montecristo

I am still sitting here going through craigslist looking for housing in the Bay Area. I have discovered that house-hunting can be a discouraging thing. Right now I am renting a reasonably nice house on a quiet street in a small town. It has two bedrooms, one and a half baths and has a fireplace. I am paying about a half of what I will be paying after moving closer to Alameda. I'm finding rat-holes going for what I am paying here in the Central Valley. I have yet to dive in and go checking out the prospects. I am going over to the Bay Area tomorrow and pick up some local papers to see if I can also find some more options. There are not a great number of houses for rent for what I want to pay, and I fear that they will be rat-holes unless I am willing to pay more about $300 more a month. Bleah.

I really have not a great deal of knowledge for what I am doing. What percentage of income do people usually put into shelter? Here's a question for anyone reading this: What kind of accommodations do you have and what percentage of your income do you put towards keeping them? I'm looking to put about a quarter of my gross into housing, but I fear that may be a bit low in that it may not get me what I want. What is worse is that I'm not really sure that a house is what I need. I find that I like my house. It has been my home for the past seven years and I have gotten used to having a yard to call my own.

I guess one of the most annoying things about being in this situation is dealing with the idea that life has changed in an undesirable way for me, and no matter how good I can make things turn out eventually, there are several problematical things which require a solution right now...and they were not really anticipated and certainly not welcome. I have fallen so far. Everything is gone. Other than having about three times the income I did then, everything has been reduced to the circumstances in which I found myself immediately after graduating college. Wrong. I also had a girlfriend then. How's that for discouraging? I am in worse shape now. It also does not help that I have no friends in proximity, either. Everyone I know is more than one hundred miles from here, and most of my best friends are hundreds or even thousands of miles away. I have no idea why my relationships tend to be like that. It's really strange, when I think about it. I guess it never really occurred to me that this was strange when I had my family around me. This house has become so damned empty. I can go anywhere, and do anything. I am free now, and yet I have no idea where to start. Perhaps I do need an apartment instead of a house. The maintenance is a lot easier and at least there are people nearby. Usually, I'm not much of an extrovert. I generally don't socialize a lot unless people look me up first. Nevertheless, this is getting downright corrosive to my psyche.

On the other hand, I remember being so glad to finally get out of living in an apartment. It was like living in the dorms at school, except without all the fantastic socialization. Yes, I know, that was probably my fault that my former apartment life was not that social, but there it is. On the other hand, I also remember how good it was to get off campus and into a house my final year. I'm not so sure I want to admit defeat, to go backwards while there is still the possibility that I can just refuse to surrender and keep that one thing, a house, to say that I have not lost everything. Perhaps I am just deluding myself.