House-Zilla.

That's my city. It's beautiful. I moved here thinking I'd regularly view sunsets over the buildings, that I'd be near the water all the time, that I'd be Mary Tyler Moore.
This is not the way it's working out. My job is still fantastic. I'm settling in and everyone is very nice. My students are limiting themselves to easy questions for now, and I'm gearing up for the huge trial by fire that is the fall semester.
But I can't find an apartment. To be fair, I haven't been looking too long, but I'm already discouraged. I cannot afford to live alone. I wish I could. Imagine all the space! All to myself!
I seem to be the only normal, well adjusted human being under the age of 40 in this city. Is it too much to ask for these qualities in a roommate?

• No smoking weed. Okay, if your college buddy is here from L.A, and you guys are out at a concert and 'Dude, it's cool man' then whatever. But I am not "420 Friendly." Pot and I have never been friends. I just don't want my living room to be one continuous loop of the basement of "That 70's Show"
• Does not have a problem with 'the man.' I work for the man. He pays my bills. Someone has to. I don't see you making a ton of money with your vegan, non-profit, holistic, free-trade yarn spinning business. Just sayin.
• Watches TV. Or at the very least does not think it's unacceptable for me to do so. It's Grey's Anatomy. Of course it's rotting my brain. So is my job. Lay off.
  
• Lives in an apartment with a common area. Like Sarah W said, "What if you bring a date home? Do you just go immediately to the bedroom?" Lesson here? Not watching TV leads to casual sex.
  
• Eats meat. I know, lots of people are vegetarians, and that's fine, but when it gets to the point that you have to own your own pots and pans because flesh shall not touch anything that touches your pristine free trade, organic, hand picked, farmers market veggies....Get over yourself.
• Apartment does not require me to get raped, mugged and murdered trying to catch a bus home. I mean, is it too much to ask for homegirl to spend an entire 5 minutes not feeling like she should be toting 7 knives and a gallon of mase?
• Costs less than $800 per month. What is the world coming to when half your monthly paycheck is taken up by the rent in your skeevy apartment that share with granola hippies who don't watch TV and are always high, and you barely make rent because you are getting mugged every week on the way home?
  

So am I too high maintenance here? I work with a large group of very respectable young women. I know they exist. Or dudes for that matter. I don't care. Where are the normal people? I'm starting a support group for all of us well adjusted kids floating in a sea of veggie eating, smelly granola hippies.
Call me naive, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Mary Tyler Moore did it....