My living situation...

So, I've talked here about moving out of Boston, but haven't yet mentioned much about my new digs on New Hampshire's Seacoast.

First, for clarification, my home state does have a sliver of seacoast. The 30 miles NH claims as its own is the smallest amount of any state that touches ocean. But, hey, that's plenty of room for us to fit in fat, wrinkled old sun-worshippers in bikinis and speedos and to fumigate the refreshing, salt smell of the sea with fryer after fryer of fried dough on the ever-classy white trash mecca that is Hampton Beach.

I've spent just over a month here and I'm liking it just fine so far. This is my first time living alone. I thought it might be weird at first, but there was practically zero adjustment time. From Day 1, I've been walking around in my underwear, talking to myself, keeping the heat turned down to the point I can see my breath and not changing the TV from ESPN like I've been doing it all my life. It's pretty awesome.

I have a one-bedroom apartment. After four years of city-living, it seems like I've moved into a palace or become an investment banker. It's huge. I'm bad with numbers, but my living room is approximately the size of an Olympic swimming pool. My bedroom is big enough so that my voice echoes. My bathroom is comfortable (just a stand-up shower in there). I even have enough closet space to fit all of my clothes (which is saying something, because when I move it looks like a Broadway production just hit the road for a 35-city tour). It's a pretty swinging bachelor pad.

The only drawback is that I'm not actually supposed to be living here. The place is zoned as commercial office space. The rest of the building is occupied by a bunch of 9-5 businesses. That means my kitchen is somewhat lacking. I have a full set of cabinets, some counter space a sink and a 3/4-sized fridge but that's it. There's no oven and no stove.

So, I'm now cooking on either a dual-burner hot plate (which sucks) or a plug-in wok (which sucks less). I also have full use of my tiny toaster oven, which actually cooks really well, but is about the size of a shoebox. No more roaster chickens for Mike. Actually, I've been able to make do, since I'm generally cooking for one (and, while I could eat a whole chicken, I am watching my hourglass figure).

The main drawback is that it takes forever to do anything on the dual-burners. I can get away with cooking bacon or pancakes in the wok, but I do need the burners to do other things. Namely, boil water. It took me an hour to boil a water for a pot of spaghetti. That's just not going to cut it. I'll have to figure out a better way to do that... can you microwave pasta?

The other quirk of living here is that my neighbors don't know that I'm living here. They think I'm "Mike, a freelance writer and marketing consultant," which is half true. I am a freelance writer. But I had to throw in the "consultant" thing because it makes it sound like I actually make money and can afford an "office." Plus, I've found if you tell people you're a consultant, they don't ask any questions. Since no one knows what a consultant is or what they actually do.

But my landlord is pretty anal about people not finding out that I live here. He's put down a series of ground rules that I have to abide by (which, by the way, I'm happy to do, since I got a great steal of a deal). They are:

1) move in at night, on a weekend (so no one will see you)
2) keep blinds open during the day (so it looks like you work there)
3) close blinds at night (so no one will see you)
4) do not have parties (so no one will see your friends)
5) park your car at the far end of the lot (there are people that live in the buildings on that side. I'm supposed to blend in)
6) tell everyone you work there
7) keep silent at all times (so no one will hear you)

It feels a little weird to be sneaking around my OWN HOUSE, but the rent is a steal and I really don't want to have to move again. So, I abide by them as much as possible. Instead of parking my car in front of my door, I park 100 feet away, on the other side of the lot. I sneak down every morning at 7:20 a.m. to grab my newspaper, timing the snatch between the residents leaving for work and the early birds showing up to the office. I move my bags of laundry to my car in the dead of night, so no one will see me. I keep the TV turned down. And, when the cleaning people come to vacuum the hallway, I turn off all my lights, switch of any music and sit in the silent darkness, waiting for them to leave.

It's a little weird, but, hey, it's home...

I haven't quite finished unpacking. My prints and decorative items are still in boxes. Once I have those in place, I'll try to post some pictures.

Last note: NH is so rural that my address doesn't actually appear on Google maps. Good times.