Life is a Parkway

I had mentioned in the first post that I was planning on signing a year-long lease. Allow me to elaborate.

Living in Linden since the end of my Yale career hasn't been all that bad. Three squares a day (okay, two squares a day; who eats breakfast anymore?), free room and board, free utilities, a parking space and ample location in relation to work and nearby shopping have spoiled me greatly. It's served as a fairly central location between my three part-time schools in 2008 -- east of Union County College, north of Rutgers, south of Montclair. It certainly doesn't hurt that I'm still surrounded by many of my friends from high school and even as far back as kindergarten.

That said, with my upcoming year-long sentence tenure at Montclair State looming on the horizon, I needed to break free of the dreaded Commute up the hellacious Garden State Parkway. Mind you, the Parkway is a beautiful 5-lane road that I enjoy frequenting for pleasure drives, and it makes the Turnpike look like a steaming pile of crap (which it pretty much is, north of exit 11). But between the hours of 8 AM and 6 PM, the Parkway morphs into something sinister and foul, where you become quick friends with the bumpers directly behind and in front of you as you share your hour-long trip at a max of 15 MPH. Considering I would spend at least 15 miles on this road in each direction getting to and from Montclair, it was simply not something I could do for an entire year.

My first option was to share a 2-bedroom apartment in Parsippany -- 10-15 miles west of Montclair, on a corridor with less traffic and no tolls -- with a good friend from high school, but eventually he felt like he wasn't ready for the move. (Considering I'm still having slight reservations myself, I can see where he's coming from.) This leaves me to choose a glut of 1-bedroom and studio apartments in the Montclair area, although the costs are a bit formidable on some. Right now, ironically, the place I am looking at most seriously is not an apartment at all, but a 1-bedroom cottage. (No telling yet if the roof is thatched, though I will be certain to inquire upon visiting.)

I'm hoping to have more interesting [to the rest of you] things to post about in the near future, it's just that the apartment/cottage hunt is taking up the greatest percentage of my time at the moment. Soon enough, you will be treated to more interesting random babble, even though it will still most likely be babble.