I came across some notes I made in 1999, when I was still fairly new to Minneapolis and looking for an apartment to live in on my own. I’d spent the first 6 months in town living with my sister and brother-in-law, and patience on all of our parts was wearing thin, so I was looking for some Single Gal Freedom.

Here is a transcript of my notes. If you live at any of the addresses I insult below, I’m sorry you have to live in such a terrible place.

Oh, I almost forgot a very important detail. These notes are in a spiral-bound notebook with a black-and-white photo of a cat on the front. Well, rather than describing it, I’ll show it to you:

The only thing worse than using this notebook then is that I recently found it in a drawer, realized it had a lot of paper left  in it and started using it again.

The notes:

$10 month/cat [Note: I had a cat named Ella. A very bad cat.]
$30 application fee
$510 security dep. (one month rent)
Alarm systems installed.
Grand Lake Apt.

[Note: Interestingly enough, I drove by this building with my sister and she forbade me to actually look at the apartment, declaring it unfit for a single woman living alone. She meant that it seemed sketchy. About eight years later some friends of ours moved in to this same building and my husband helped them move a piano up two flights of stairs. They did not seem to be aware that people are in the business of moving musical instruments of this size professionally.]

2 1/2 story, 10 unit    $460
1828 Columbus Ave S
All-brick building
Secured entrance
Extra large 800 sq. feet
Maple floors
3 arched openings, 2 china hutches
panel mahogany doors
floor to ceiling
shower (!!?)
cable

[Note from 2012 self: when can I move in?]

Grand Avenue 1 block
323 W 31st Street
1/2 mile to Lake Calhoun [might as well be 20 miles]
$700 1BR
20x
shower
$510
sewer, water, trash, heat, laundry

[Yes, again with this apartment. I don’t know why it is written down twice. It must have been like forbidden fruit to me.]

3404 Emerson $500 MAYBE
3236 Garfield $559 NASTY
2621 Pleasant $535 BRICK BUILDING NOT BAD

2621 Pillsbury *** OK
19xx Ridgewood Ave South $550 ADDRESS??? COULDN’T FIND
Aldrich & Franklin 1 BR $475 NO SHOWER
James & 31st small 1 BR NICE STREET/HOUSES/LAKE

Final note: I did not live in any of these places. No, I opted to move into an apartment directly above Bryant Lake Bowl. Yes, this was a huge mistake. Yes, I thought I was being incredibly urban and hip.

I may be urban (but the older I get the more I suspect I’m not; I was raised in the country and it seems that, at some point, I will make my return) but I have never been hip.

To give you an idea of my lameness: there was a video store on the corner of Lake & Bryant at the time, which I  also lived directly above. I rented videos there. I would have to pass their door everyday in order to go anywhere and yet I racked up so steep a late fee on rented videos that I was no longer able to rent there unless I paid it off. I felt I could not afford to do so. I was no longer able to rent videos at the store right beneath me.

This was before Netflix.