I'm a "3"

I was thinking during my walk home from the metro today what I wanted to share with you, and just make myself remember. The walk from Porte d’Orleans station to Cite U is not really long, about 8 minutes, but I was in such a trance that I am surprised I didn’t walk into a lamp-post or fall on the edge of the road. Now that I think of it, I don't even remember anything about it, just the ideas I was highlighting in my head that I wanted to touch on in this post.

There were not many cars on the usually busy Boulevard Jourdan (or at least that’s how I remember it), and the lighting this evening is so perfect, so perfect, exactly the type of light I enjoy so much. Not the Summer in-you-face-kill-me-hard light that makes extreme contrast and lots of shadows, that light I hate; but the lighting of Fall and Winter that makes everything look calm around 5 to8ish, with the colors turned down. Actually it's more of a Fall light and not Winter, because things look pastel rather than grayish dull.

After getting my apartment (YES, YOU JUST READ THAT) and walking back to school I stopped by the Luxembourg gardens, and it was the same light. What made it even better was that today I had decided to wear again my meet-the-landlords blazer risking the fact that I would freeze to death and the day turned out to be rather warm. Overall soothing effect, it was really beautiful and it felt so good.

I just felt so good because I was extremely relaxed. I cried a lot like I hadn’t in years this morning because I was really desperate. I felt like I had done truly everything that I could, and luck just was not on my side. Extreme impotence, which increasingly during the past few days specially was driving me crazy. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or entertain myself in any way, I just wanted to figure out what the fuck was gonna happen to me tomorrow. I was also like in a trance, but a different kind, a big denial, I didn’t want to accept I might not get an apartment because that would represent such a big failure to myself. And not only that, cause that I can take and stop feeling sorry about stupid things, but that I was so physically exhausted of waking up early to check apartment listing, running up and down metro lines to make visits in time, trying to speak in French…

I was mentally exhausted because of the effort it took me just to write a text to a person in French, and feeling like shit when people hung up on me, or of thinking, thinking and thinking about different possibilities, strategies making calculation: can I afford this? Should I try to go back to trying to find a place to share? Did I check already this other internet site? Maybe I should try to go to another agency… If I get a place that I can move into until October 10^th, should I ask Livia if I can crash at her place or should I ask Sofie that also has a couch?

I’m so sure I’m going to laugh at this so hard at one point, maybe even tomorrow, and though I understand these things can be so banal they were really crashing my spirit. I just let this whole thing take control over me. The thing is, I really feel like my room is essential to everything else in my life. I know this might be an over-statement, but my room is so important to me, it’s my privacy, it’s whatever I want. I really, really, don’t even want to try to understand what it must feel to be REALLY homeless, I don’t even dare to imagine what it must feel like for the people in the streets. Sam wrote me on Facebook this other day: “You’re not bohemian enough”. At the time I wrote on his wall:

But now I really think his comment his comment is extremely funny, specially cause we are taking a class on Avant-Garde artists together (my respect for you, Sam, I wanna be this witty when I grow up).

This whole housing issue has also made me question so much the things that I need and I don’t. First, for the obvious reason that it is not very convenient to be moving in and out when you are carrying more than 7O kilos of luggage plus shit you have accumulated in one month around. Was is this all about?! How can I possibly own this amount of things, specially when I did an “extremely thorough selection” first when I moved out of Vancouver, and yet a second time when I left Costa Rica… seriously! Haha it’s insane, I have got to stop.

Then when looking at all the listings, which look something like this:

“5eme/2 pieces/3e sans/tv cable/dvd/kitch/canape lit/pas de APL”

CODE

5eme: Fifth arrondisement (city center divided in 20, I have talked a little about how you’re judged based on your postal code)

2 pieces: Tricky, two “pieces” means one bedroom plus another area (usually tiny kitchenette and bathroom, yes, things together)

3e sans: Third floor (etage) sans elevator

Canape-lit: Sofa bed

APL: government subsidy landlords don’t want to sign up for because of the bureaucracy pain plus tax increase

Others: You can figure it out.

So when looking at all the possible combinations of this feature that appeared in my screen I was like: “OK, this costs this, BUT it has a TV! Score!” and then “Ok this is such a good price, I really don’t need a sofa bed anyways… I just need a bed”, and then “Oh sweet! Yeah I’ll pay this for that one cause it has a sofa bed so its great, I can have people sleep over and receive visits from friends abroad!! Yeaa…”

You see where I’m going? This is nothing new but this ability to invent needs and desires really impresses me. I don’t even know what I want, but I’ll think I need it when I have it. Or I don’t wanted until the possibility appears and then I want it so bad I don’t understand how I couldn’t have wanted it in the first place, like a mezzanine (which by the way, fuck yea, I have one!!!!).

I wanted it so badddddddddd… just kidding (but I really have one I’ll post a picture later).

Yeah I could just go on and on about this but you guys all know what I’m talking about: needs, wants, desires and the ontological question. I’m gonna wrap things up because I can’t wait to call my family right now and tell them I got a place. I still feel like crying a little bit but that’s just because being tired has really messed up my emotional state, I would say they are tears of joy to end this post up with a corny line!