Move to Philly. Live with an asshole.
Some time ago I moved from Washington, DC to Philadelphia. After two years I realized what a hell hole I was in and had the smarts to get my ass to Mars. Mars, New York City.
In moving to Philly, I had to find a place to live and hit up Craigslist. I responded to a number of ads, writing a short bio of myself, the most important fact regarding the following correspondence being that I mention occasionally smoking “the stuff” (aka “the stuff”). My email campaign began in mid-June and I moved into a place in early July. Fortunately I dodged Rainer (cool name), the guy in the emails below. After receiving my email sometime around June 15th, he wrote back August 8th, nearly two months later.
Very little editing of our exchange has been done except for the obvious. I really regret giving him the last word.
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hello adam,
you have an interesting email address.
anyway, thanks for the response, sorry that the room’s no longer available, & sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner on this, also, becuase I always hate it when I write into people with my story and eveyrthing and ‘they’ just never reply. but then lookie now, here we are, and I am ‘they’ this time. ooh well life does have its twists & turns. what are ya gonna do, what are ya gonna do.
anyay good luck, I’m sure you’ll do fine, etc.
rainer
Author’s vision of how Rainer spends his free time:
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Ummm, I’ve sort of been holding out for this place. Great, now I’m going to have to look somewhere else for an apartment. Is it possible that I could crash on your couch for a while, especially since you’ve left me in a bit of a lurch?
Thanks.
Adam
——-
sorry adam, i don’t buy this.
I’ve been in *much* worse situations that you, lack-of-housing/job wise, and while I’ve been disappointed that people don’t return my calls, it never occured to me to ‘hold out’ for their places is I don’t hear something within a week or so.
if anything, I at least -did- write you back, which is a *lot* more than one usually gets from these ads. people just get swamped; your only protection is to field as many options as you can, & not to invest so much emotinal stake in these kinds of contacts.
r
Author’s vision of Rainer’s father:
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R.,
If you want to play the “whose situation is worse” game allow me to throw my cards onto the table.
I left a CEO position at an international aide organization in the beginning of April to attend to a family emergency in Florida. What initially looked to be a serious but recoverable illness in my brother was diagnosed as lymphoma that subsequently spread throughout his entire body. His wife was pregnant with twins and without his paycheck (he was a mechanic) I was forced to dip into my savings to help them out.
Unfortunately by brother passed away leaving myself and my family with his hospital bills. To make matters worse his wife had a difficult delivery and was no longer covered under insurance after my brother’s death. I helped where I could, ultimately depleting my resources.
After such a trying ordeal I sunk into a deep depression, unable to communicate with friends and family much less work. Due to my inability to function I lost my job, which further plunged me into complete helplessness.
Towards the beginning of this summer I managed to get enough strength and pride to leave my parent’s home in Florida (where I had stayed). I wrote some people on Craigslist, people who seemed honest and good of heart and have waited on their replies. In the meantime I’ve been staying at hostels when I can scrape up the money (mostly for showers) and have otherwise been sleeping in doorways or abandoned buildings. It’s pretty amazing that I’m able to get up every day, scrounging for food, trying to find any element of human contact, and occasionally checking my email at the library for some sign of hope.
So, sir, please don’t tell me about how tough your condition has been or how I should handle these situations. I was hoping for a bit of kindness instead of the backhand that I received. I pray that one day goodness will melt the hardened case surrounding your heart and you will think about others instead of prancing out your triumphs over adversity.
With fading hope,
Adam
——-
adam,
okay, you win. though I’ve been in equal (& sometimes wosrse) states of indigence myself —essentially no money, living in my car, taking showers at the Y or not at all, in the dead of winter, not high summer — & my current sitch ain’t so hot either, generally these crunches haven’t been interlaced with deaths of loved ones & perhaps states of biochemical imbalance (which I’ve also had to deal with at certain times, though I’ve found that these chemicals have an uncanny way of ‘straightening up’ when I’m facing situations of genuine stress and danger.) that all said, pal… I still don’t buy this stuff about my ‘backhanding’, ‘prancing about’ and my awful, black heart generally. I’m not the cause of your problems. I don’t deserve to hear that, it just ain’t so, so I wish you wouldn’t say it.
in the meantime, tho: please do yourself a favor, and stop smoking “the stuff”. yes, I’m allowed to tell you this, because I’m a former “the stuff”head myself. while I know from experience that it’s quite possible to be (highly) functional and an occasional or even regular user, -sometimes-, at other times (when our chips our down) it can be very destabilizing, and simply draw us further into ourselves and our problems, rather than looking for solutions which may just be right in front of us. (yes, even when used very sporadically.)
so, sober up. and if you can’t just tell yerself to just stop smoking for 6 mos while
you get your shit in order (especially knowing how *fucking* *good* it feels to get high again after a lengthy hiatus, as a reward), then you really are fucked up, friend, and in a sense, deserve (& need) these humiliations you are experiencing how as a kind of inocculative measure, to better prepare you for situations
down the road when the cards you are dealt get even worse, on these fronts. and that they have a way of doing, friend, they very well do.
r
Author’s vision of Rainer’s sense of self satisfaction after this last (highly) moralizing email:
