5½ Rules for Making A Happy Roommate

1. Never, ever have sex with your roommate, your roommate's significant other, or anyone closely enough related to sit at the same table with your roommate at Thanksgiving.

2. Don't do the tacky sock-on-the-doorknob trick. You're an adult. Be classy. Buy a placard that says, "The penis is in." And if I can hear your music, I can hear why you put up the placard. Food for thought.

3. Do the dishes within one hour of finishing your meal. It is permissible to let large cooking apparati soak no more than 24 hours.

4. Always lock the bathroom.

    4.A. Maybe invest in some extra-long towels. With clips or ties or something.

5. Buy your own everything. It's just easier.

Apartment Hunting for Hoarders and Madmen

I'm encountering the two classic problems of apartment searches everywhen:

1. I cannot find an apartment cheap enough to live in on my own, and

2. I cannot find someone to pay half the rent on a larger place.

Basically, I'm in that opening season of FRIENDS,where Rachel has no money, no marketable skills, and no place to stay. Except I'm also experiencing problem number 3:

3. I have way too much furniture.

I-

I've never encountered this problem on television. FRIENDS did nothing to prepare me for this. Over-sized couch stuck in the stairwell? Sure thing. Hilariously wide entertainment unit blocking your bedroom doors when you could easily just put it against the exterior wall by the bathroom? No problem whatsoever.

But how do I handle actually having furniture? And pots and pans and forks? I know how to live in a hole with nothing but three shirts and a computer, I've seen WB sitcoms with young female leads. But I have, like, thirty shirts. And pants? I've got like a bunch of pants! I can get rid of my mannequin torso, I guess, I've got other conversation starters enough, but come on, guys, where do the couches and recliners and love seats and dressers and hampers go in the $600 studio world?

Best I can tell, they just miraculously show up after I inexplicably become a professional chef.

Goddamit, I'm such a fucking Ross. I wish I was a Chandler.
Damnit….

I May Need to Rent My Body to Find a Roommate - 1300th Blog!

The first apartment I looked at, I kind of just drove through the place looking around. Determining it was sufficiently slummy enough to meet my financial straights, I uncovered the facility office and, thinking it odder to call ahead and then possibly say, "Oh, actually I'm right outside your window if you can do an meeting now, thanks," popped my head in the door.

I mentioned I'd be looking with at least one other guy, and the super proceeded to describe a lovely sounding apartment that had just that day become available–one of the two not belonging to the owner possessing its own washer/dryer–with a fairly cheap price for the area.

I told him it sounded great.

He asked what I did and how much I make, not unreasonable to decipher if rent were to be expected of me. So I told him.

He did not like this. "Can you afford this lace?" he asked.

I was a little put off. Purple prose aside, this was kind of an adulterated shithole. A tad more violet, I say here that I am sure to the fullest of my faculties that adultery took place there in a continuous, unabating, forceful stream of ubiquitous sin.

It dawned on me that perhaps this man, a paragon of exactly how little you would think of a low-grade apartment super, might not understand what I was looking for, not having much experience with the upwardly mobile.

"Well, I'd have a roommate. It's a two bedroom."

"Oh!" he said. "No, this is a loft." And with that we shook hands and said our goodbyes.

It did not occur to me until later that perhaps he heard me mention the second person at the outset, and simply assumed that we were a homosexual coupling, rather than a live-action retelling of Bosom Buddies.

Which is cool, I guess. It means I'm stylish and clean-cut, respectful. I've been confused for an astronomer, a Canadian, and someone who gives a damn, so why not a gay man? After all, I've always wanted to adopt that cute Asian girl Kylie from the old Windows 7 ads.

Adorable.

That's the process for adopting Asian babies, right? You come out and then you can get one?

Things I'm Looking Forward to About Moving

Actually, "My Friends Haul For Beer and Burgers" might be more accurate.

• All the cardboard boxes I'll get to play with.

• A furniture configuration that may actually look like a bedroom.

• A functional bedroom door once again.

• A bedroom that doesn't look like it belongs to a basement-dwelling neckbeard. (I shaved my neckbeard years ago. It's time for the katana to come down off the wall.)

• Having a furnished basement in which to computer chair joust.

•  Living above my means, thereby forcing myself to seek higher means and meaning it.

• Not living in Connecticut. 

• Possibly having enough closet space for my multitude of costumes, uniforms, fancy hats,and assorted mannequin parts.

• Having enough dresser real estate for all my little movie boxes and speakers and such.

• Having a place I would not feel embarrassed about bringing dates, assuming that I had dates and that I will end up in a place in which I am not also embarrassed to reside.

• Mostly, it's the cardboard boxes, though.