tuesday: apartment hunting day 1. josh was pretty much exactly as i had come to imagine he would be. quiet, bookish, wearing loafers and a plaid shirt. no glasses, he switched to contacts. i knew that we would get along the moment i sat down next to him at the first realtor. he's... gentle. soft. he will make the perfect professor. we saw two apartments that made our list of possibles. one was owned by this irish guy who assumed josh and i were together... well, i suppose most people assumed that. but we didn't correct him and didn't mention it later. he, the building owner, loved us... bc josh did a semester in ireland and i am, well, irish. so that was funny. we met my roommates (well, not nancy, but add cab instead) at newbury st., where A was shopping her heart out. we made jewelery. i made earrings with turquoise beads... they are cool and i was proud, though an adroit nine year old could have done the same thing. josh was bored shopping but a good sport. and especially a good sport when my completely out of the way directions to coolidge corner had us walking for an hour. at least it was a beautiful day, and he told me about several documentaries i should see. met back up with the roomies at kenmore and took the bus back to the car in brighton... drove home and promptly passed out. i applauded myself for remaining completely unattracted to josh.

wednesday: apartment hunting day two. sans roommates, i took the commuter rail to back bay, walked to copley, then the T to comm ave for realtor #2. i had the address mixed up on the paper i wrote it down on-- 1284 not 1248. (i have done a few really dyslexic things lately.. can you suddenly become dyslexic?) luckily it was only a block down. josh was waiting. plaid again, but jeans this time. the broker dude was quite cute, and much more professional than our first broker. i was definitely willing to give him business. we saw a great aparment which i looooooved but was a little expensive for our tastes and on the ground level. i think i liked it more because of the dude that lived in it than anything else. he was obviously a pothead and had five guitars in his bedroom. an art student, he lived with his "bro" and they had a print of starry night in their kitchen. i wanted him to come with the apartment. josh and i sat down in a cafe to rank our choices. it was easier than we thought it would be but we still had 2 places (one owner) left. we started talking about history and politics in this cafe and hunched intimately over the little formica table my resolve started to fail as we talked in soft tones. the last two houses were hilarious. a middle aged chinese gentleman owned them, and while well intentioned i think he failed to realize that he was the most intrusive landlord ever. he didn't even knock. both came with a roommate included but neither seemed anywhere close as cool as the pot smoking art student. one actually never bothered to come out of his room and say hello. the other was a nice german guy, but the apartment he lived in was expensive... and in a condo complex. josh and i agreed the ambience was not what we were looking for.

we went to a pizzeria and sat down (booths are less intimate than cafe tables) to go over our options. the building with the irish owner emerged as our clear favorite but we were going to have to negotiate the price down... josh used my cell phone. he was shaking when he made the call... he fumbled with the plastic wrapper from his snapple top. as it turns out they knocked $125/month off the price for us, they wanted us so badly! he hung up and we high fived across the table. we were officially roommates. we walked back the ten minutes to our new apartment. met our favorite landlord, saw the apartment again. filled out applications and went outside... stood outside and called our moms. then... it was time for a beer.

we decided on pizzeria uno because it was right across from a t-stop, josh pointed out they had 20 oz. killians for $2, and i really had to use the bathroom so i would have gone anywhere. three hours, muchos nachos and four 20 oz. killians later, i was slightly in love with him. i tend to become confessional to boys i like/feel comfortable around. i talked about my parents, he talked about his. we talked about our schools, more politics, and movies, and books. i started losing my train of thought, but he didn't mind. it was time to go... but actually, i had missed the last commuter rail. shit. josh was leaving boston on a bus at 1245am. i check the buses... next one i can leave on is 7am. shit. i call a friend who lives over by symphony. luckily she is home and willing to put me up on such short notice. otherwise i am not sure what i would have done... josh offered that i could come back to montreal with him. while tempting, hardly practical, and i couldn't afford it anyway. i have $36.00 to make it to may 27th. we walk back to the T, and hug. it is a good hug. i'm glad i met him, glad we'll be living together.

i am cross-eyed tired by the time i get to symphony. my eyes are involuntarily closing as my friend talks... i sleep in my underwear and try to remember things i need to do when i leave-- close the windows, jiggle the doorknob to make sure the door is locked behind me, try to figure out where i can fax this paperwork to my mom.

i wake up and its all still true. i'm moving in with josh, who was until two days ago a random stranger. i take the T (correctly, this time) to south station and wait for the commuter rail. the police broke up a fight at the customer service counter. on the rail home, i see a sign that says trash receptacles on the train may not be used due to security concerns. there is a picture of a bomb, a round bomb with a fuse, like in the cartoons, with the red crossed-out circle over it. no explosions allowed. good to know.

i call my mom and she starts bugging me about money again. "mom, i'm really excited about this. what else would i do instead?" "well, you could have come home and gotten a job in manhattan." yes, and probably killed myself. i stay quiet. i walk home from the train station, 1/2 hour. i was mad at myself because the lady at the box office sold me 2 tickets for no reason and i didn't question it. just paid double what i was supposed to and now had an extra, useless ticket. so i wasn't going to waste more money on a cab. besides. i needed to think.

i walked home. it was sunny, and took me longer than i thought. i was upset. i needed my parents behind me. why do they always second guess me? should i actually have waited to go to grad school? i got honked at four times. little did they know i was wearing the same clothes i did yesterday. that disturbed me a bit more, as i usually don't get honked at. who am i turning into? i got into my apartment finally. it seemed like i had been gone a week. i called my mom. i wanted to explain the feeling i had walking around BC. that cheesy, i-know-i'm-meant-to-be-here feeling. i just cried instead. she cried too. they're behind me, she said. she told me my dad said there is no one in the world more proud of me than him. i'm crying just writing that. but they're worried, i know, that i don't know what i'm getting myself into. maybe they're just worried that i'm growing up.

that makes three of us.

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