Living with a Boy

Every now and then, I'm reminded of the episode of Friends where Rachel learns that Chandler's moving in with Monica and she, therefore, has to move out. At the end of the wrestling and packing and unpacking and fighting, Monica sits on Rachel's lap and says "I have to live with a boy!" and starts to cry.

Well... this is my "I have to live with a boy!" cry.

Matt's been here two weeks this Saturday. It's been an interesting two weeks, to say the least. When people ask how living with him has been or how we're getting along, I find it hard to come up with an accurate answer. The thing is—we barely see each other. I knew was going to happen, though, and am honestly okay with it. Our average day looks like this:

7:30 AM (if I'm lucky) – I'm up and getting ready for work, he's sleeping through my alarm and the hustle and bustle of me being late.
8:20 PM – I ask if he's set an alarm, he says yes, I leave.
12:30 PM – I get a text that says "I just woke up. :("
4:00 PM – His shifts start. All communication ceases to exist.
6:15 PM – I get home from work.
12:30 AM – I get in bed (maybe).
1:30 AM – He gets home from work and subsequently wakes me up to tell me about his night. (And he's so enthusastic about it that I don't want to tell him not to.)
3:00 AM (sometimes earlier, sometimes later—I have no idea because I'm sleeping by then) – He goes to bed.

It kind of sucks in a few ways, but at the end of the day, I know that this is actually a really good situation for us. One of our biggest issues has always been that I want more time with him and he wants more time to himself. (Clearly, this is an issue lol.) When we were broken up, I developed a sense of independence that I don't want to lose. I'm okay by myself. I actually don't mind it that much; I'm very rarely lonely. And to be completely honest, he's a huge distraction. When he's around and I have work to do... work doesn't get done. So it's really good that our schedules conflict, because I'm able to keep functioning on my own and he's able to get the free time that he wants. He's home almost all day, doing whatever it is he's doing (which is certainly not unpacking...), and then I get the nights to myself.

He was off this past weekend, which was nice, but we did so much running around that we didn't really have time to just hang out. Then he was off yesterday and after he made dinner (the first home-cooked meal to be made in this apartment in a month... and the first that did not consist of placing even a single item in the microwave...), we sat on the couch and he was like, "Now what?" I ended up falling asleep because I had an awful headache and he played video games. Then we put away about four loads of wash and I went to bed and he... I guess he played more video games. I honestly couldn't say.

There are little things that bug me, of course. I knew sharing "my" space wasn't going to be easy. But it's getting better. We bought a little dry-erase white board last weekend and hung it on the front door so we could leave messages to each other. Some of his are vulgar (if you know Matt, you know what his favorite thing to draw is...) and most of mine are reminders. He's been a huge help around the house; I hate cleaning. Hate it. Haaate it. And despite the condition of his bedroom at his parents' house, he seems to hate messiness. So I've come home to very clean bathrooms, kitchens, and floors a few times now. I can't complain. I didn't touch the Swiffer the entire three weeks I was here alone. I think he's Swiffered three or four times in the last week. I'm not super messy; I just really like making piles and I just don't feel the need to organize them every single day.

Anyway, yeah... So we've been getting along decently. It doesn't even really feel like he's living here yet. Actually, it doesn't even feel like I am living here yet. I still feel like I'm on a vacation, except I go to work five days a week. I'm waiting for him to have to catch a bus home. Or to not be around for a few days. Having him constantly around is weird. And when we go places like Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center and even down in Soho, I feel like we're just visiting. I have this overwhelming need to see everything and go in every shop and buy everything I want because I have to do it now. As though we'll never be able to come back. And then one of us says, "We live here. We can come back," and everything slows down a bit.

Every now and then, though, something ridiculous happens that makes me roll my eyes and have an "Ugh, you're such a GUY!" moment. Case in point:

On Saturday morning, Matt showered and then I heard him talking to someone. It was weird, but I figured he was on the phone. He came back into the bedroom to get dressed and I wandered into the kitchen to get a drink. I reach for the handle on the fridge and notice something on the oven. Upon further inspection, I discovered it was a pair of boxers. (As in, boxers he'd already worn.) I yelled from the kitchen, "Why are your underwear on the stove?" and he just laughed and retrieved them.

And later, he cleaned the stove.

In other, less disturbing news, work has been great. Very stressful, but super cool. I went to lunch with someone new today (the assistant sports editor) and I have plans to go out with the girl who sits behind me next week. I'm trying to cut down on lunches outside the office to try to save some money (considering all the freelance I keep booking with various companies doesn't work out—honestly, eLance seemed like a great idea until all the contractors turned out to be less dependable than the freelancers), but I also don't want to turn away the chance to make new friends!

Back to work, though. I edited an entire book today. Like, a book that I'll be in charge of taking through production and making sure it gets to print on time. It's the first one that I get to do from scratch, that Eleanor didn't already start before she left. I also got to pick the covers for the four books I have coming out in early 2013. That was fun. Tomorrow I get to read a sample manuscript and write a report on whether I think we should publish it. (I skimmed the first few chapters and I'm intrigued, so I may ask if I can work on it if we decide to publish.) If I wasn't entertaining my very first visitor this weekend, I would've probably gone in on Saturday for some OT, but Chatti will be here tomorrow night and I'm not going to make her sit around while I work!

Not really sure how to end this because I feel like I'm all over the place, but I do want to apologize for not updating as frequently. I haven't had that much free time; there's been too many places to go and things to organize and get set up. Hopefully as things settle down, I'll have more to say and time to say it.