Two 20-Something Blonde Girls Seeking Nice 2-Bedroom Apt For One Year And A Good Time.

Looking for an apartment while abroad is a bitch. And a half. The problem is that although Alli and I may be possibly some of the best renters/tenants EVER, no landlord or property owner is going to give is a chance without seeing our faces, in the apartment, to make sure that we are not really scary, scraggly meth-head serial killers.

Right now, we are hoping, praying, and wishing that one of the apartments we applied to rent has an owner who had a favorable study abroad experience back in their college days and so, feels our stretch and takes pity on us. But seeing as this is improbable, re: the above meth-head statement, I find that I really want to take to heart the things that my writing professors and parents have always said about making technical writing forms like application letters more personal and less formal. You know, really making it your own. And so, I introduce you to the ideal apartment application letter that really, if I do not get an affirmative response back from one of the places we've already applied to in the next week, I am going to start sending this out and just bypass all the passive-aggressive bullshit head-on.

"Hello from Italy and Ireland! Our names, respectively to our current locations, are Carissa and Alli. We're soon-to-be seniors at Champlain College, and are currently looking for a 2-bedroom apartment to lease for the next year.

We're very interested in your property and have a few questions about it, but unfortunately, given our study-abroad locations, wouldn't be able to view the apartment until May 16th, when Carissa gets back to Burlington and promptly needs someplace (outside of her parent's home,) to move into. Even though Carissa's native Vermonter parents would be willing to lend their homeowners-for-over-30-years help and view the apartment for us, we have a sneaking suspicion that you would really like to meet us first. Unless you fancy a Skype date, it might be a little hard, and we understand that you are wary to hand over some very expensive real estate to two college girls who you don't know from Adam. So, let us tell you a little about ourselves and try to ease your fears that we are manner-less heathens who want to use the new, nicely installed stove to make batches of meth. Because we're not. We're just two Professional Writing majors looking for a place to call their own and possibly grow some nice windowboxes. Although, given your stance on literature, that may be ever scarier. We're sorry.

We've lived together in campus housing for over two years, and haven't killed each other yet, so that bodes well already, doesn't it? We both are chronic over-achievers who juggle multiple steady jobs (for instance, advising students in Champlain College's Writing Lab, peer-advising freshmen students at Champlain, and working at local retail establishments,) with consistently making the Dean's List and being active in campus clubs and events, and we don't mean keggers. Both of us have a tendency toward being obsessive-compulsive, cook, clean, and practice excellent hygiene skills. Carissa does smoke, but since Alli doesn't like it, is well house-broken and only smokes outside. We prefer NOT to 'shit where we eat', as they say, and so are not the sort of college students who invite other people into our living space to destroy things and hold raging parties. We could be considered down-right quiet and conscious of the hour of the day or night and of our neighbors. In fact, our ideal night goes something along the lines of cooking dinner, watching a movie while eating, taking a stroll to see the sunset over the lake, visiting with friends, and then going home to write and be productive members of society. (Sorry if this is starting to sound like a personal ad.) Both of us have now dealt with living in both college- and foreign-landlord-owned apartments, and have never once had a complaint from the management. We're also environmentally conscious, utility-minded, and terrified to ever have our electricity or, worse, internet and cable, ever cut out from not being on-time with the bills. We appreciate good housing, and KEEPING it good housing, because we've had to live in some less-than-stellar situations. (Ahem, that's you, Italy.)

One would hope that this heart-felt and nearly pleading testimonial would be enough to convince you not to let two 20-something girls become homeless and have to either couch-surf with their friends or go back home to their old twin-size bed and well-meaning but suffocating parents, but in the case that it hasn't done the job it was intended to do, we can both submit sterling testimonials of friends, professors, employers, and possibly even Champlain College's Housing department. We're good people. We really just love Burlington and don't want to have to move back home and leave our friends and jobs.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration, and we look forward to hearing back from you soon!

Ciao and grazie from Carissa, and cheers and thanks a mil from Alli."

Anyone know of any nice 2-bedroom apartments within a less than 20 minute walk from Champlain's campus that are up for rent? Help some sistahs out.

XOXO

Short Words, Big Feelings.

