Still Recovering

from my weekend. Didn’t even make it out of bed until 9:00 today, and didn’t go into the office except to cut paychecks for staff.

We had the worst weather possible for apartment hunting over the weekend. It was 95 on Saturday, and 92 on Sunday. It was so humid I couldn’t breathe when I was outside, and had to drink a bottle of water about every hour. My clothes were all clinging to me in sweat – and boy did I sweat.

Boyfriend, bless his heart, tagged along with me around town in this weather and never complained, even driving me part of the way. He was also very charming with our would-be renters and they loved him.

The apartments in town, as I described to friend A, were expensive, crappy, and small. The one passable apartment would have cost Boyfriend and I $1,800 per month WHILE sharing with a suitemate. The others were either strangely configured or dirty and smelly, or both.

One of the apartments we looked at across the river, about 15 minutes or walking from campus, was in a old building that looked like it could fall down any minute now. It was occupied by a fragile old lady who looked like she came straight out of a horror film from the 60s -- mass of white, uncombed hair, white virginal dressing gown, high-pitched thin voice, a dreamy and slightly crazed look in her eyes. I was literally afraid to step into her apartment by myself, and was greatly reassured when Boyfriend showed up in a taxi about 5 minutes later.

Her apartment was very, very smelly – I read somewhere that it was a sign of dementia to let your belongings begin to smell without noticing it.

None of the others was as weird as the first one, but none was that impressive, either. None gave me a sense of "wow! I want to live here!"

We were a little tempted by a small, university-affiliated apartment being subleted by an Indian business school student. But was put off by having to have a suitemate, and by his obvious anal-retentiveness. (He said 5 or 6 times HIMSELF that he was very “anal” about neatness, and kept on describing the apartment, which was SPOTLESS, as “a pig sty”.)

There was also a sublet that I visited alone from a visiting scholar from China, who was very eager to rent to me because “we are both Chinese”. Sadly, the apartment itself was smelly (in the worst way), greasy, and dirty. I stayed in there for about 5 minutes and then made my escape.

There was a charming little apartment that Boyfriend and I are considering, but it will not be furnished and we will have very little furniture, at least in the summer. The renter seemed to have really liked us, but we are still being indecisive.

The interviews with various job applicants went much better – in general, people were more energetic, more career-focused, and seemed more “high-powered” and impressive than around here.

Over all, the weekend was very educational and gave me a real sense of what to expect in the town that I will call home for the next 3 years.

Birthday was very good too. Boyfriend got me a gift certificate to a little seaside day spa around here. How did he know?!?