First description of my new abode: shabby-chic. My roommate has lived in the house for more than 10 years, and she has transformed the tiny, (I'm guessing) 1950s home into a cozy hideaway - a combination of country (think quilts, embroidered quotes in frames, and vintage hats) and southwest (think boots, longhorn skulls and old farm doors). She is the composite of every stereotype of Texas girls; she has it all - the big hair, the tan, the makeup, the sugar-sweet twang. As far as I can tell, she holds the following near and dear to her heart: her family, rodeo, cowboy boots, and anything with rhinestones, sterling silver or turquoise.
But when I say it's cozy, I mean cozy. I am packed in my room like a sardine. And as I mentioned, I only own enough belongings to fit in my car. I was five minutes late to work this morning because I literally could not find anything to wear. This layout will call for some Inspector Gadget-esque innovation. Or I could just go to IKEA and let those Swedes figure it out for me.
Second description of my new abode: temporary. This is for many reasons...although there is a Cracker Barrel 0.2 mile away, which is almost reason enough to stay FOREVER. Refer to my previous post on living alone. I like it. When you read it, I guarantee you'll want to live alone too. I am also not sold on Texas, and I've had the East Coast itch ever since I left New Jersey. Also, the running situation in my neighborhood is abyssmal. I have an interstate practically in my backyard. This is problematic, since I signed up to participate in the Warrior Dash in two months. (See photo below. I'm trying to come with a bad-ass outfit.) At least I finally found the time to join a gym. (An aside: This is the best gym ever, and it's only $39 a month. An aside aside: If anyone wants a great money-making idea for the DFW metroplex, please invest in a kickboxing gym a la this place. There isn't one here, and people would flock to it.)
At least I got out of my former living situation. Picture all the strange individuals in North Dallas living under one 4,000 square-foot roof, with the Queen Weirdo as their supreme leader. It is (unbeknownst to me at the time I found the place) essentially a boarding house - the owner and four random tenants at any given time. Queen Weirdo lives downstairs in her lair - complete with a ginormous canopy bed draped in animal print (what else?), fuzzy rug, and motivational collage, including words like "sexy" and "blessing" - with her two little asshole maltipoos in baby clothes (what else?), which she feeds lambchops for dinner every night. The four tenants live upstairs, two to a bathroom. As the months passed, stranger and stranger tenants moved in.
Queen Weirdo informed me that someone would be moving into the room adjacent to my bathroom - a male occupant this time. I had been sharing with an unemployed, chain-smoking female cruise singer in her 50s who couldn't pass the Texas teaching exam after three attempts and so finally moved to a retirement community in Florida to live with her parents; and then a female community college music student from Brazil who, at 35, didn't know how to hold her liquor and would blast horrid rap music, get sloppy and make out with the other (male) roommates.
"He is really cute," Queen Weirdo told me. "I mean, gawd, not for me...but for you..."
Queen Weirdo is 55 and dating a 32 year-old chubby private pilot who lives 2,000 miles away - a former tenant (what else?). So I was more than a little thrown off by this comment. I was also beyond uninterested. I finally met the person I was sharing a bathroom with - after a couple of days of seeing organic oatmeal shampoo in the shower and Tom's toothpaste on the sink. "Leland" was divorced, 50 if he was a day, his gray hair in a butt-cut. He began leaving his door open all day and all night (about eight feet from my door), and he moved his bed right by the door, and he would sit there all the time, so that he could watch me coming and going. I had to assume he was unemployed, since I never saw him leave the house.
Yeah Queen Weirdo, you found my dream dude: an old, crusty, divorced, unemployed, hippie, psycho-killer. Also, I'm moving out.
So I guess a Cracker Barrel-adjacent cottage in the hood is looking more chic than shabby.
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