The Six-Stride Living Room

I have yet to blog about our new place. Seve and I were so batty about our old one we were convinced this one would only be subpar, but that's because we were so pretentiously in love with our 100-yr-old building, rock wall, balcony, and sage green paint job with black wood paneling. Our new place is one of those white paint with white wall-to-wall carpet affairs, a kind of place I never wanted to live in.  "Too cookie-cutter," I said. But then I was introduced to the six-stride living room.

Our old place had a two-to-three-stride living room, depending on how long your legs were. It took you less than two seconds to be in the kitchen from the couch because the quarters were so cramped, and if you were ambitious a giant leap would have you in front of the oven from the loveseat in no time. We had no room for a coffee table, and when we added our bookcase the room suddenly resembled a storage unit.

Our new place requires quite the journey to get from one end to the other. We have room for three coffee tables if we really wanted to be impractical and revel in the new amount of space we own. I often walk back and forth making wide circles in our living room and enjoy the rigorous workout it gives me. I never knew how much happiness a pile of empty, clean space could give me. Vacuuming has suddenly become a real chore and the cord isn't long enough to take care of the whole room, I have to move from one outlet to another to completely suck the dust and dead skin cells that have accumulated in our six-stride living room. Which often isn't much because there isn't enough Seve and Jules and Simon to dirty up the place. Making a mess that would completely cover the floor area would require me to dump our entire bookshelf onto the floor. In fact, we've purchased a second bookshelf and  a TV stand to ensure messes are properly made when things tumble over and no part of the six-stride living room is left untouched. We even have an entry table.

We also have a laundry room. A separate entity from the rest of the apartment with its own four walls and entryway just across from the bathroom with a washer and dryer in it. With a washer and dryer in it. That's pure poetry right there, no quarters required.