House

I moved into a house. House is a loose term describing a 20 foot high, pile of grabage. I am being to harsh. There are many good things about this house. It has a great location. A nice neghborhood. Internet in every room. Hot water. 3 other nice (I think) people living there. Cheap rent ($450) No down payment. No moving out payment. No contract. That is nice. Here are the bad parts. It is old. Not old like a machiya. Old, like something is old. The wind blows through the house. It is the same temperature inside as it is outside. It is rickety. If it all collapsed on top of me, I wouldn't die unless I was impaled. I asked if it had roaches, "Shit yeah, but it's the mice you gotta worry about." The bathroom and shower are outside, around the back. If it was a machiya, this might seem charming, but this is a dirty, old house. I hope I can fix it up. I don't know. I was down on it. Now I am neautral. It is a step down in someways. I am kind of happy to live with people. I am very particular about my bathrooms though. I can picture my mom refusing to touch anything in the house, or set foot in it. I had the same reaction. It has a certain charm though. It has the verticle Japanese stairwell. The bathroom smells like piss. It is quite a relief to not have to deal with all of the bullshit of renting a house. All I said was "Ok." And that was it. I only have to give 2 weeks notice to move out. The girl who lives there told me today that she has never seen a roach or a mouse but that there are ferrets in the ceiling. I think a kind friend told her that any big rodents were "ferrets." We'll see. I realized this week, staring at a crazy homeless man on the train, that my life is so much closer to that than the guy's who drove past me in the convertible BMW today. That didn't make me feel bad in many ways.