First Four Days

"Shit. You do realize, we moved in together."--me

Unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger, resorting to applying at McDonald's: it's never occurred to me to panic over these aspects of the starving artist life. I worried more about having ample closet space for the loads of clothes and boots that I can't live without; or what would happen if I showed up with an arsenal of kitchen supplies, only to find a fully stocked kitchen; or what if we don't get cable and I can't watch the upcoming season of 16 & Pregnant Whatever Critically Acclaimed TV Show That Won't Shame Me.
Basically, I've lived with roommates all my life, but I've never had to share a home with someone. You can't exactly draw a line down the middle of a basement apartment when you're both sharing 100% of the space. And, for that matter, you can't bring two lives full of stuff into that 100% shared space without some crowding--or innocent casualties. So I worried constantly about the impending mesh. Which brings us to..

The First Sort
On Saturday night, we dropped my parents off at their bed and breakfast, and headed back to our place to start what would become 8 hours of unpacking and bourbon drinking. And more unpacking, and more bourbon. Then the sorting began. Lots more bourbon.

I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the big differences between men and women. In addition to the myriad television shows and movies and books I've read where a move-in-together situation has occurred, as well as watching my friends and family do move ins, I thought I knew what to expect. And I also never really thought of myself as an over-accessorized girly-girl.

But then I moved in with someone. And yeah. Not much can prepare you for when your boyfriend, standing in front of his 1 gym bag of clothing, 1 bag of books, and 1 box of blu-rays, 1 blanket and one pillow, and looks at your 4 boxes of books, 2 tubs of office gear, 2 rubber maid trunks full of clothes and shoes, your dresser--also full of clothes--and your blankets and pillows and says, "really? you think you'll need all that?"

Yes. Yes I will need all that.

And I do need to hold my q-tips in a pretty container, not just the open plastic container it came in. And I need old liquor posters put up. And yes, 64 pairs of vaguely similar dangly earrings. So yeah. Not much more could make me feel like the over-privileged girl-child that I apparently I am.

It was a relatively agonizing process for both of us, with Really? being thrown with equal abandon from both sides. But importantly, it ended peacefully, with such un-notable casualties as Addie's $.50 coffee mugs covered with primary colored triangles, my magnetic poetry set, one of Addie's more aged skillets, and my awesome string of paper lanterns, and boxes of still packed nick-nacks. By 7 AM, we had all but the obvious "these will stay packed and stored in the closet" boxes done away with.

4 days later, and we're getting better at this adjustment and compromise thing... for example, Addie won't be aghast at me using more than one cup per day, as long as I don't use his favorite cups. And we basically have the place how we want it, with only a few small things left to tweak, like putting up wall shelves for Addie's blu-ray collection (lest they be on the bookshelf with the common DVDs).

Speaking of blu-rays...
The First Blu-Ray
I'm not very tech or game savvy. The newest console I have is a Super Nintendo. I just got a flat screen TV, like last year, and it's essentially a CRT with good speakers in a flatscreen (oops...) . So needless to say, I don't have a blu-ray player. I'm not nearly equipped for it. But Addie does--in his magic PS3 machine.

Now, I've walked through the Best Buy aisles with Addie countless times looking for on-sale blu-ray's. I never buy the ones I'd like to own, because I don't have any where to play them. This did change, however, on Monday. There, sitting on the shelf, on sale for $9.99, was 2001: A Space Odyessy. Aka, the most over-inflated, beautiful work of space-fiction ever filmed. It's been one of my favorites since I was kid, mostly because it scares the shit out of me. Addie convinced me to get it, because after all, I have access to a blu-ray player now. I didn't buy it then. But I definitely went back the next day and picked it up. And in a great display of consideration, Addie left me alone* for 2 hours so I could watch it in all its high-def glory.

*more like, quietly set up his desk on the other side of the basement and indulged my rants and raves on how the movie was made and how it differed from the book. I'm a huge Kubrick fan, bordering on obnoxiousness.

He's a great guy. :)
Speaking of which...
The First Dinners

I've known Addie for four years, so I know he's a good cook. He's confident, adventurous and has great instincts in the kitchen--the exact opposite of me. So when he told me he'd make his famous Chicken Devan for our first dinner, I was well, stoked, because he's never made it for me--he's just bragged about it constantly.

I expected a sort of chicken casserole with broccoli, served over rice.

What I got was a tender chicken chunks in a creamy, yellow sauce, combined with steamed broccoli and melted cheeses. The sauce, whose ingredients I know, but have been sworn to secrecy, was sweet and hardy at the same time, like cheesy masala, with hints of curry and paprika. It was a perfect combination of flavors and textures. I was literally expecting hamburger helper and instead, got gourmet Indian. Basically, game changing.

Not bad at all.

So, to re-pay the favor, (and because I'm not fending just for myself anymore) I offered to make a homemade pizza for dinner. Then, I quickly realized I'd never made a homemade pizza (beyond removing one from a box and inserting it into the oven). So we had a discussion on edible toppings (he's of the pineapple and ham crowd; I'm of the sausage and green peppers crowd), came to some mutual agreements, and off I went to the store.

I quickly realized that "Make Your Own Pizza!" definitely is one of those ideas that sounds better than in theory than it does in practical application.

First, I couldn't afford to buy all the ingredients for pizza dough, so I looked for it fresh. I was unsuccessful. Disappointingly, I picked up a pre-made crust.

I brought home the crust and opened the bag. I should've known by the putrid cloud of stink that let out that something was wrong. The crust was entirely moldy. Something I didn't notice because the label on the bag covered it entirely. Ewww.

Then, the frozen dough that Addie found when we returned the mold-crust needed to be thawed out over night. I thought "I'll just dunk it in a bowl of warm water, that'll work." Except for the bag the dough came in had a miniscule hole in it, and the dough became super wet and spongy, and once thawed, would not keep a shape without shrinking. It took 20 minutes of rolling out with a rolling pin (and a large glass of wine) before I maintained some sort of Picasso-like, abstract circle. Ewww.

Then I added too much garlic to the canned pizza sauce and spilled half of it all over the counter. And the spinach turned out more like wet leaves than moist spinach. And cheese got all over the bottom of the oven. And it came out over-baked on one side, over-cheesed the other. And the crust came out rock hard.

Overall, it was a valiant attempt, and edible, but pretty disastrous looking--more diseased single cell organism than chicken bacon spinach pizza. Addie assured me that it was tasty... but I think I'll leave the majority of the cooking to him.

Unless he wants a badass bowl of spicy ramen (paired with kettle chips for dipping) made at 3 AM after a drinking binge.



So, four days in, and a lot of firsts covered. And tomorrow, we have our first visit from in-laws. Ohhhh yeah. But for now, Addie is downloading European Gay Dance Club music... and I need to go enjoy that.