I use craigslist a lot. Sorry newspaper industry. The classifieds has done and gone all digital on the gray lady.
Sometimes I suppose it would be nice to take a red Sharpie and circle all the jobs I’ll never hear back from or the circa 1920s bed frame ad that, as I lay awake at night on my futon, I night-dream of. But that would mess up my screen and I usually don’t ball up my computer and toss it on the fire. Though I sometimes want to.
One sunny spot amidst the perverts and spammers are the good men and women looking for housemates. I have had great – no, fantastic – roommating experiences via craigslist. No complaints, really. Some of my best friends were gathered this way. Even people I never actually lived with but met at their respective rentals:
-There’s Nick, from Chicago. It was Winter 2008 and I was lost, wondering where I belonged in this world as a post-graduate with no real skills. While visiting a friend in Chicago, I followed up on his ad that mentioned Neutral Milk Hotel, a worn-out couch in the kitchen, maps on the walls and delicious scones. It turned out we had a mutual friend and I was thisclose to closing the deal. Unfortunately, some job prospects fell through and I made my way to Seattle, then PA and then North Carolina, but we are still Facebook friends, which sometimes counts for something. I ended up getting replaced by a guy who was a backup dancer for Celine Dion. Strange … more because I never really considered Celine to inspire any move-busting but what do I know about French Canadian soaring ballads.
-More recently, Mike from Everywhere Town, who is hunkered down in Asheville. He is a self-proclaimed Mr. FixIt and an Animal Collective fan. Both of these facts I know because he showed me a busted flatscreen TV in his basement and the tubes needed to make it radiate bad reality TV and bad everything else TV I suppose, and also Post Merriweather Pavillion was playing when I entered his apartment. I didn’t move in, but we regularly discuss the following via Gchat: Korean War babies circa 1948, creepsters at the Westville Pub and Texas politics.
-My first craigslist tryst was in Philly. I was desperate to escape the enclaves of suburban Philadelphia for the real deal. After a few misses (“so your room will technically be this closet…”), I came upon a Federal and Broad brownstone full of Midwesterners there on internships. I moved in and created hi-jinks with the lot of them and it was a blast. Now one of my best friends is Lindsey, my former roommate there. Even though NASCAR was celebrated on Sundays by a few select roommates (there were 8 of us altogether) it was rather enjoyable.
-And the crown jewel, Asheville. I moved here for a job and essentially on a whim, so I picked a place from a roommate listing that ranged from collective, militant vegan potluckers to men at the age where living with someone my age would only be appropriate if I were their daughter. I happened upon an ad that was simple, non-descript and seemingly sane. So I paypaled a deposit and drove ten hours to an unknown land. The first night my new roommate and I drank Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout at BoBo Gallery and listened to Moses Atwood and I decided I have killer craigslist instinct.
So while this entry has absolutely zero to do with multimedia, I felt like interjecting it into the Internet because everybody feels a little displaced sometimes and it’s nice to take risks that pay off. It’s always good to open yourself up to new people and situations and be happy about it. So there.