A little over a year ago I (finally) moved out of my mom’s house. I’d been there for about three years while I back to school’d. The plan had always been for it to be short term, I’d find a part time job and a cheap apartment and be an adult again.

That didn’t quite work. I’ll never understand how people can work two full time or mostly full time jobs. There was a period I was getting 25-30 hours a week in a dishpit in North Portland and going to school 4 nights and 2 days a week. It about killed me. And I still couldn’t find anywhere I could afford to live and get out of my place once in a while. Thus with a heavy sigh I gave up and admitted I would be at my mom’s house until I finished school and found a real job.

I did both of those, then started looking for a place. I wanted to live in NW Portland, hopefully Old Town. Downtown would be second best. Inner SE a distant third and anywhere else would be a cause for tears. I found an apartment right on Burnside, a decent sized one bedroom for the low, low price of $700/month. This was a bit more than I’d budgeted but was at least $200 less than I was finding anywhere else. I figured all I needed was a studio but those weren’t coming up. This, I decided, was too good to pass up and with only a little hemming I leapt. When it was offered to me, management actually knocked $25 off the rent, which makes me wish I was actually good at negotiating.

And there I was. An adult again, living above one of the cooler bars in town. On a major street, where the garbage, recycling and delivery guys stopped to service the building and/or bar. With southern exposure that woke me up between 5:30 and 7am every day. Then the smoking ban and drunks on the sidewalk all night long. I understood why it was so cheap.

But it was as good as it got, right?

Then came unemployment and number crunching and figuring out when I’d have to do something drastic. The Dole was enough to get by (esp when my credit insurance started covering my minimums) and I had plenty of savings to maintain the abuse of my organs. But it wouldn’t last forever and job prospects were BAD. Not boldfaced bad, but all caps bad, BAD.

Then a text, from Galleyhag (I didn’t make that up, she did), a studio in her building, a scant six(ish) blocks away, for $515/month. I recall staring at my iPhone for a moment, waiting for that to turn into a reasonable number. But it persisted.

So, let’s think about this, a quieter neighborhood, a more reasonable size apartment (trust me, I’m swimming in this one bedroom, it’s really just more shit to get dirty), free utilities (did I forget to mention that, yeah, free utilities), the building has a wifi service. It’s really close to the streetcar and further away from the fast food options that plague my dreams (I can hear you 24hr McDonald’s window, cease your siren song). Plus there’s a convenience store nearby open until 10pm, there’s one a little further off open until 2:30am.

And $160 a month, cash, in my pocket, which might end depredations on my savings account, maybe (just maybe would keep me out of it (the wifi service would equal my average power bill here).

In exchange for no longer having a grocery store across the street and losing quick access to MAX and #15 & #20 busses. Oh, and I wouldn’t be living across the street from a Hot Lips Pizza. That last one actually hurts pretty bad, and I’ll miss MAX being so close, but I’m typing this with a receipt for the deposit in the other room. There’s the answer.

Official move in date is the 9th. Gotta give notice here soon, that will give me a few weeks to do some moving.

Awesome.