Life in the basement

Some of you (not many, admittedly) may be wondering what my life is like.

Jonathan and I are currently subleasing a basement apartment that we found on Craigslist. When we came to look at it for the first time, the first thing I noticed was the ceiling height. I am about a quarter inch shy of six feet. The ceiling in the living room and bedroom gives me 4.5" of clearance. In kitchen and bathroom I have a comfortable 6" of space between my head and the ceiling. And in the laundry room there are 7.5". The doorway is 2 inches lower than my head. This made me slightly claustrophobic, but we were getting desperate for a good, cheap apartment, so I assured Jonathan I could get used to low ceilings. True, mostly.

What else? We have monster bugs. Assuming the specimen we found was representative, they have 26 legs (or 24 legs and two sets of antenna) and are a little over an inch long. They make me ill, even though I have only seen one, and it was dead. Every day I live in fear of finding another one.

The door to the bathroom squeaks every time it closes. The first time I heard it, I thought a mouse had been squished. No mouse (fortunately). Just a squeaky door. It's kind of cute, I guess.

The bedroom door, on the other hand, makes a sound like the undead every time it is opened or closed.

As my internship doesn't start for another two weeks, I don't have very much to do. My to-do list today looks like this:

• Put away groceries we bought last night
• Take out the trash
• Watch the first two episodes of Firefly so I'll be caught up and Jon and I can watch the rest together

Exciting stuff, huh? Now, if you've been one of those wondering people, you can move on and occupy your thoughts with something more entertaining and worthwhile.