i love not having roommates

I was just thinking about how great it is to not have any roommates. I mean, I do live with my significant other, but he's kind of like an extension of myself so that doesn't really count.

Once I lived in this big yellow house in Oakland with three roommates and one bathroom. The kicker was that one roommate lived in a little sunroom on the other side of the bathroom. So, you had to walk through the bathroom to get to her room, and while you were in the bathroom, you hoped she wouldn't walk through.

That's what happens in a tight housing market, strange co-housing situations. One friend of mine lived under a staircase. I'm not exaggerating; she lived in a tiny closet under a staircase; quite happily I might add.

One guy I dated had a room barely wide enough for an old futon mattress to just fit. When we first started dating, he only had a foam mattress, the kind you take camping. Charming.

Though, I've had my share of grandiose bedrooms, like the room with 13 foot ceilings, parquet floors, a marble fireplace and bay windows from which you could see the San Francisco Bay. Rent control, sigh. I was always pretty lucky with my housing situations.

Chicago does have cheap rent going for it. After living in the Bay Area I couldn't believe the Chicago rents, it was like shopping in a dollar store. I never thought I'd live in a one-bedroom apartment as nice as the one I live in now–and honestly, this apartment doesn't compare to the beautiful vintage places most of my friends live in.

It's funny how you get accustomed to sharing living space in odd situations such as the sunroom/bathroom situation. In a city like San Francisco, some part of your brain registers scarcity of housing as "I'm so lucky to live here." And then you come to the inevitable question "Why the heck am I living here?"