Tuesday 4 October 2016

Moving On...down

I'm moving again. I haven't been evicted or thrown off a couch this time, but I'm moving because of money. I don't know when the last decision I based primarily on money was--or if I've ever made one before in my life-- but this one is it. I just ate a steak downtown and that decision was based solely on hunger and how much I wanted steak, not on the fact that steak is one of the most expensive things on a menu. But I ate the steak and am still hungry so what. I want to move now strictly because of the amount of money I will save by going where I'm going (which still involves rent).

If there is one lesson I've learned in life (along with never checking your bank account balance before bedtime) it is that your entire life you will have to deal with the fact that you take up space and that it must be paid for. In your mother's womb you gradually grew to take up more and more space while she paid for it but as soon as you were born, she immediately needed another place to put you and a new space for you to occupy. You didn't pay for this space for the first eighteen (roughly) years of your life and then all of the sudden: rent. You may have then paid an (increasingly) exorbitant amount to rent space in the classes you attended in university and you had to rent a place to lay your head while you did so (if you didn't live at home). Then at some point following school (decades later to never for some while mere months for others) you have enough to start your own home and now you pay mortgage rent. Then when you reach an age where you can't be trusted to manage the day to day operations of this home, your children or immediate family move you to a nursing home, where you will pay the rent there with the money you made selling off your independence until you're required to pay a fee for the plot you're buried in when you're dead. RENT. RENT. RENT. Oh the things you could buy if the largest chunk of your living didn't have to go to paying for space. But your own (or rented) space is fun! And yes, sure it is, that is until it's not. Until you start meticulously analyzing all the things you are paying for in a rental agreement aside from a place to store your belongings. I.E. the sights, sounds and smells of your rental situation. The toilet ring stains that will never come off no matter how hard you scrub; the rusty shower curtain rod; the Berber carpet that had been trounced down to the floor that you'll no longer walk upon without shoes; the stove that hasn't been cleaned in god knows how many tenants that I just had to clean whilst completely naked there were so many hazardous waste materials at play.

My mother comes over in a hazmat suit. She thinks my living situation is vile and visits her doctor for a delousing serum and scabies cream after she stays over. She has rented maybe four properties in her whole life compared to my...one, two, three (in one year)...and, well you get the picture. She was then off to the land of purchasing space where she is now celebrating the later part of her life mortgage free. What a concept. I think it's time I break out the party hats for her this time. Congratulations, you no longer owe ANYONE for your space. Enjoy it in all of its PAID FOR glory.

I can handle the noises of shared living--meaning the shuffling /stomping of feet at an appropriate decibel (zero), the playing of music (never between the hours of 9pm-9 am) the arrival and departure of guests (if it's never conducted in the hallways we have to share) and the general upkeep and maintenance of the common areas (I actually despise the way they clean the hallways every Sunday and the vacuum comes out because the sounds of vacuuming on a Sunday remind me of being hungover at home and mom firing up the blasted thing at 9am, drilling into my worsening headache and why does vacuuming always have to happen on Sundays anyways).

I will not miss the never ending sounds of construction/renovation at my apartment; or the Africans holding a wedding reception in the back parking lot while I try to park my car; or the non-stop heavy -duty traffic, signs of more construction; or the smell of weed filtering into my window actually waking me up from slumber it's so potent; or the street people rattling my balcony while I'm inside at my computer, masturbating to pornography in my housecoat while they pitch a story of how they need money because their friend broke their leg or how they need let into the building because they're with the census board and are just trying to do their job of marking down who all lives in this matchbox of apartment hell.

My suite is fine. But I'm sick of looking at it because it means more than itself; the whole of the suite is not worth the sum of its parts. So goodbye for now, apartment dwelling! I'm going to someplace worth its rent; it's a shantytown--don't bother sending my things because I won't bloody well need them.