Bread
A House is not a Home
The middle of the night part comes from my inability to sleep due to the fact that I'm currently in the middle of the dreaded NYC apartment search.
Again.
Ugh. I have to give myself kudos, however, for staying in my current apartment for two years, after a pattern of moving every 4-6 months prior to living here.
Just the same, a move is in order. And the hunt is on. And the hunt is NOT fun. Here's a typical listing:
$1350! 2BR! Brand new, completely renovated 2 1/2 br apartment in Brownstone available ASAP. Apartment is parlor floor of house and includes 2 full bedrooms, 1 smaller carpeted room that can be used as a very large closet, a study or a kids room, 1 bath, kitchen and living room. 11ft ceilings, 9ft windows, moldings and hardwood floors. Apartment is immaculate and everything is totally new renovation, including new bath with ceramic tiles and new kitchen with all new appliances and butcher block counter. Apartment is cable ready, comes with mini blinds, dishwasher and a decorative fireplace in one of the bedrooms. No utilities included. Tenant pays for heat and hot water, apartment has it's own boiler which the tenant will control with programmable thermostat. 3 blocks to the C train, 3 1/2 blocks to the A Train. Two months security, first months rent, credit check, application fee, good income, W2's and paystubs are required. No Pets, No Brokers. Open house will be on Saturday May 21st between the hours of 12pm and 4pm. Please call 917-662-6763 for further information or to set up an appointment to see aprtment.
Hancock St. at Nostrand Ave.
this is in or around Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy
Fee Disclosure: $35 Credit Check/$500 fee (not a Broker's fee)
Listed By: Owner
Okay, let's do some math. $1350 first month's rent, plus $2700 (two months security, plus $500 application fee plus $35 credit check fee = $4,585 to move in. Welcome to NY. I think I'm getting the vapors.
I'll provide updates for how the search is going. Meanwhile, amid my leftover Thai and girlfriend's snoring, I'm carving out a good life. Money sucks, but I have great people and a great city to spend it on. And on that note, I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow I have to find a landlord I like well enough to give 70 percent of my income to... (jk. a little) ¶ 3:24 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
This post finds me sitting up in the middle of the night after an evening spent in Chelsea eating Thai and window shopping with Morgan.The middle of the night part comes from my inability to sleep due to the fact that I'm currently in the middle of the dreaded NYC apartment search.
Again.
Ugh. I have to give myself kudos, however, for staying in my current apartment for two years, after a pattern of moving every 4-6 months prior to living here.
Just the same, a move is in order. And the hunt is on. And the hunt is NOT fun. Here's a typical listing:
$1350! 2BR! Brand new, completely renovated 2 1/2 br apartment in Brownstone available ASAP. Apartment is parlor floor of house and includes 2 full bedrooms, 1 smaller carpeted room that can be used as a very large closet, a study or a kids room, 1 bath, kitchen and living room. 11ft ceilings, 9ft windows, moldings and hardwood floors. Apartment is immaculate and everything is totally new renovation, including new bath with ceramic tiles and new kitchen with all new appliances and butcher block counter. Apartment is cable ready, comes with mini blinds, dishwasher and a decorative fireplace in one of the bedrooms. No utilities included. Tenant pays for heat and hot water, apartment has it's own boiler which the tenant will control with programmable thermostat. 3 blocks to the C train, 3 1/2 blocks to the A Train. Two months security, first months rent, credit check, application fee, good income, W2's and paystubs are required. No Pets, No Brokers. Open house will be on Saturday May 21st between the hours of 12pm and 4pm. Please call 917-662-6763 for further information or to set up an appointment to see aprtment.
Hancock St. at Nostrand Ave.
this is in or around Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy
Fee Disclosure: $35 Credit Check/$500 fee (not a Broker's fee)
Listed By: Owner
Okay, let's do some math. $1350 first month's rent, plus $2700 (two months security, plus $500 application fee plus $35 credit check fee = $4,585 to move in. Welcome to NY. I think I'm getting the vapors.
I'll provide updates for how the search is going. Meanwhile, amid my leftover Thai and girlfriend's snoring, I'm carving out a good life. Money sucks, but I have great people and a great city to spend it on. And on that note, I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow I have to find a landlord I like well enough to give 70 percent of my income to... (jk. a little) ¶ 3:24 AM 0 comments
Acquiescing
One thing I've noticed about growing up in my generation is that we, all of us, love to move. My grandmother has moved a total of 4.2 miles in her life; when she married, she lived with her parents until she and her husband could afford a house of their own. They bought it, a nice house in a nicer neighborhood roughly 7 minutes away from the house she grew up in. They brought her parents with them, just because that's what good Italian daughters do, and she's been there ever since. 81 years and two addresses in her entire life.
Me, 31 years and I've already had seven spanning about 1000 miles.
We're mobile. Probably more mobile than any generation before us.
