Get Me Out of Here

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Greater Vancouver Regional District

Sometimes I feel like I’ve always lived downtown. Nevermind the fact that although I was born in Vancouver, I grew up on Vancouver Island and didn’t move back to the city until I was 17. Also nevermind the fact that in the sixteen years since then (SIXTEEN YEARS??? I’m old, y’all) I’ve lived in East Van, South Van, Surrey, Coquitlam, Victoria and spent a brief time in Nelson. Mostly though, I’ve lived in the West End, and I’ve always loved it. Everything is always open! It’s only ten blocks to the beach! You almost never have to drive or take cabs or even the bus because everything is right there! I always said I’d never want to move out of downtown… until now.

Maybe I really am old, but I think I’m kind of getting sick of it. It’s too noisy, even on my side street. I’m tired of getting cussed out by panhandlers and living in fear of crackheads climbing in my windows (that totally happened). My neighborhood used to be awesome but recently it seems like all the people I like are moving out and skanky people are taking their place (I dare you to ask me the pantyliner story. I DARE YOU).

Another reason is work; basically, I’m tired of it. I want to quit and focus on doing art and working out and maybe having a baby. Taylor is totally amenable to this plan once it becomes financially viable, but the sticking point is this apartment: it was designed to be a child care, so to live here I have to keep doing daycare. If I was to quit we’d have to move, but we couldn’t afford anything so nice and big in this part of town. We’d either have to MASSIVELY downsize (which is impractical if I want to upsize our family!) or get the hell out of dodge.

Obviously I haven’t actually started making any real plans (don’t forget the part about it being financially viable) but I have picked up one terrible habit: realtylink.org. When I’m on my break I start looking though lists of houses for sale and imagining they are MY house. For some reason I’ve mostly been looking at places in North Vancouver – it’s the most Douglas Coupland-y of the suburbs.

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Look at these places! They are SO CUTE. The green one has a detached office and covered porch and the yellow one has a garage/artist’s studio and six (SIX) bedrooms. They both have huge fenced backyards, perfect for me to fill with puffy little dogs.

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Soon, my pretties, soon.

Now I just need eight hundred thousand dollars to buy one! This is like, the pipiest of pipe dreams but maybe someday…

7 Replies to “Get Me Out of Here”

    1. lol TRUST ME I will not be going to Kamloops. If I get too far from the Pacific Ocean I suffer from vertigo and can’t find north anymore.

  1. Those houses are indeed cute. My first thought looking at the yellow one was “Holy crap, how did they fit six bedrooms in there? It looks like a wee little dollhouse!”

    1. There’s 2 in the basement and some in the attic- the whole house is almost 2,300 square feet. The green one is like 1,350, which isn’t much bigger than my current apartment.

    1. One of my neighbors is this gross skanky woman who leaves garbage on her deck just tied up in grocery bags and raccoons, squirrels and skunks rip the bags open and drag trash all over the yard, which NO ONE cleans up, EXCEPT FOR ME. In like, the first week of March this included a used pantyliner encrusted with mouldering vaginal secretions. It was so fucking gross, the dogs would chew on it and there were kids out there playing but no one would throw it away. I went away to Hawaii for a week and when I came back THE PANTYLINER WAS STILL THERE. MOULDERING. Finally I used some plastic wrap and a napkin to pick it up and throw it away and JESUS CHRIST IT WAS GROSS.

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