move, get out the way. after spending a weekend spent looking for potential housing i've learned that for some reason, no matter how young or scrubby you look, rental agents are all very nice. i'm not sure if they're not paid on commission or something but they are unflaggingly polite, personable, and make no (negative) assumptions about your financial status. i was worried that we would get the brush off at some of the nicer places but nobody ever asked "so, how old are you? what do you do? how much do you make?"

contrast this with trying to buy a car if you're dressed like you just walked in from the beach or if you look relatively young. if you are either of these two things, car salesmen will give you the run-around and try to dissuade you from even test driving. a friend of mine, who just moved out to los angeles and is seeking automotive transportation, had just this problem recently.

at nearly every leasing office we visited there were open arms, offers of water, a guided tour of any apartment we wished to see, etc. i hope these people get rewarded financially or karmically. very nice people all around. having said that, we mainly visited the nicer places. i mean, we attempted to visit a few cheaper places but when the price difference between living in someone's 20 year old, yellow jacket infested home and the nice apartments is minimal, why bother?

house hunting makes me feel so grown up. like buying major appliances, that's a grown ups' job. so far in my life i've only had to look for housing, well, never. freshmen dorms were pre-assigned, all the places we wanted to live in college were easy to acquire (through lottery or friends), lynn found our apartment in new york, and all the places i've lived since moving to san diego have been friend's houses. so this is kind of a novelty for me, to be seeking out housing.

i would feel extra grown up if my mom didn't have to co-sign and vouch for me as a responsible (financial) person. oh well, nobody became an adult overnight, right?

on a side note: the michigan connection never fails. while looking for housing, we happened to be looking at the home of a friend of a dancer friend. they were childhood friends from arizona or something. how random is that? i would say "go blue" here but that would betray some school spirit, and everyone knows i have none of that in me.