Laura, my new housemate at my new house in Venice, is a friend from work who I've known for about a year or a year-and-a-half. She's done the radio show with Allyson and me, and we've worked together quite a bit on news coverage at Yahoo!. She's on the Full Coverage team.
When we were discussing the idea of living together, I asked her "Do you think we'll get along?"
She said, "Yeah, I think we will!"
Then we went on to discuss our varying amounts of partying, sleep and work schedules, pets (she has a cat, I have a dog), standards of cleanliness and organization (both fairly clean and neat, though I have been known to throw clothes around in my bedroom).
I forget all the things I said exactly, but at one point Laura said, "You're pretty high maintenance."
"I am?!" I said. It kind of surprised me, as I can easily spend 8-10 days in the desert at Burning Man camping sans shower. Also, I happily don sweats and go to brunch or run errands with bed-head on the weekends. Of course, I also like to wear impossibly cute outfits (complete with un-ergonomically correct shoes) and get my hair professionally blown-out (a new luxury I treat myself to a few times per month).
And then, today as I was packing to move south to Los Angeles I realized that I have 3 medium-sized boxes of shoes, 2 medium-sized boxes of purses, and 2 medium-sized boxes of bath and beauty products. It was hard to argue that I was 100% "low maintenance." But I'm certain that I'm not high maintenance either.
To solve this disturbing existential crisis -- I coined the phrase "bi-maintenance," which I define as "a person who alternates between high maintenance and low maintenance behaviors and grooming." Please start peppering your conversations and blogs with this hot new Jess Barron-originated phrase.
Tomorrow I must move my bi-maintenance butt (and copious accessories) 385 miles south.
posted by Jess at 12:03 PM
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