For the last couple months since my triumphant return to Boston, I've stayed in the comfort and warmth of the houses of friends who were good enough to put me up (and put up with me)until this point. During the course of a conversation with my friend Tiernan about my expectations for finding a permanent living situation, it occurred to me that I was holding out for something unreasonable, irrational and sometime in the future, who knows when. This kind of mania was an unfair burden to place atop the shoulders of the brave souls who took me into their homes. So I've decided to find a place, possibly a sublet, something to get me settled until I know more about what my life back in Boston will entail. In the course of my perousing, meeting, and exploring I've found cute French grad students, musty houses that have their own names, reluctant roommates all due respect, and recently enough an older gentleman who sounded like Richard Nixon on my voicemail and turned out to be some creepy disbarred lawyer/ sex offender. How can one even begin to figure out where the right place for them to live would be? How can we, in the desperation of impermanent dwelling and flux in the face of unstable financial markets find what we are looking for at a reasonable price. Well, I'll tell you. In the course of a conversation with friends I was staying with, I decided it would be really fun to live with two international spies who were constantly trying to kill each other and subsequently cleaning up after themselves, it would add a dimension of weight to the atmosphere in the house and never would there be a dull moment. So I decided to post an ad on Craigslist, actually two ads, because one is in Cambridge and one is in Jamaica Plain. Each ad expressing specifically what I was looking for in a living dynamic. The ad is as follows:
Den of Intrigue Sought (Jamaica Plain)
Reply to: hous-1052346906@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-02-26, 11:23PM EST
Ideally I'm looking for a room in a house with James Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, possibly Inspector Clouseau and Kato or failing both of those Spy vs. Spy, the everyman living amongst international spies, subtly and cleverly attempting to do each other in, and promptly cleaning up after their rubble. The perfect morning routine would entail my exiting the bathroom and nearly tripping over a lit cluster of dynamite that I would promptly douse under the spigot in the bathtub, diffusing the situation before I leave for work. Then I would have my morning coffee entertained by all the subtleties of a knife fight and promptly make my exit as a shootout begins in the common area. If your household fits any of this criteria, is a den of international intrigue or simply cycles through roommates as the information they have been put in charge of carrying becomes obsolete I want to live there. Or if you appreciate a wry, sarcastic, non sequitur-laden, fatalistic sense of humor I want to live there. I am a fun, considerate, respectful roommate and I would love to live in an atmosphere constantly laden with non-soiled-dish-related crises. By all means send me an email, be sure to mention which breakfast cereal has the odorless poison powder, and please don't kidnap me in a van with no windows, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
So far, I haven't received many responses, but alternatively, the responses I have received have all been positive, interesting, educated, fun people with great personalities and great houses, not to mention that I have not been contacted by any government agencies. Though it troubles me slightly that two separate people have replied with the sentence; follow the clues, and attached their ad or a synopsis of their property. Yet I still believe in the effectiveness of personal exploration bourne out of necessity, a notion born in my mind, appreciated mostly by people who know and understand me, it's natural that like-minded people would respond, and in some cases be excited to live with such a person, not to toot my own horn, but bizarre non sequiturs are a part of my regular routine.
That said, if you're a financial planner dying to fill their life with some good old fashioned death metal kids, post the ad. If you're a maitre'd at a swanky restaurant and all you want to come home to is a bottle of bourbon and the Swedish bikini team, post the ad. And most importantly, if you're an out-of-work neerdowell looking to be entertained by the subtle drama of clandestine operations carried out exclusively in your common areas, post the ad, some people are as starved for an audience as you are a venue.
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