My New Roommate

this post is terribly overdue. i will blame the delay on work again, as that’s proven to be a good scapegoat for all the things i’ve been too lazy to accomplish this past month. of course, this is a lousy excuse because welcoming a new roommate into my life and home is BIG news, so BIG that i hit the CAPS LOCK button.

her name is WENDY, though she’s known in other circles as Guendy, Schmendel, Lorenza and Monita. but to me she’s just Wendy, with a nickname pending, though i’m leaning toward Honey — as in, “hi, Honey! i’m home!”

i’ve actually known Wendy for about five years, three of which she spent dating my crazy spanish friend Juan. then they split and she moved to texas, which is where she grew up, though i try not to hold that against her. fast forward to two months ago when Wendy was looking to move back to LA for work. since i had an empty second bedroom to spare and a mortgage to pay, i offered up the room and in she moved. that was around the 4th of July.

i will confess that i was super nervous before she moved in, with thoughts of “what have i done?!” swirling in my brain. at that point, i had my house back to myself for only a month and was beginning to enjoy the cozy solitude of living alone again, something i had not done in four years.

in general, i love the freedom that comes with living alone. i also have several Secret Single Behaviors that i indulge in regularly, some of which involve walking around the house in my underwear, a mud mask drying on my face and sesame oil lathered onto my skin. i worried i’d have to give those up. i also worried about how two girls would handle sharing one bathroom. and could i fart in front of her? and what if she hated my music?

thankfully, my paranoia waned within hours of her moving in and continued to evaporate in the weeks that followed, a time when our home seemed to transform into a sorority house. and by that, i don’t mean that we stayed up late having pillow fights in our underwear, only that we stayed up late drinking cheap wine and talking about boys.

fast forward to now and we’re still doing that on occasion, in addition to the occasional dinner and drinks date that we seem to be having weekly. in fact, we seem to have slipped into a bonafide relationship with clearly defined routines and roles. and guess who the butch is?

yep, i’m the one tasked with killing the spiders, taking out the trash, getting items from the hard-to-reach cabinets and telling her she looks pretty in her outfit. in exchange, she cooks many of the meals, wipes down the stove and brings me cheesecake. oh, did i mention that she works for the Cheesecake Factory? and did i mention that cheesecake has been my weakness since, like, forever? this coincidence is nothing short of poetic.

our whole setup is rather poetic, bringing me far more joy than i ever thought it would. i miss Wendy when she’s gone. we email each other throughout the day. we sit on the deck and talk almost every night, sharing our reflections on the day and exchanging our insights into the daily dilemmas we both encounter. she is my surrogate boyfriend — but far cleaner and less hairy — shepherding me through my recent dark days and encouraging me through my more triumphant ones.

and while our relationship may be short on romance, it’s long on companionship and i’m optimistic about our future together. so far that future has us shacking up until the end of the year, at which point we will re-evaluate the situation. along the way, we plan to host some mixers and dinner parties at the house, and will likely continue spending many evenings talking late into the night — our smiles wide, our laughs plentiful, our conversations meaningful, and our glasses locked in a toast that celebrates our happy home.