends from college, although they are wonderful, are too party-focused to be compatible roommates for me, and they all have secured housing arrangements anyway.  I've been so exhausted from teaching that I have not been doing anything remotely social for the longest time, and now I find that I cannot list a single possible roommate who might save me from having to move.  I have a few months before it becomes a real issue, but I just feel so frustrated and semi-betrayed.  I have enough on my mind, trying to become the person I am supposed to be and being responsible for 125 little lives (and my own!).  It is so hard to feel like I belong, to get my external surroundings to suit my insides.  I've made my magic dream cottage here.  I don't want to leave it.

My ideal roommate would be someone in her early- to mid-twenties who is kind and quirky, someone considerate and relatively neat (but not obsessively so), who likes to cook and enjoys a spontaneous dance party.  She would enjoy reruns of forensic television dramas but would be just as willing to watch Gigi or To Catch a Thief.  She would know that Guster is not an indie band and would think A Fine Frenzy is the best thing since sliced bread.  She would enjoy a glass of wine (or several) but not crazy drunkenness and would have a mostly clean-living lifestyle (and would definitely lack a crazy revolving door of men or an always-present boyfriend!  Ugh, we've learned from the past).  She would appreciate granny-chic and would be non-judgmental, responsible, positive, and human.  I don't think that's too much to ask!  I just have no idea how to find it.  Do you?

(top image from here)

(oh, and happy 30th to Exbf...a thousand kisses deep...!)