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July 01, 2004

A New New Apartment

Today we headed back up to Española to look for a place to live again. To rehash the last one: Española is a dump, at least with respect to housing, though ironically the best housing is reserved for Section 8 folk on fixed or low income. We had made two appointments with two separate women wanting $500 for their 2 bedroom adobe abodes.

The first one, I remarked on the way out, was like the bastard child of the other two houses we had seen. It had uneven floors, but wasn't a fishbowl; it had ratty furniture included, but no washer and dryer; it had concrete steps which Alex loathed, but no the terrible neighborhood. Alex would have been satisfied with it, but there isn't much I hate in this life more than uneven floor. I'm not the best on my feet and I really dislike it when I have to think to maintain my already feeble balance.

So we were at an impasse—Alex wouldn't budge on her hatred of the fishbowl, and I wouldn't budge on my hatred of bad floor. We stopped at Blake's and got the phone book, ostensibly to locate a T-Mobile authorized fuckz0r. On a whim we decided to check the apartments section since it seemed to be a newer book, and found a place called Butterfly Spings in Pojoaque. Alex called and though they didn't have a two bedroom available immediately, we decided to head out there before seeing our 5 O'clock about whatever decrepit adobe shanty she was blessing with the presumptous title of “house.”

We got lost on the way in and wound up confused, on the wrong side of the road, nervous because it is also a storage unit. We called the old man back and he called our attention to the massively unmissable apartment complex just a few rows of housing behind the main drag. Sandwiched between two Route 66 gas stations, a Dairy Queen and a casino, I wouldn't think of it as a beautiful area, but it's very sparsely populated and there's lots of undeveloped land in the area which is very pleasing to the eye.

We came in and spoke to the man, who lives out of one of the units where he does business; he is apparently the owner as well as manager but was amicable to us and the other two people he dealt with. He has a 2 bedroom 2 bath opening up either on the second or the tenth, and our destiny lies there. We filled out the paperwork and we have a new apartment. We also skipped out on our 5 O'clock (it was about 5:45 when we made it out of the complex). If you factor in the old man we skipped out on on Monday, we have sort of a bad habit of calling people and not showing up.

We also find it really annoying that nobody in Española is willing to just give the damn directions to their place. Getting a place in Española is sort of like this:

  1. Call bitches. They aren't home. Wait until 7 to call.
  2. Bitches still don't pick up. Leave a message.
  3. Bitches call you back, but don't want to talk on the phone for more than 2 minutes or give you their address. Make arrangements to call bitches when 30 minutes from Española.
  4. Call bitches from 30 minutes outside town. Bitches say “thanks; call us from Qwik Stop” and give directions to Qwik Stop.
  5. Make it to Qwik Stop; call bitches. Bitches say great, will be there in 3 minutes.
  6. Fifteen minutes later, bitches show up. Drive 20 miles over speed limit to shack with “To Be Condemned” sign over top.
  7. Bitches explain how one heater is sufficient for entire house in winter, how neighborhood is good in spite of massive crime, how no A/C is necessary in spite of location in Sunny New Mexico, how former residents jimmy open storage doors, etc.
  8. Pretend to look interested by opening cabinets, fridge doors, asking inane questions, even though you made up your mind as soon as you saw the chipped exterior, sloped floor, and general malaise that goes hand-in-hand with this level of decay.
  9. Tell bitches you'll call them after your next appointment if you want to go with it and that you really like their place. It's a bald-faced lie, but they already lied to you when they called their place livable.

So tomorrow I head up to Bill's place with a change of clothes and some food money, my keyboard and my laptop, and I start work at 9 AM. I can't wait but I am tired as hell from all the driving these past two days. It will be an interesting commute from Santa Fe for these next few weeks.

Posted by FusionGyro at July 1, 2004 04:11 AM