« Sir! No Sir! | Main | Fly Like an American Eagle »
May 23, 2006
A Place to Be Somebody
Spent the last two days driving around Fayetteville looking for the perfect apartment for next year. I didn't find that apartment, but I found a decent, slightly older complex that should be suitable, at least for the year or two I'll need to decide if I want to buy. The apartment itself is relatively large (about 900 square feet) with an extra bedroom that I can use as an office and plenty of wall space for my bookshelves (why couldn't I choose a field that requires less reading?). My complex also has a pool, a tanning bed, and a sand volleyball court, all of which I will likely never use (okay, maybe the pool).
I've been intrigued by my apartment hunting process this time around, not because I'm particularly good at it, but because I think my process says a lot about my personality. I've moved three times since 2000, and with every move I've spent at least one and usually two or three full days looking at every apartment I can find, often driving randomly down interesting streets with the hope of finding something cool. The search is often very frustrating and I wind up with so many pamphlets that I can no longer match them to the appropriate complex (and in fact many of them are virtually identical), but in the long run, I think this process is vaguely reassuring, providing me with the illusion that I've found the best apartment possible when in fact I'm probably too tired to look elsewhere. But the search process also teaches me a lot about the city, the flows of traffic, the logic of certain neighborhoods, and the location of some independent coffeehouses. And this time, driving around Fayetteville has also habituated me to driving again, which will eventually become useful (at some point I want to write an entry on my year without a car, but that may not happen for a while).
Posted by chuck at May 23, 2006 4:50 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wordherders.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fpl/5602
Comments
Fayetteville?
I'm embarrassed to say, but I think I missed the entry that introduced this earlier.
A tenure track gig?
Then a way too late congrats!
Posted by: jeff at May 23, 2006 9:31 PM
Yeah, congrats! I miss the south. Enjoy, man. :)
Posted by: jenny at May 23, 2006 9:32 PM
Thanks Jeff and Jenny. I found out earlier this month, so the news is still relatively new (in fact, I'm still getting used to it).
Jenny, I'm not sure I *miss* the south, but I was only away for a year (although I've already discovered that I like the Mexican food in Fayetteville more than the Salavdorean-Mexican food in my neighborhood, so I've got that going for me.
Posted by: Chuck at May 23, 2006 9:35 PM
the apartments look nice, chuck. i'm sure they cost a lot less than your place in DC, too! good luck with the move, and with settling in to the new position.
Posted by: Chris at May 23, 2006 9:38 PM
Chris, oddly enough, given that I'll be paying utilities here, the cost difference is minimal (depending on my elctric bill, I might be paying a little more in F'ville), but I got an incredible deal in DC.
Of course, this apartment is much nicer (I could never afford this place in DC). I'll have a dishwasher and central A/C, which will make a big difference.
Posted by: Chuck at May 23, 2006 9:52 PM
I thought Maryland was the South!
</ex-Philadelphian>
Posted by: McChris at May 23, 2006 11:09 PM
Oh no, it's very much the north...
/ex-Atlantan
Posted by: Chuck at May 25, 2006 9:15 AM