About a year and a half ago, in Brooklyn, I decided it was time for me to own a couch. My apartment didn’t need a new couch, but I needed one, as a commitment to my space. I’ve never been into fashion retail therapy, but decorating therapy made sense to me. Along with the usual endorphins that come with consumption, there is also a clear result: the new couch did make my apartment feel more like a home.

When I moved to Colorado, I gave up that couch, and in Denver, I found that any home furnishing could take on that sense of stability I found in my old couch. For instance, last week, I bought my first bed. In New York, my bed was a hand-me-down, but I don’t have anyone to inherit a bed from here. So symbolic! Last week, I realized I hadn’t been in my own bed since June 25. For three months, I slept on the beds and couches of others: it was quite a summer.

I don’t just have a bed now, I also have bookshelves, end tables, lamps, and even a good set of pots and pans. Most of this stuff came from Craigslist. In fact, most of my dealings with people in Denver originated on Craigslist.

And I know Craigslist has been around since before an @aol email addresses lost its cache, but its reach still amazes me. Anything I could want is met by someone with an equal and opposite desire to sell the same thing. I suppose this is how capitalism works. I go into a store looking to buy a milk; the store is looking to sell milk. Still, there’s something different about connecting to a person online, being shown their home, and then taking part of it to furnish my own.