Imperfect Genius

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13 Places I’ve Lived and the Corresponding Events, or Mistakes I Made Over the Last Two Decades, or Glaring Examples of Why Hindsight is 20/20

Unfortunately for you, my dear reader, you’re not about to be taken on a tour of exotic ports of call. No, you won’t be reading about my year-long trek across India or my summer stay in the Greek isles. Why? Because those things are works of fiction residing in my head.

1) B Street. This was my first place living on my own. But I wasn’t alone for more than a moment because my then-boyfriend moved in with me. It was a small place and I’m not so sure that there was enough room for me, him, and his huge jealousy problem wherein he wanted to control every second of my life and went so far as to have people spy on me at work. Oh, I forget to mention his unhealthy obsession with his mother. Yep, definitely not enough room.

2) Fortunately this relationship ended without any fits of jealous rage involving me being stabbed to death, so I moved to S Avenue. I was careful to choose a building that had well-lit entrances and apartments higher than street level in case he felt inclined to stalk me. Thankfully, he didn’t so I moved on with my life.

This is where I tried to smoke a cigarette for the first time, when my friend Bobbie, who was a chain-smoker, got snowed in with me for two weeks. It’s also the time when I thought I had a roommate named Anne, but quickly discovered she actually wanted to continuing living at home with her parents while turning my apartment into a bachelorette pad where she could drop in with her dates. That arrangement was a no-go.

3) W 609. This was a neat place, an open space loft above an old pub, which also had a sunroom overlooking a river. I did manage to secure a roommate this time, but unfortunately sweet-looking, easy-going Andrea turned out to be wanted in no less than six states for armed robbery. If only I were joking. This, along with the afore mentioned situation, taught me to never have another female roommate whose name started with A.

Living with a wanted felon aside, this was also the place that turned into a house party when a (former) acquaintance invited everyone in the pub, including the band and all their equipment, to continue the festivities up in my loft. It was fun being locked out of my own bathroom for most of the night while people did things I won’t mention in there.

Trivia sidenote: The pub was redone temporarily to feature as the country store in the 50th anniversary remake of Lassie. Still to this day the pub offers over 100 varieties of beer and has a Beer Around World club patrons can join.

4) My next move took me to the city, where I knew nothing about the neighborhoods and so it should be no surprise to anyone that Murphy’s Law provided me with one of the worst apartments in history, which I won’t go into detail about except to say that I lost three months of rent to the worst landlord in history. I never spent a night in the place (contrary to appearances I don’t actually have a death wish) but the experience is burnt into my memory.

5) Once the cockroaches dust had settled, I found a new place on D Ave, which was affordable and clean. It was, however, the kind of street that served as a transitional area between the “good” neighborhoods and the “bad” neighborhoods, which made people watching lots of fun. I wrote poetry, hung out with strange people, and pretended to be cool.

During this time I went to see an up and coming band called Matchbox Twenty who had just released their first album, Yourself or Someone Like You. I got change for the payphone from Adam Gaynor and ran into Rob Thomas after the show. It pays to be in the right place at the right time.

6) I was strapped for cash and my then boyfriend, let’s call him John to protect the misguided, needed a place to live, so we split the rent a two-bedroom apartment on E Ave and tried to live as roommates. This didn’t work out so well, primarily because I discovered he had zero personality and it wasn’t long before I couldn’t stand to be in the same room.

Despite being bored out of my mind relationship-wise, I did manage to have some neat experiences when I went to work for an arts magazine where I had the opportunity to attend events for bands like Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and Dave Matthews.

7) Less than a year later I left to stay with my friend Christie at an apartment in a neat old building downtown. John must have had amnesia because a few weeks after I moved out he dropped by to say he thought I was just going through a phase, and that eventually we’d get married and have lots of children. Okay, whatever you say.

Jumping forward a couple years, during which time I neither married John nor had his children, I came to live at a great place on A Ave, which I have many fond memories of. It’s where I fell in love with older homes. The apartment was one of four carved out of a women’s dormitory built in the early 1900s. I got spoiled on the thick walls, spacious rooms, and ten foot ceilings.

9) Two years later I moved to S Place, a small, secluded apartment complex where I had a lovely balcony overlooking a swimming pool and huge closets. Ah, the closets. It is also where a new chapter of my life began. While living at S Place I met Chris, who would be become my partner in crime (i.e. husband).

10) The impending birth of our second child was the deciding factor in taking up residence on E Road, where we had plenty of room for our growing family. My son did not want to be born and I was in labor for a long, long time. I tried every trick in the book, which included lots of walking, eating spicy foods, and finally, out of desperation, going up and down a flight of stairs as if I were preparing for ski weekend in Vail. Chris has a picture of me during this period, which he likes to show to people to prove my strangeness.

11) The combination of having two young children and two adults working ridiculous hours to make ends meet wasn’t working for us as a family. Although the apartment was nice, it was also very pricey. We decided to get out of the rat race and embrace a simple way of life, so we moved in with his parents on RH Road. We did this because we’d decided it would be a good idea to remodeled the house Chris used to call home before he moved to the city and met me. It’d been sitting empty during that whole time and it made sense at the time.

Our first mistake was thinking that we were moving into a less complicated situation. What was that misguided comment about embracing a simple way of life? Although I love my parents-in-law, and I am very grateful that they opened their home to us, it was a very trying time. Having two families under one roof is not something I’d recommend to anyone.

12) Finally we moved into our somewhat-remodeled house on W Lane and began living as an independent family again. The valuable lesson we’ve learned in this process was that no matter how much money you spend to move walls around in a house, the square footage stays the same. What we needed was more space, what we got were rooms with no closets. W Lane will always be a special place to us; it’s where we began our homeschooling journey, spent time with treasured friends, and grew as a family.

13) We turn out to be gluttons for punishment because, as if the last remodeling experience wasn’t enough, we’ve bought a Victorian built in 1875 that we’ve been working on for a year and a half now. We have yet to actually live on F Street, but when we finally do we’ll at least have closets.

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