2002-03-12 - 1:35 a.m.

Somerville, Massachusetts

That's where I am as I write this, sitting on the stoop of a house where I'm checking out a potential place to live. I'm an hour early, no one is here right now, I haven't looked inside yet, and I already know I'm not going to be living here.

The steps I'm sitting on right now are dingy, cracked concrete. The railings are covered in peeling silver paint, stained a nasty red-brown around the spots where exposed bits have long since rusted over.

I have no idea how long the three phone books to my immediate right are, but they are all rain-soaked through and totally useless.

The yard, if you can call it that, is a nasty brown patch about half the size of my current bedroom, and covered in dead, stripped plants, broken bricks, gravel, and a rusted, gold-painted radiator, which appears to have just been thrown there some time ago and since forgotten about.

The trek here was a good three miles from the Harvard Square T stop, the closest to the house. That base distance, added with the terrible directions I was given, mean my feet are currently buzzing with this sore, electric pain, and my shoulders, where my backpack has been resting for the past hour and a half while I guessed, backtracked, and blind lucked my way through Cambridge and Somerville, feel like someone surgically implanted two rocks between my collar bone and shoulder blades. I hate this place, and I haven't even been inside yet.

In fact, the only reason I'm still here, rather than limping my way back to Harvard Square, is courtesy. Shane, a realtor for this place, is making a special trip out to show me it, despite having other engagements today. So, being the nice person I am, I'm sticking around, so at least he doesn't assume I'm late or something, and stick around for even longer waiting for me.

Well that, and I'm hoping I can bum 50 cents from him, so along with the subway token back to South Station, I can afford a donut or something, because I am fucking hungry.

You know what, though? It's fine that this place sucks. I'm pretty sure I've already found where I want to live.

It was the first place I looked today. Sharing a 2-BR condo in east Boston. The only thing I found wrong with the place was the commute, which would only be a problem for one of the two potential jobs I have looking at me. Because that one means taking three different subway lines *before* I get onto the commuter rail. But the great thing is, the station for the first line on that trip (or, actually, any trip) is, literally, across the street from the place.

And inside, it was great. Huge plush couch set in front of a big, flat screen HDTV with a DVD player. And looking at his movie collection was like looking at my own. Or rather, what mine would look like if I had a DVD player and could afford more movies.

Central air, dishwasher, washer/dryer in the kitchen, DSL hook-up, premium cable in all the rooms, a deck, and after utilities, about $150 more than what I'm paying right now to live in Rockport, Maine.

But there was one feature that sealed it for me. Also right nearby, along with the subway station, is the airport and Suffolk Downs. Great convenience, but what about noise? Well, before I could even ask that, Mike, the guy I'd be sharing the place with, told me, "The airport's really close by, and we get planes flying over here all the time. You can hear them if the door's open, but as long as it's closed this place is sound-proof. You can't hear a thing."

After 7 months of living in the piece of shit I'm in right now, living in this sweet place with a roommate who, most days, "might be here for an hour, for a quick shower and change of clothes," and where I can't hear screaming kids, barking dogs, or fucking neighbors right on the other side of my wall, and a mere dollar and minutes from practically anywhere in Boston I want to be sounds like a damn good deal to me.

Update: Shane never showed. He sent a co-worker instead. A Chinese guy who barely understood when I asked him for a ride to the T stop. I wasn't going to ask him for 50 cents.

Damn, I'm hungry.

Update: March 11, 12:11 PM. I just got off the phone with Mike, and I officially have a place to live in Boston. On the 23rd or the 24th, I will have moved into a condo in Boston.