Moving in Boston was always a huge chore. I had much more back then and it would take at least a day just to get all my stuff across town to a (hopefully) better place and moved in. Then I could look forward to an increase of rent with most likely little change in living. Now it's all I can think about. I spend a lot of my free time looking at new apartments, learning about different neighborhoods and trying to find where I most want to live because, unlike Boston, I can move where I want. Rent is cheap enough that I don't choose neighborhoods based on where I can afford, now I just find the best one that's right for me.

When I first agreed to move into my place with a roommate months ago it was because I didn't know anyone and he promised me he spent most of his days outside working, which turned out to be one of the bigger lies I've ever heard in my life. All his free time is spent watching tv, smoking and sleeping on the couch. When he is awake he stomps around the place, unaware of the noise he makes with the slightest movement. It's like he never really learned how to walk and continues to bash into walls and hit furniture. Add onto that his constant coughing, clearing of his throat and bellowing whenever he talks to someone on the phone. Several times this past week he's argued with someone (one of them his oldest friend), almost becoming violent.
He has a severe control problem and wants to dictate everything I do outside of my own room even going so far as to dictate what can and can't go in the garbage. Certain boxes, he says, should sit in a pile on the balcony rather than get thrown away because it's easier to take care of, despite how slobbish or smelly it is to leave garbage right outside the apartment.
He forgets simple things like turning off the bathroom faucet, washing the dishes, leaving the windows open in the dead of winter and locking the front door. He blasts the tv and radio with horrible sitcoms, court tv shows and bad music and the place reeks of cigarette smoke (which I've managed to keep out of my room). Each day I lose more and more contact with this place and already believed myself to be half moved out.
The great thing is, he knows this. While I've been very busy with both work and a social life having only been here for less than a year, he hardly leaves. He knows, or at least senses that I'm moving out. A few days ago he even mentioned how good a roommate I was and it was good having me around.
"Why, are you going somewhere?" I asked. I plan to tell him when I have a place and a date to move, which should be in around a month.
I didn't want to fill this blog with my complaining about him and have hardly mentioned him for months but wanted to make one final post about him before I go.
I have very little say in this place. I deal with that because he pays all the bills other than rent (which I get a deal on). I don't pay for internet, electricity, gas or anything. I'm not sure why, when I moved in he told me I would but he never got around to it. It's one of the few perks about living here.
He doesn't want any of my stuff outside of my room, which is fine with me because it would soon be covered with a film of cigarette smoke anyway. The rest of the apartment is creepy and filled with strange things- weird religious pictures, cartoons about drug rehab, odd art, grossly unrealistic (and more than slightly homosexual) toys of body builders. There is a statue of a man with a dog's head made out of brass that is weird as shit.
He also freaks out all my friends. Whenever I have someone over they get very uncomfortable, especially if he's hanging around or leering at them. It's just all over creepy. I can't wait to get the fuck out of here.

Right now I'm considering different places. Logan Square looks good, though inconvenient. I preferred Ukranian Village though I don't see many places open there. If anything I'll move somewhere around Wicker Park, not because I want to live there but because it's nearer to my friends and I always end up there anyway.

When I moved into my first place on my own in early 1997 I paid $835 a month. It was a pretty good place, in a good neighborhood (though I was robbed there once) and it went up to $1,100 by the time I moved out. A couple years later I had a much better place three blocks from the beach for $1,430 a month. It was a lot but I managed it. With that price I could find a very good place here.
Of course, I'd rather not throw that money away on rent. The reason I'm living beneath my means now is to save money to buy my own place in a couple years. I'm going to go beneath a grand on the next place. It's more than I'm paying now but much less than what I can afford. I'll live cheaply so I can live much better and more comfortably soon.