As a result, our communication methods have had to adapt. Letters became phone calls, became emails, became text messages, cell phones, broadband, and now... at last...
the blog.
Because who really needs to talk anyway? I know when I read my friend's blogs it certainly feels almost like spending time together. In a middle child sort of way.
Really, though, I don't hate blogging. I think in it's best incarnation, it allows smart, worldly people a forum for interesting discourse and a way to connect with other smart, worldly people. At it's lesser incarnations, it creates a kind of mass slumber party, a virtual world where passing notes and the latest personality quizzes reign supreme and they all hail the exclamation point. TOTALLY!!!!
I have friends, love of my life kind of friends, who operate on both ends of the spectrum, and that's okay. It just brings me back to my original thought, which is that I've tried this before. Every couple of months another of my friends will send along an email that reads something like this...
Julie...OMG! We have to talk about blogging. I know. I KNOW. We've always been 'down with blogs' but you should see this community I've found. It's so not the way we stereotype blogspace. Seriously. I started one myself, you have to check it out. I know you'll be into it too. Let me know when yours is up, I'll put you in my friendspace!
-well meaning friend
...and so, like the good friend I am, I go and investigate said blog and respond with the proper enthusiasm. Occasionally I go through the process of making my own profile, so that I can leave comments on particularly fun entries. But that's about the extent of it. I don't really blog for me. There's something unsettling about taking the time to reflect and respond to your life and then putting it out there in a public forum where the prevailing sentiment goes something like: THIS IS FOR REAL!! IT WILL COME TRUE! Copy this bulletin to seven of your friends and....
Yet here I am. Something funny happened along the way. I developed a kind of blog-envy. I have my own things to say, I want to find out my own things from other bloggers. SO...this is my blog, this is the stuff of my life. The act of living, of getting up daily and moving through a world full of millions of people, obligations, obstacles and stimuli while protecting and hopefully providing for your own heart is incredible.
Incredible.
I look forward to sharing a little of mine, hearing a little of yours, clarifying my own path on the way.
This is a blog for me.
(Inspired in part by the very fabulous QC Report by Quinn Cummings, probably one of the best blogs I've read) ¶ 4:39 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
I confess to having tried this several times already.One thing I've noticed about growing up in my generation is that we, all of us, love to move. My grandmother has moved a total of 4.2 miles in her life; when she married, she lived with her parents until she and her husband could afford a house of their own. They bought it, a nice house in a nicer neighborhood roughly 7 minutes away from the house she grew up in. They brought her parents with them, just because that's what good Italian daughters do, and she's been there ever since. 81 years and two addresses in her entire life.
Me, 31 years and I've already had seven spanning about 1000 miles.
We're mobile. Probably more mobile than any generation before us.
As a result, our communication methods have had to adapt. Letters became phone calls, became emails, became text messages, cell phones, broadband, and now... at last...
the blog.
Because who really needs to talk anyway? I know when I read my friend's blogs it certainly feels almost like spending time together. In a middle child sort of way.
Really, though, I don't hate blogging. I think in it's best incarnation, it allows smart, worldly people a forum for interesting discourse and a way to connect with other smart, worldly people. At it's lesser incarnations, it creates a kind of mass slumber party, a virtual world where passing notes and the latest personality quizzes reign supreme and they all hail the exclamation point. TOTALLY!!!!
I have friends, love of my life kind of friends, who operate on both ends of the spectrum, and that's okay. It just brings me back to my original thought, which is that I've tried this before. Every couple of months another of my friends will send along an email that reads something like this...
Julie...OMG! We have to talk about blogging. I know. I KNOW. We've always been 'down with blogs' but you should see this community I've found. It's so not the way we stereotype blogspace. Seriously. I started one myself, you have to check it out. I know you'll be into it too. Let me know when yours is up, I'll put you in my friendspace!
-well meaning friend
...and so, like the good friend I am, I go and investigate said blog and respond with the proper enthusiasm. Occasionally I go through the process of making my own profile, so that I can leave comments on particularly fun entries. But that's about the extent of it. I don't really blog for me. There's something unsettling about taking the time to reflect and respond to your life and then putting it out there in a public forum where the prevailing sentiment goes something like: THIS IS FOR REAL!! IT WILL COME TRUE! Copy this bulletin to seven of your friends and....
Yet here I am. Something funny happened along the way. I developed a kind of blog-envy. I have my own things to say, I want to find out my own things from other bloggers. SO...this is my blog, this is the stuff of my life. The act of living, of getting up daily and moving through a world full of millions of people, obligations, obstacles and stimuli while protecting and hopefully providing for your own heart is incredible.
Incredible.
I look forward to sharing a little of mine, hearing a little of yours, clarifying my own path on the way.
This is a blog for me.
(Inspired in part by the very fabulous QC Report by Quinn Cummings, probably one of the best blogs I've read) ¶ 4:39 PM 0 comments
