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I am completely in love with my new place.
After living for about three years as what felt a boarder like other people's homes, I've realized the 21st Century American Dream: Renting a place of my own.
Granted, I have a roommate, but we moved in at the same time. Our apartment is, in any and all respects, equally and jointly our own.
And I love it.
My room is large and carpeted. The bed rests in the middle of the floor, pushed up against two blinded windows and facing the dresser that I like to put my loose dollar bills on top of to feel gangster. I have two closets whose doors are permanently open, a thrift store bookcase and a small yellowing desk that used to belong to a friend.
Just outside is the cabinet for our hot water heater, whose pilot light constantly hisses like a white noise machine.
Down the hall, our living room or den--I can't tell which it is though I'm certain that there are real and important distinctions between the two--contains a large patterned green couch, a salmon recliner and an old vacuum-tube TV on a schlocky black entertainment center. We don't have cable, but thanks to an old PlayStation II, we're able to get through almost an hour of most DVDs until the machine gives up and we get an error message. Against the other wall is a 50s-style retro record player that sits on its own speakers and whose wire runs over the door to the back of the receiver.
The room also features a door to our second-floor porch whose treated concrete floor floods every time it rains and has, for our entire stay so far, attracted a dying cicada each week. The porch itself is bounded by black wrought iron railing and looks onto a small courtyard, which because our building is white and bracket-shaped, feels less like a place to sit and read a book and more like a slightly maintenanced effort to brighten our walks to and away from home, an architectural hug. Looking out from my room, the only visible parts of the courtyard are two thinning tree tops and sky.
Everything in our kitchen is white. From our cabinets and refrigerator to every one of the mobile appliances that line our counters. We have a small table next to the fridge, but it's used only to hold mail and a chess board; our eating is done elsewhere. The flooring is a black-and-white checkerboard linoleum.
This, aside from a humble bathroom whose only distinctions are a black shower curtain and full-sized window, is the entirety of the floor plan.
Across from our 14-unit complex is a half-acre lot of green space for resident use. It's the sort of place you envision having a cookout with friends and lawn chairs, although no one actually ever does. The parking lot is lit by neo-Victorian lampposts, the kind whose metal base has turned green from years of Southern weather and whose top comes to a point. They emit a faint yellow light that begins around dusk each night and lasts until some time after my commute to work. When it rains, the lower end of the lot fills with water and spirals down a hastily added drainage system. On these days and only on these days the residents take the parking spaces directly in front of the courtyard's gazebo-archway entrance.
It's mostly graduate students, single professors and old ladies who live in the complex. But it's also home to a fat mackerel-striped tabby who lounges in the courtyard and ignores the gray-haired gypsy-ish woman who calls to it to come in for dinner and also a small poofy dog named Hannah that belongs to three girls.
In a time when apartments seem to symbolize some of the worst aspects of college-town life, this place's small size and de reigueur modesty make it feel individual. And when you're living without internet access, television and spare cash, it's the the understated and agreeable things in life that provide true enjoyment. I couldn't be happier.