February 12, 2002 | 11:33 AM

7) ### Thurston Street

Before unpacking all of my things I twirl around and around in my room.

My beautiful new room.

It has been so long since I had my own room. The cherry wood floors gleam. The fresh white coat of paint on the wall tickles my nostrils and makes me sneeze. I don�t care. This is my room.

My beautiful new room.

Everything happens just as I�d been told during my fantastic voyage into the deep.

I got the promotion. I am now Supervisor of Data Collection at the Stupid Company and am pulling in a whole ten dollars an hour! That�s almost twenty-one thousand dollars a year! That�s more money than I even know what to do with. I am going to be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day, and I can go to movies occasionally and I can drink a whole six pack of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat on the weekends if I want, and I won�t run out of money at the end of the week and I�ll be able to pay rent on time every single month!

It all comes true.

Ben and Madeline and I only see one apartment�an apartment on Thurston Street in Winter Hill, which is a tad out of the way but who cares! The apartment is beautiful and it is also cheap. We fall in love with the apartment.

The realtor asks about our credit. I am honest. I tell her my credit is pretty bad, that I got credit cards when I was 18 and treated them as though I�d won the lottery. I have just begun paying off the balance.

Then I look her straight in the eye and I plead with her.

Look. I need a break. If you let me have this apartment I will be the best tenant in the world. I will pay rent on time or early every single month. I love this apartment. My last apartment burned down and I just want a home. PLEASE let us have this apartment. If you let us have this apartment, you can walk away knowing you are the catalyst in changing someone's life for the better.

The realtor is a lady in her 50�s with kids our age. She makes a case to the landlord who is a nice Proteges man.

They let us have the apartment.

1/3 of the money I get from my Godmother, Jane. 1/3 of the money I borrow from Eric. The rest I earn myself.

We move into the apartment on September 1rst, 1998.

The apartment has three decent sized bedrooms.

The apartment has a giant kitchen with a dishwasher and a disposal in the sink. The tile on the kitchen floor is white and green. Madeline�s father gives her a huge oak table, which looks like it should be in a formal Victorian dining room. It is a lovely antique. We push in all of our metal folding chairs around it. It takes up a quarter of the kitchen. We are so proud of this table.

The living room is oddly shaped because it was constructed artificially; the apartment had been remodeled and one the bed rooms was made by dividing the living room in half. We don�t mind, though. The living room is medium sized and there is a china cabinet embedded in one of the walls.

(We put all of our boardgames in the china cabinet.)

The apartment has a front porch. It also has a back porch. The back porch looks out on a gorgeous view of Boston skyscrapers and is large enough to fit a table and chairs.

My bedroom is right next to the back porch. John�s mother gives me the twin-sized bed she had as a teenager. It has a balsam headboard. John and I shop at Boomerangs, a thrift store that donates the proceeds of all sales to AIDS charities. I buy two wicker dressers there.

My Mom sends me a small Sony boombox, a frying pan, a sauce pan, a can opener, a bottle opener, plastic cups from Wal-Mart, mismatched china plates, mismatched silverware, and napkin holders. I am thrilled beyond belief.

I want my walls to be covered with beautiful things.

John buys me two tapestries. One is light purple and sparkly. The other is dark purple tie-dye.

I buy posters to hang on my walls. I buy Schiele�s Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up and Picasso�s Blue Nude .

Oh joy of joys!

Oh glory Hallelujah!

I stand in my brand new room in my stocking feet and I twirl and twirl.

This is my new room.

This is my new life.

Stay tuned for Part the Seventeenth...

And if you haven�t read the whole saga and want to catch up, click Here