Thousand Word Essays are based on two randomly-generated words.
I live in a studio apartment and my lease is going to end in five weeks. I went on a single, unfruitful apartment tour in the last two weeks and haven’t scheduled another one. The one I toured was on the first floor and seemed to fall downhill away from the front door towards the windows that looked at the grey brick of the neighboring apartment building. The current tenant of that place had turned the small walk-in closet into their bedroom. The corner of their bed blocked the main walkway to the bathroom so you had to turn your hips sideways to get to the shower.
The single overhead light was that soft orange from a Wes Anderson film that leaves the scene pastel and uninviting, though symmetrical. The windows didn’t let in anything except grey brick.
“It’s too dark in here,” I told the woman who had opened the door and made a comment about my bright yellow pants and orange rain jacket.
“Yeah, it doesn’t get a ton of natural light, but it does get some.”
Maybe it was the crowded sink full of dishes or the thought that my own apartment had been subjected to a similar level of showmanship in recent weeks, but I hated being there and hated the thought of living there.
“There are other units available, but they are a little more expensive.”
Nope, not for me.
The extent of my counterspace is a cutting board propped diagonally on the sink.
It’s hard to believe that I can afford a place all on my own. And I’m still wrestling with the fact that I make barely enough money to cover rent, single-payer healthcare, food, and a modest amount of eating out. Perhaps I can only afford those things at the expense of one day owning a house or property. But hey, what’s life without a gamble or two?
For as stressful as paying all the bills has been, it could be worse. After all, I haven’t missed a payment for lack of funds. I have set up all the required auto-payments to keep the influx of paychecks forever in tension with the outflux of money.
Looking at apartments of similar size to my studio while being more expensive is an exercise in wishful thinking and even tighter budgeting. I’ll have to pick up either more hours or another blog to cover the difference, neither of which I’m currently inclined to do. That fault, however, is my own laziness rather than any outside force pressing the issue.
And I know the trite advice to live with roommates and make coffee at home. I’ve made coffee at home for the better part of a decade and have lived with roommates for almost as long, and I’ve even gone a step further than most and cut back on going out, on groceries, on clothes, on driving, on gym memberships, on subscriptions (I canceled two yesterday), and even on paper towels.
Thanks to all of those efforts, I have managed to afford a single studio apartment in a relatively lively part of Milwaukee all on my own. And yet to move into a marginally nicer place with all utilities included instead of most utilities, I’ll still have to pick up more hours or more writing, again neither of which I’m inclined to do.
The kitchen in my current space is the smallest kitchen I’ve ever worked with. Bending down to get the peanut butter from under the sink means turning my hips to the side so I don’t bump my butt into the wall behind me. The extent of my counter space is my medium-sized cutting board propped diagonally on the sink. The stove is half the size of a regular one and the actual counter space between the sink and the stove is wide enough for an electric kettle as long as you don’t mind the power cord draped over the faucet.
And yet even with the constrictions, my kitchen has its charm. It’s a lovely little space that’s big enough for me to craft single meals. Single in the sense of one at a time and for one. It’s like writing, in a sense. The more constrictions you place on yourself in the writing process, the harder you must innovate to create something palatable.
To think that I might have to sacrifice kitchen space in my new place to save a bit on rent seems a bit like not buying a phone case to save a little bit on the purchase of the phone.
Either I’m the last of the industry-crushing, avocado toast lovers or the first of the Tik Tok dancers.
When all is said and done, I’ll have a new apartment hopefully without roommates and hopefully within budget. The budget is somewhat negotiable and I will indeed pick up more hours or another writing gig to cover the difference, despite my inclinations.
I think about older generations and half generations. I’m either the youngest millennial or the oldest Gen Z. Either I’m the last of the industry-crushing avocado toast lovers or the first of the Tik Tok dancers. Either way, I’m lost in a sea of uncertain financial security and a housing path that we’re all just making up on the fly.
My brother lived in a two-bedroom apartment on a golf course by the time he was my age. My parents, I think, owned a house. And I’m thinking about moving from studio apartment to studio apartment and sacrificing counter space in a kitchen that barely has enough to store extra bananas just to save $50 on rent.
The truth is I’m a simple man. That I don’t need to buy new clothes, go out to eat more than once a fortnight, or even have paper towels on hand every day. And that does mean that my meager earnings are still, barely, growing the numbers in my bank statements. But it also means that the property I’ve dreamed of owning since I was a child feels like running toward something in a dream. That’s okay. There are other things to life than apartments. I’ll just have to turn a walk-in closet to a bedroom.
Craig Carey 
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