I hate moving

WANTED: spacious loft in downtown Boston, pref. in old refurbished warehouse, hardwood floors, exposed brick, city views, lots of storage, washer and dryer in building, parkingavailable, cats okay, $800/month, all utils included.

For the first time in years, I have to move. My rent will be increasing when my lease comes up this August, and I will have to give up the charming, picturesque one-bedroom apartment I've had since 1995. I have mixed feelings about this: one the one hand, moving will give me a fresh start and force me to throw out years of accumulated clutter. On the other hand, I don't know if I can afford to leave any more easily than I could afford to stay.

Statistics say that Boston has the second-highest rents of any city in the US, behind San Francisco. (Where New York fits in here, I don't know.) I knew that from watching friends search desperately for affordable apartments and from reading increasingly hysterical news articles on the subject. Now that I've begun my own search by scanning online listings, I know enough to be afraid. Very afraid. The fantasy apartment I described exists only on sitcoms and MTV's "Real World". In the real real world of Boston, $800 a month buys you a closet-sized space, sorry no pets.

Not without some reluctance, I glanced through some roommates-wanted listings. Having dealt with a series of truly horrendous roommates in college, I'm not wild about sharing my space with anyone I didn't expressly invite in. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose, but I was bitten repeatedly, and not just by stereotypical slobs who left dishes in the sink and paid their bills late; roommates in my past have wrecked my possessions, ruined my friendships, and, in one particularly memorable incident, gotten my house raided by armed federal agents. No more of that.

Even a considerate roommate can be a hassle. Who wants to listen to someone having noisy, athletic sex until four in the morning when the alarm clock goes off at eight?

ROOMMATE WANTED: lazy, stressed-out writer, 30, smoker, seeks quiet professional to pay half rent for cool place and leave me alone. Pref. you have significant other with ownapartment. No television allowed without headphones, audible music negotiable.

But space is expensive, and not just in downtown Boston. The outlying suburbs - a word which makes me shudder, urbanite that I am - have rents very nearly as high, with side costs I don't want to pay, such as neighbors who ask nosy questions and stores too far to be reached on foot. I much prefer the speed and indifference of my downtown neighbors, who really don't give a damn who I'm dating and just want to pick up their dry cleaning and a quick double latte. In the suburbs, people wait at a counter while their purchases are being rung up and only begin to hunt for their wallets when the total flashes on the screen, a habit which makes me want to scream. (Did they not see it coming that they would have to produce some form of payment?) In the city, we slap down our cash and pick up our cigarettes in the same motion. Let's go, people!

"But you don't have a neighborhood. You don't have a community," I'm told by friends who have "escaped" the frantic, expensive city life and bought Weber grills to have cookouts with the family next door. I do have a community. I have as much of a community as I want to have, which means no extra baggage. Speed and convenience are key.

So what's a mildly misanthropic city girl to do? Buy my own place, is the obvious answer. Chances are good that the mortgage payments would be roughly equal to or lower than rent, and I could smoke, gripe, and hang out with my cat in blessed privacy. At thirty years old, there are worse investments I could make than real estate, another strong point in favor of buying. I would be the queen of my domain. Why hesitate?