Boz W - $1,700/month

I'm a relatively easy-going introvert who loves cooking, playing tabletop rpgs, baking, and gardening in my spare time. I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist. I'm not much of a partier, although I do very occasionally enjoy having friends over for a dinner or lunch. Home to me is a place of rest and restoration, and I love fostering and cultivating that energy in my home. I have two cats, both 11 years old, and while I wouldn't have chosen to become a pet parent, I cannot imagine my life without them anymore these days.

I'm a paramedic lieutenant with the fire department. There are parts of my job that I think are so fundamentally important and necessary, but there are parts of what I do and the systems in which I am required to operate that exhaust me. I do not bring my work home with me, unless someone in the building comes seeking emergency medical assistance.

I love exploring -- new foods, new museums, experiences, new trails, new places. Largely though, with my work schedule, it's a battle to find the the time. I work full-time, I volunteer, I work with my temple, and I'm working on reshaping my college trajectory by doing some ancillary coursework.

I'm transmasc and queer, big on mutual aid, carceral abolishment, and collectivist ideologies although I'm not really what I'd consider to be a full-blown activist these days; I'm really big on mutual respect and the fundamental importance of being able to coexist, but if any of what I listed really bothers you, I may not be the roommate for you.

I adore horror as a genre it all its many, many forms, and have a soft spot for Audre Lorde and Mary Oliver's poetry and Keith Haring's art. I'm friendly and largely well-mannered, but a bit quiet until I get to know you better; I'm prone to talking to myself, post-it notes are about my only working memory, but I can (and happilly will) make us a mean cup of coffee or a pleasant cup of tea while we both go about relaxing doing our own things on our days off.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR: I want to look to rent a 2br, preferably in Manhattan above 50th St. on either side of the island, starting around October. My lease is up in December, but I don't mind some overlap if we find something amazing. I'm sick of paying $1500+ for a one bedroom and getting very little for it, so I want to find a place in a better location for me, with a dishwasher preferably and decent light, that we can cosign the lease on for 1 year minimum. It's important obviously that we do alright together, so I'm all for meeting up several times before we start hunting.

I'm not huge on the idea of moving into someone's established situation. While I've done a decade with change in roommate situations, most recently I've lived by myself for almost seven years and have furniture, for one thing, but also I think it's harder to adjust my cats to a circumstance like that. I'm not flat out saying no, but I'm wary of it.

I currently pay to have someone help deep clean once a month (and clean up after myself and my cats as needed and as time allows in-between) and would prefer an organized cleaning schedule or a similar arrangement shared between us, esepcially since when I'm on shift, unfortunately I can sometimes be at work for 18 hours straight.