No Encore

After the last song of the set, the bass guitarist raised his beer bottle to salute the fans and Ra Ra Rasputin left the stage. The crowd at the Black Cat applauded wildly.

"Encore!" someone yelled after a while, urging the local band to return.

Since the dawn of rock 'n' roll the formula has gone as follows:

1) Band leaves.

2) Audience goes crazy.

3) Band comes back.

This ritual apparently makes the band feel loved and appreciated. I like feeling these too, so who am I to argue? We make a lot of noise and they return. Our roles are scripted and ridiculous. Predictable. The songs are a surprise, the encore is not. If something enjoyable becomes predictable, does it lose its appeal? The cookies at every office meeting. The guy who buys his girlfriend a single red rose every Friday evening. Like fans cheering in the dark, the girlfriend acts surprised when she is given what she has come to expect.

"Oh come on," I told Eric after several minutes of solid clapping. My palms were starting to hurt. "This is just silly."

Then something entirely unexpected happened. The house lights came on. The show was over. We discussed it on the way to the U Street Metro. There had been no encore. Eric thought it was sort of a refreshing change. After all, shouldn’t it be special? Maybe…Except when you expect something which is taken away, you mostly feel frustrated. Open the fridge to discover someone drank the last of the orange juice. Your friend bails on your coffee date when you’ve got good news to share. When it happens to me I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

In April, I started a co-op group house in Petworth, in Northwest D.C. I’d lived in three shared houses in a year and had gone to over two dozen housing interviews. There’s nothing like being judged by a group of strangers who warn they’ll steal your food, explain they like their TV on as "background noise" or ask how you feel about "loud sex".

My cunning plan was to bypass the whole system by creating my own friendly, shared house. I found a four-bedroom rental off Craigslist and attempted to root out the most interesting, fun housemates the internet had to offer. Food was to be communal with housemates taking turns cooking. I wanted to live with progressive, environmentally conscious folks who were looking for a home and not just a place to crash. I wanted potential friends. And no TV.

The four of us and a dog moved in after the cherry blossoms had blown off the trees around the Jefferson Memorial. In the spring, we had house dinners and friends over. My housemates played music. We went out for drinks. I had helped start something new and was feeling pretty good about myself. So good in fact, I decided to start dating again, which incidentally is another interview process, but with more alcohol.

With the oppressive, swampy summer, our house started to get grimy. Mice appeared. Dog fur piled up in clumps on the hardwood floor. Frustrated by the mess, I started nagging the dog owner. A superb cook, he was frequently too busy to clean up after himself. Our friendship devolved into clipped, functional conversation. I changed tacks and tried to make peace with the dirty kitchen. We bought fancy electric mouse traps. The rodent situation improved, but the dog owner seemed to still expect my rants even after I learned to hold my tongue. Towards the end of September, he announced he was moving out.

Fall and a fresh start. In Rock Creek Park the leaves started changing color and we had a new opportunity to shape the culture of our house. We scrubbed and swept. Up went the ad on Craigslist. In came a flurry of emails from prospective housemates. This time we wanted "clean and responsible," not just "fun and interesting". The result was Nancy, our young but poised, thoughtful new housemate.

The other night, Eric and I came into the kitchen to make ourselves sandwiches. It was late and we were too hungry to cook. We were surprised to find steaming brown rice with a delicious tomato okra stew. Nancy had cooked and made enough for everyone.

"I could get used to this co-op thing," Eric said, taking a bite. So could I, I thought. So could I.

Craigslist Provides

On New Year's Eve I met a man and at the start of February I moved with him to Washington, D.C.

We spent our first week in D.C. crashing on a friend's floor, searching for shared apartments on Craigslist. Chris and I love to cook and wanted a friendly group house with a spacious kitchen.

"What kind of things do you cook?" I asked Bill a prospective housemate. Chris specializes in Italian cuisine and I make Thai curries.

Bill looked panicked. "Chicken," he said. "And sometimes fish."

Besides not being foodies, Bill and his wife were looking for tenants to help with rent rather than friends to share a home. Bill explained his wife was born prematurely and stretches daily as physical therapy. She groaned when she learned I'm writing a novel because she thought I'd be home and in the way of her back bends.

The folks at the next house were refreshingly normal. Lisa works at the Botanic Gardens and I liked her affectionate, old dog. The room on offer was the master suite with two private porches and enough storage to house a boutique.

