Single Town

Almost 30% of Americans live alone. I was happily one of those people until yesterday. Living with someone else seems brilliant. We are social creatures, they'll pay half the rent, they'll share cooking and cleaning, mostly they'll share. Living with someone else is about the desire to share your life, to be constantly social. I only have this desire while living alone. I've lived alone for almost 4 years, there was a brief nightmare in Park Slope where i lived in a railroad with a hoarder and a mute, socially awkward "screenwriter" aka delusional executive assistant. 4 years of bliss: dinner and a book, luxurious naps on the coach, stalking the staircase writing nasty little haikus - and my personal favorite - silence. Dear god, silence. It hasn't all been scenes with leatherbound book backdrops and classical music. These 4 years have been graced with dance parties, rioting songs, and an endless stream of mysterious guests - guests who always left. In fact, that may have been my favorite quality about them. Only when you live alone can you wake up in the morning on your wine stained porch wearing nothing but downy soft boy. Roommates have a tendency to ruin these moments just by existing.

One of my best friends has just moved out from the east coast to find whatever adventure the west coast has been promising for centuries and failing to deliver. At first I was excited, thrilled even. Within hours this excitement developed a sallow pallor and began to cough. I was tired. There was suddenly this girl standing between me and my dinner & a book routine. A girl standing between me and my date with 400 threadcount sheets and pillowtop mattress. It got worse from there. Glasses were rearranged, chotchkes appeared like chimeras. A charming chandelier was nicknamed 'the banana republic'.
banana republic?! the only oppressor in this apartment is you! was all I could think staring down the yellow barrel of a pointed petal (ok, maybe it kind of does kind of look like bananas). Two weeks dredged like two years. Talking. We were always talking. Television became the only passport to that lovely ocean of silence. Somewhere amidst all of this talking I said what mattered. I said those three important words. 'please get out' immediately followed by the three words i confuse with 'i'm sorry', 'i love you'. She did. Four days and three missed planes later.

She called yesterday. She'll be back on my coach by the end of the month. A surf princess who bubbles, froths and drifts in and out of lives like the ocean.