Today I Appreciate Leila, Who Showed Me Her Apartment

Finding a nice apartment in Westwood is an awful lot like attempting to nab the Fun-Sized Milky Ways from the broken pinata at a 4th grade birthday party. Unless you're unbelievably quick or you managed to weasel your way through the crowd and nab it while nobody's looking, you may end up with something terrible (e.g. broken Dum-Dums) or absolutely nothing at all.

Hence, my quest for a studio apartment has been rather frustrating and a tad fruitless. Going door-to-door with a pad of paper, a pen, and an eager smile just doesn't seem to cut it for a lot of landlords when it comes to competitive housing in a college town.

Luckily, through one of my co-workers, I discovered Leila, a 4th-year student moving out of a... studio!

See, roommates are great. Roommates are wonderful. Next year, however, I'm ready for something fresh, smoething new, and something entirely my own.

Anyway, poor Leila was sick all weekend (we corresponded via text about her illness), yet she let me come see her place because I'm an anxious person attempting to nab those Milky Ways even though I don't stand much of a chance and will typically settle for the scattered teeth-shattering suckers (I probably like this metaphor too much). She was up front: "My parents thought this place was a shithole" and refreshingly candid: "The bathroom looks like a piece of shit" and "Westwood apartments are pretty fucked up."

But you know what? Thank you, Leila, for telling me your parents' impressions and your opinions about the bathroom. While honesty can sometimes be scathing and inconsiderate, it can also reflect a greater measure of thoughtfulness: she wants me to know exactly what I'm getting into if I decide to move into her apartment rather than try to mask the realities of the situation or try to simply tell me what I want to hear so I can get out of her place. She talked to me for as long as I wanted about the realities of living in a studio (does it get lonely?), the landlord (is he a creeper?), and the utilities (does your Internet, like, work?).

When someone offers their time and opinion generously, I can't help but be grateful, knowing that someone is helping me just a touch more with stressful decisions like housing.