8.23.2009

Standards of Living


(Random pic from the interwebs...I don't know that guy.)

B and I had a chat the other night about our ongoing project to not drive each other completely batshit insane living together in this apartment. We both have techniques; I work on campus whenever she is going to be around working on crafts, she visits family and friends out of town, we have an elaborate, dance-like choreography of not getting in each other's way as we get socks and cook food and do other living-related tasks.* After three years in this place (estimated square feet: 450 - 500), we're usually able to benevolently ignore each other when necessary before we reconvene for dinner.

So: we make it work, but there's no question that we're sick of it. The one good thing about my absence in Paris last year, per B, was that she felt like she had enough space all of a sudden. Our "move back to Oregon, like, tomorrow" fantasies are embedded in a lust for elbow room, with smutty fantasies of offices and craft rooms and other things that are completely unimaginable in cost-of-living California.

The question is this: are we spoiled? Did our respective middle-class upbringings instill in us an unreasonable standard of space and privacy, or is it actually crazy for two 30-something year-old people and a bunny to share a small one-bedroom apartment? I feel like if you move to New York or Paris or Stockholm, you know what you're getting in for, but it shouldn't be the same deal if you move to a crumbling seaside tourist trap south of San Francisco. The bottom line is that, whatever happens with my all-too-soon academic job hunt, we need to get out of here in less than a year, or all three of us (Pesto included) will be climbing up the nearest clock tower with hunting rifles in tow...

* Granted, we still get in each other's way quite a lot.

5 comments:

Ransom said...

Pesto with a hunting rifle is still a cute picture, which means I wouldn't live very long in a crazed-and-armed rabbit scenario...

JPearre said...

You two are definitely not crazy for wanting space. D and I spent enough time in sound-amplifying shoeboxes to come to the same conclusion. you don't need me to tell you this, but get that PhD already and move somewhere with space. Or, forcibly evict your neighbors and annex their apartment.

Placeholder said...

The fact that you two HAVE gone this long in such a small space without a murder speaks volumes about you. You do not live in NYC, Tokyo, or any of it's ilk. Normal humans who do not live in these places need space to survive.

clear screen said...

Do my eyes deceive me? Are you saying that all the cultural gems Santa Cruz has to offer is not sufficient compensation for an overpriced cubicle?!? For shame.

kungfuramone said...

I watch cultural gems walk down Pacific every day when I go to the bus station...