I bought a consultation with a psychic who spent thirty minutes drawing me a picture of a man: “Is this person meaningful to you?” It was not a good drawing; it felt impossible to say. I lied and said yes, he looked very meaningful. She said that was because he would be there when I died. I bought a beautiful, sculptural coffeemaker that took forever to complete its one job. I bought coffee in takeout cups from the café down the street while I waited for my expensive kitchen object to make more. I preferred the coffee from the café.
I bought wine. I bought a lavender “sleep spray” for my pillows and pulse points. I bought a bikini wax, which bled lightly, looked smooth for three hours the next day, then erupted into an angry rash packed with future ingrown hairs. I bought a mineral sunscreen that didn’t work. I bought some loose pants I saw on Instagram. I bought the shirt to go with them. I bought extra storage in the Cloud. I bought a chipped cocktail shaker from Value Village and then a less-chipped one I found when I went back the next week.
I bought an expensive dress online, realized the $350 I’d agreed to pay was a first installment—that the store expected to receive three more—sent a panicked email, and got my money back. I bought a sleep tea and a laxative tea and a hormone-balancing tea. I bought a hundred books on being alone, cooking alone, inhabiting your body alone, and on exercise. I bought scarves for a future winter and hats for a dwindling summer and a set of cocktail glasses for a glamorous anniversary party I would never have.
When my credit card bill came, I returned almost everything, then canceled the card and started looking, in earnest, for a new place to live. Everywhere was too expensive and unpleasant to look at or think about. I made a few calls, responded to a few Craigslist ads and Facebook posts. There was something wrong with everyone I spoke to—too cheerful, curt, young, old, too close to my own age and situation, too different from it—and every place I looked at—cramped, moldy, too many roommates, not close enough to the subway, “looked like the kind of place where a neighbor has drums.”
Ever ready for a project, Lauren forwarded me links with thoughtful notations （near me!; has cat!; owner sounds hot???）， but I was uncompelled. I had envisioned some sunny, minimalist loft or verdant, divorcée-ready one-bedroom, but it was all crumbling 1960s houses with cement front yards and four “happy, sociable graphic designers” living in three bedrooms and a den.
Lauren forced me to contact a few of these, but I found it impossible to explain who I was or what I was looking for to the friendly Christophers and Brianas and Evanys who emailed back asking about my “vibe” and hygiene habits. What mattered to me? Was I messy, or had I just been messier than Jon, who was very tidy? Did I like to go out or prefer to stay in? Would I call myself a “morning person”？ Jon liked to sleep late, while I woke up most days at 8:15 no matter what I did.
Thinking outside of a comparative context was a challenge. I was less of a partier than Jon had been, but could I really call myself a homebody in my own right? In marriage I had traded in my essential traits for a series of comparisons: I was the Cranky One, the Bookish One, the One Who Cares If the Towels Are Damp. I wanted a place where I could figure out who I might be next, but every potential landlord or roommate wanted to know About Me, now.
I tried my best: I am an average-height, redheaded academic with anemia. I’m halfway to being a vegetarian, on weekends. I’m left-handed and shortsighted. Technically speaking, I am an “average-sized” woman—still, it is very difficult for me to buy pants, like it seems impossibly hard, and I don’t totally understand who pants are for, if not average-sized people in general. I have no opinion on “the outdoors.” My politics are leftist, which so far has mostly meant that I sign a lot of petitions and donate small amounts of money to people who are working harder than me at solving the Problems or go to protests and attempt to stand in solidarity with people the Problems are happening to. I go to one festival a year despite not liking live music. I’m not sure I’m bisexual enough to “count.” I’m an ENFJ or an INFJ or an ENFP—I have taken the test many times. I read a lot of books and own an amount of tote bags that makes that clear. I cycle. I’m the baby of my family （not by birth order, but you know）。 I’m jealous of people in more useful careers, even though useful careers seem like a lot more work. I think most intelligent people are a little bit mean, and all nice people are a little bit stupid. I wish I didn’t think that. I’m working on not thinking that. I have bad posture and good blood pressure. I’m heartbroken.
I didn’t get a lot of responses and didn’t open the ones I did. I went to exactly one viewing, cold, for a house three doors down from me. An older man lived there—after his wife died last winter, he’d found himself with too much space and converted a back annex of his home into a “junior one-bedroom, with all the modern conveniences.”
At $1,000 per month, it was the only close-to-affordable place I’d seen where I could live alone in the neighborhood of my choosing. In the pictures it was incredibly clean, although a single, healthy pothos plant was doing a lot of work to give a raised platform bed over a hot plate and dorm fridge a homey atmosphere. It wasn’t bad, exactly—by the standards of Toronto rental listings it was a real find—but there was no denying that it looked like the second-nicest room in a very humane Scandinavian prison.
When I got there, I realized the older man expected us to share a bathroom.
“I’m very respectful,” he said with a laugh, “but if you come in without knocking, you’re responsible for anything you see!”
I told the group chat this experience had put me off house hunting, that it might make sense to wait things out a little bit. Maybe I could Airbnb my place on weekends, staying on friends’ couches while a wealthy couple I didn’t know fought or fucked in my bedroom. Maybe I could get another job. Maybe my parents would help me out. Mostly, I could not imagine leaving, not yet. We’d properly decorated the living room this year, had recently risked our deposit to put three nails in a wall. Two of these were now bare, sticking out by a window like metal indictments. I had made a promise to this place. Maybe I couldn’t keep all my promises, but I would try to keep this one.
I logged back in to my bank account and gave my landlord seventy of my remaining dollars. She wrote back confirming receipt of payment, adding: Sorry to hear you’re going through a tough time. It’s always darkest before the dawn. :） If you meet someone new and want to add another person to the lease, a new $70 charge will apply.
Emails
To: [email protected] From: m——@gmail.com
Sent: July 30, 2018, 4:12 am To Whom It May Concern, I am writing to complain about your phone-first policy, which your driver, Erik, assures me is standard across all Treatza deliveries. As you can probably see on my customer profile, I have been especially active on your app recently. I just looked, and I’ve placed 15 orders over the last 20 days, so I’m in a particularly strong position, I think, to deliver some constructive criticism.
Basically, it’s really, really important that you tell people you’re going to call them before you even try ringing the doorbell. I live on the ground floor of my apartment building, so I can usually see and hear when someone arrives. I go outside, collect my food, and come back in without the bell or my phone ever ringing. As I say, I’ve done this almost every day for the past three weeks without incident.