I got my

I got my new apartment. How exciting. No more of this looking around nonsense, calling people, vising the leasing offices. I have it secured. Plus it's a corner apartment, overlooking a courtyard and a playground. Plus she told me the rent would be $575, but they're going to put me in an apartment with older cabinets and an older dishwasher and give it to me for $525 with 2 months free rent. Awesome. It feels good to have this stuff worked out.

The bad part is that the apartment won't be available until June 1st, which means I have 10 days in between moving out of here and moving into there. I'll probably spend those days at several different places between Jaimee's (if she'll have me), my parent's (if they'll have me), and my sister's (if she'll have me).

I'll have 2 balconies. For fun, let's go though the other crappy apartments I've lived in and compare it to this new one.

I moved out of my parent's place at age 18, up to Chicago. I shared a shitty 1 bedroom apartment with the worst roommate ever, Jon. The counter was falling apart, the whole building stank like shit, and I witnessed a murder outside of my window one night. If that wasn't enough, a drug dealer got killed in my lobby while I was living there, so for the following 6 months I had to walk by an armed guard to get to my apartment.

After that, I moved to a much better apartment in a much better area of Chicago. I lived alone, but it was a studio apartment. A very small studio apartment. The Mexicans next door smoked a lot of pot, the building didn't have AC or good heat, and I had a wonderful view of an alley with really rank trash cans in it.

Then I moved into my current apartment about a year and a half ago. I've dealt with stink, no AC, bats, mice, bugs, crazy ladies, and of course, the drug dealers across the street. Amenities... not many. We have a soda machine and a laundry room, but that's about it.

This new place is in a really good part of town, and has balconies. 2 of them. I've never had a balcony. I've also never had a good view, or a parking lot that didn't suck ass, or a dishwasher, or a garbage disposal. Well, I had them in my parent's, but not on my own. Plus they take pets for just $10/month extra. How exciting.