The third place was run-down. We walked through a bathroom into a carpeted hole the landlord called the "jacuzzi room," occupied by an empty whirlpool and a young man playing on-line poker.

Our most promising option was a shared house in dynamic Columbia Heights with Megan and Michelle, a 31-year-old lesbian couple. They host Tuesday Wine Nights and Megan reads literary fiction. We hadn't seen photos, but their ad mentioned hardwood floors, fireplaces, a grown-up's kitchen and a backyard. Unfortunately they were going to New Zealand so we couldn't meet until mid-February. After a phone interview with Megan we were told if we wanted it, the room was ours.

When we first visited the house, Frank the departing German/Swedish housemate, offered us a beer and showed us around. Chris and I were taken by the playful décor and Michelle's homemade sofa cover screenprint of birds on a wire. I envisioned us preparing feasts in the spacious kitchen. The cats were friendly. It seemed like a superb place for us. However agreeing to live with people you've never met is a leap of faith. Living with other people wasn't just about saving money – we wanted to be part of a community. We knew we could not live with Bill and his premature wife. Botanical Lisa's master suite was special, but rent was about $300 a month more than at Megan and Michelle's.

Even so, could we take the plunge and move in before actually meeting our housemates?

Trusting our instincts and keen to move off our friend's floor, we decided we would. We moved into the craft room for a week until Megan and Michelle returned home and Frank moved out.

Step one:
Find somewhere to live.

Step two:
Get furniture.

Chris started work at his progressive non-profit so in addition to my novel writing, the task of tracking down furniture fell to me. Eschewing Ikea's flatpack convenience, molding the Western world with tasteful cookie cutter interiors, I turned once more to the murky depths of Craigslist. Where we had previously scoured the website for agreeable houseshares, I now searched for beat-up dressers. I envisioned our room with a shabby chic wardrobe and gracefully ageing bedside table. In short I wanted funky and I wanted it cheap.

Despite not having a car to transport said funky wardrobes, Step Two was significantly more straightforward than Step One. Finding furniture on Craigslist is a pure business transaction. The item is the only thing of consequence. You don't need to like the seller's house. You don't even need to like them. Once you lug that twelve-foot bookcase out of their apartment you won't see them again. In fact they're probably moving. Like Hong Kong and Miami, D.C. is a transient city. As we had just moved here ourselves, I liked having an excuse to meet random folks about to move on, like a changing of the guard.

Nine months pregnant, Linda and her husband were departing for Virginia. Her old dresser was not. I loved its mismatched knobs and tapered legs. I had intended to bargain, but seeing her belly I gave her the full asking price of $40. Chris and I carried it the ten minutes or so back to ours, resting repeatedly.

The green bedside table was literally dog chewed on one corner which made it a bargain and gave it character. I met the termite-dog and silently thanked him.

Marianne, a Smithsonian scientist from Maine was selling her wardrobe before returning to the "Frozen North." The piece was from Ikea, technically breaking my rule, but she had painted it red and papered the doors. I liked her exotic artifacts and stories of living in the Côte d'Ivoire and was grateful she was willing to drive the wardrobe back to ours. But during our brief trip, someone cut her off and she freaked out, overcome by road rage. I wasn't afraid, but the incident definitely made her seem less fun.

We picked up a food processor called "La Machine" circa 1986 from Elmer, a jovial 65-year-old graphic designer. He is moving to Arizona this month and has been packing since September. Elmer only used La Machine each Christmas, to make lobster bisque. We wanted it for hummus.

Elmer had a great view from his 10th story apartment but the rooms were cluttered with boxes. He has gotten rid of an admirable number of things, but after six months of packing he is taking a lot with him. Our move was much lighter with no furniture, a few books, chef knives and several bags of clothes which flew with us. Two truisms come to mind:

1.The longer you stay in one place, the more stuff you acquire.
2.People are better at amassing new belongings then getting rid of old things.

Perhaps we are pack rats at heart, hoarding for uncertain times ahead. Yet it feels so good to let go and start afresh.

Megan and Michelle returned late one night, exhausted from their long journey and bursting with stories of New Zealand. They marvelled at the public transportation and insisted Kiwis can formally introduce themselves in Māori. They missed the cats. They were glad to be home. I think we picked a good place.

- Washington, D.C.