the news: pending end of the roommate era
Not much for me to tell today, as yesterday evening was pretty uneventful. I'm about to embark on an unusually eventful, long weekend, so hopefully I'll find time to post updates in the meantime, otherwise I'll have way too much to catch up on on Tuesday, but for now, it's pretty quiet. I'll even be leaving work today at noon, which Danielle convinced me yesterday to do so I could join her and her daughters for lunch and then going to the Museum of Pop Culture. Movie plans with Laney after that this evening; watching Shobhit's screener of I, Tonya with him and Ivan tomorrow morning; grocery shopping with Shobhit tomorrow afternoon; seeing Dina Martina with Evan and Elden tomorrow evening; New Year's Eve Space Needle fireworks from the office with Shobhit, Evan, Elden and probably Danielle Sunday evening. Shobhit actually works all afternoon Monday and I'm taking New Year's Day off as I usually do, so I'm hoping maybe I can hang out with Gabriel -- I still need to text him about that so we'll see how that idea pans out.
In any case, I walked home yesterday from work, had some leftovers from what Shobhit made the day before, and we each had a glass of the bottle of wine gifted to me by a broker -- very good wine, by the way; Scott even noted it was a bottle worth about fifty bucks (the one at that link is a 2013; we were given a 2014). I don't even like red wine but I liked this one. Shobhit finished watching some dumb Hallmark Christmas movie and then we watched a couple episodes of season seven of The Golden Girls.
After that I went back to the bedroom to work on my year-end photo retrospective of 2017, and made a lot of progress in a surprisingly short amount of time. The video is almost done, and it just needs to get one or two photos from this weekend added before I post it on Sunday morning.
I also did laundry.
Oh! How could I forget this -- actually there is pretty big news that came yesterday. Ivan is officially, definitely moving out in mid-February.
Until now, I really didn't trust that he was necessarily serious about this, when he first messaged me about it last week. As I said to Shobhit, he changes his tune constantly. Granted, although when he briefly thought about leaving within a month as of last October and he predictably changed his mind, his long range plans have shifted over time from fall 2018 to spring 2018 to, now, February. He clear comfort with and affection for this Drew guy notwithstanding, he apparently can't bear his job anymore, and he keeps saying "I need to move on with my life."
He first told Shobhit about the February plan when Shobhit broached the idea with him of raising his rent as of January. As of now, we're just going to get January rent and roughly half of February rent, at most. Shobhit was open to looking for another roommate after him but, I'm said this multiple times now, I am dead set against it. Also, Shobhit needs to focus on getting a new job -- a full year now after moving back to Seattle from Los Angeles -- rather than on coasting with things like the money he brought back from India, and rent revenue.
In any case, Ivan's departure is significant for me in ways that is isn't for Shobhit -- Ivan and I have become very good friends, after he lived with me once in 2014, we kept in touch and developed a friendship never quite achieved previously over the course of 2015 and 2016, and then he lived with us again in 2017. Ivan has already been my longest-running roommate consecutively, and by February that will be a consecutive total of 23 months. It was about eight months and ten days or so the first time; fourteen and a half months this second time. (The longest continuous roommate remains Tommy, who lived with me for a year and a half -- eighteen months. Although Ivan literally nagged me about when Tommy might move out so he could move back in, during the last five months or so of that.) To say that I will miss Ivan is an understatement, but honestly that being a fact clearly ties into the fact that his moving on is best for all of us. Besides, this had to happen at some point anyway; this situation was never permanent.
In any case, Ivan asked yesterday morning about allowing for February rent being prorated -- something I felt was only fair to agree to, since that’s what we did for the few days he was here in January 2015. Shobhit expressed concern about not knowing what the exact date of his leaving will be, and Ivan assured me he'll give us at least 30 days notice as soon as he knows -- and then, early yesterday afternoon right before he left for work, he messaged me, I just booked this tour for February, and provided this link, which indicates a February tour starting from Barcelona on the 18th. He had already messaged me that he'd be moving out on our around February 10, and this indicates he'll leave probably by the 15th at the latest -- likely a bit earlier.
So I wrote back, well god damn it, I guess it's actually happening. He replied, Yep, tour is non-refundable. He went on to tell me he's looking forward to the weather because it's in the 60s in Spain during February and the 70s in Morocco, where the two-week rail tour ends. He intends to spend two or three months after that in his beloved Balkan countries after that, which suggests to me he's likely to spend a fortune -- basically it's what he's been saving up for with this job he hates the whole time he's lived with us, rarely doing any other particularly extravagant spending in the meantime. His intent is to move to Vancouver, B.C. after returning from that, although time will tell how quickly that turnaround happens. Whatever the case, I will surely see him again when he returns to the states, and I fully intend to visit him regularly in Vancouver, so even though he won't be living with me -- or even in Seattle -- anymore, it's not like I can't make sure we stay in touch. I offered to let him store some of his stuff in our storage shed, after all -- he also did that for about four months in 2015 -- so he'll ultimately have to come back for that, if nothing else. I even told him I insist he send me lots of pictures during his travels, and he said, Of course.
So that's it, and it's definite: probably the biggest transition of 2018 will be living without a roommate permanently for the first time since 2010. The last time Ivan moved out, I spent the next few months feeling lonelier than I had in many, many years -- but the key difference is that Shobhit flew back to L.A. from that year's holiday visit on literally the same day Ivan left, leaving me truly alone. What terrible timing. This time I'll have Shobhit here, much as he often irritates me, and that should make a huge difference. Shobhit keeps talking about having his mother visit again, this time for three months, which I keep feeling resistance to, but really: I've endured every roommate for longer than that -- even the worst one -- so it shouldn't be that big a deal. And Ivan already told me he'll donate his bed and end table to us for our guest room, so a place to sleep for Shobhit's mom is already taken care of. I'd rather get that over with sooner than later, and told Shobhit last night it might be time to start planning for that as well. Her visiting in 2018 will be a full decade since the last time she came, incidentally -- that was 2008, and also staying in this very same guest room.
We're now not going to have a roommate conveniently available for cat sitting the week we're gone to Idaho and then Yellowstone for our anniversary in June, but oh well. We'll make due. We have neighbors who can likely look after them.
[posted 12:20 pm]