For the first time today, I did not go directly out and have a cigarette after seeing the evidence of your indiscretion uncover itself, strewn so completely out in front of me like a particularly gruesome triple-homicide.

I waited three hours. Then I sucked two down in a row.

Shaking in the numbing night air, I opened up my mouth and felt the wind rip it straight from my lungs. And for the first time, I could actually feel it killing me.

XOXO

"Andata In Gatta"-- The Cats Of Roma

"Andata in gatta" translates to "gone to the cats," an Italian euphemism for "three sheets to the wind," or "dead-drunk." Interesting.

Cats in Florence behave the way Victorian parents wished their children would: they are seen, but only from afar, and not heard. They appear, sleek, mild-mannered, aloof, on rooftops, and only turn to look at you when you call to them.

Roma cats capture my heart. The cats of Roma are straight natural-born hustlers. All missing tips of ears, some teeth, or some hair, nonetheless, they entertain tourists to literally eat from their palms. Scruffy, shameless, grubby-- they act the way cats are not supposed to behave. Mr. Mephistopheles would be appalled. I, however, am enthralled. They talk back. They demand more from you. They looks straight at you and demand more. These are not cats who pussy-foot around the subject. I admire them for this, for their sass and their ease at making demands; for their single-minded affection and independence. These are cats who love you and leave you. Maybe that's what attracts me to them-- the fact that I like to love and leave at will as well. But just like the cats, I also deeply need and crave the affection I get from my interactions. Just like the cats, I want a place to come home to, a hand to reach out and touch me, praise for surviving and thriving.

Maybe I emanate this need more than I'll ever know. But for whatever reason, the cats here seem to know it, and love me for it. They cock their heads and listen to me when I talk to them in the language that Julio Cortazar described as "somewhere between silly and mysterious, making dates with them, giving advice and admonitions (as she tickled their bellies)"-- the odd clicks of tongue on roof of mouth and soft whispers of hisses and kissing sounds. They let me hold them, climb willingly into my lap on their own accord to be closer, swarming in groups of 3s and 5s and 7s around me, milling under legs and between boots and rubbing against my knees. They blink slowly. They mew back. One-- my favorite-- a long-haired black male with a jaw off-set from once being broken, looking like a dashingly disfigured boxer, with blue eyes that startle when he turns and looks at you, nods at me. I don't even like cats, much. If you asked me, I would tell you definitively that I'm much more of a dog person. But these cats don't ask.

These Roma ruin cats just like me. Maybe it's because I'm more of a cat than a dog, myself, no matter how much I appreciate a good canine. Pleasing people just isn't in my repertoire-- I'd rather hide and sleep.

So it bothers me when one is aloof and scales a tree. He can't seem to make up his mind about me. Conversely, a squat brown and black tiger "guardian of the spirits" in the Protestant cemetery playfully engages me in a game of hide-and-seek in the flower beds, jumping out to startle me and touch my boot with a tagging paw. A playful spirit, obviously. A cuddly tiger female winds around me, and I watch a group of Irish tourists repeatedly try their luck at making friends and fail. Feeling bad, I coax her like the Pied Piper with whispers and beckoning fingers down to the group, where all the other cats have scattered from. "They're nice," I tell her, and then turn to the anxiously expectant Irish.

"She's nice," I tell them. "She'll let you pet her." And she does stay for them to scoot over and scritch at her, waiting patiently until the last hand has touched her to then duck under the rail and disappear.

As I stand to leave, my favorite, the black male with the blue eyes, reappears, melting out from the shadows of the ruins to say goodbye, rubbing that distinctive jawline over me, a face only a mother, or a complete sucker, like me, could love. I thank him, gently run a finger under that deformity, certain most people won't touch him there, remembering how much my cats at home love being scratched under the chin. He tilts his face up to me, blinks his big blue eyes slowly (so that's the power big blue eyes have?) and grins.

Cats know more than you would ever guess. Here, in the ruins, I let these strays, mangy and rag-tag, yet still elegant and commanding, wrap themselves around me, and into me. I find I need them, possibly more than they could ever need me, because they are cats, after all. Cats don't need like people need. And I am finding that I need.

---The best part is, you can

adopt a little scoundrel of your own. Going in my first Big Girl Apartment? A Roman gatto.---

XOXO