October 29, 2005

The quest for a new apartment continues, and it will continue right on past the place we looked at today.

It was a one bedroom loft in the Pearl District and, judging from the ad for it in the newspaper, it sounded perfect. High ceilings with original beams exposed, huge windows, cork floors, great view, washer and dryer, free parking and storage, on the streetcar line, and all this in a building that's on the National Register of Historic Places. Sure, the rent on this place was steep but, for a cool, perfectly located loft in the Pearl, it would be worth it.

One thing the ad forget to mention, however, was that the place was tiny. It wasn't a loft, it was a mini loft, certifiably lilliputian. I walked in, took one look around, and my first thought was, where's the rest of it? But there was no rest of it, that was it. There wasn't even a bedroom type area to this supposed one bedroom loft. It was just a shoebox made out of really spiffy materials and, maybe I'm too picky, but I don't want to live in a $1200 a month shoebox, even if it does have cork floors.

We've gone that route before. We lived in a tiny studio apartment when we first moved in together, nine years ago, and it was an ongoing adventure in learning that, regardless of how much you love each other, there really is such a thing as too much togetherness. If Dante had been a bit more creative, he would have made joint cohabitation in a studio apartment the deepest level of hell. Not that we didn't have some good times in hell, er, the studio apartment, but had we stayed there much longer, I don't think we'd be married today. Maimed, but no married.

So, no mini loft for us. The search continues, although I'm starting to feel like we're more likely to find a unicorn tap dancing around a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow than we are a nice, affordable apartment. But for now, I'm going to search my way into bed, because apartment hunting is exhausting and I really need a nap. A nap, afterall, is free, as big as you want it to be, doesn't require a lease, allows pets and is never hard to find. Actually, come to think of it, I might just move into a nap and live there.

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