Blah Blah Blah

nobody@vox.com(DYFL) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:38:43 -0500

So, yeah. I really didn't mean to leave that as the top post for quite so long. But if you've been worried, thank you... it's been a long, sad few weeks, but I'm OK. Life, fortunately or unfortunately, goes on, at a remarkable pace.

The most important development is that I'm moving away from Greenpoint, which I'm very sad about, but it's to a larger new apartment in Astoria with new roommates. Hopefully it's all going to work out. I move on the 1st, so the odds of my doing any serious communication between now and then are slim.

But as far as non-serious communication goes... I've been playing with Tumblr for the last couple of days, and it seems to be holding my attention so far. (A tumblelog is basically super-short attention-span blogging, for those unfamiliar.) I started it up because Matthew told me he was gonna be playing with it, but he hasn't posted a damn thing yet. Meanwhile, eerily, apparently Stuart decided to start goofing around with his within ten minutes of my having the same idea across the ocean. Great minds, etc.

Anyway, little dribs and drabs will be appearing over there, so if you want to look in one more place for my inane scribblings, go right ahead. I'm off to reserve a cargo van for next weekend -- as soon as I'm moved in, I'm gonna go bonkers on the credit card at Ikea...

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Panic On The Streets Of Greenpoint

nobody@vox.com(DYFL) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:33:46 -0400

Yeah... I'm officially starting to panic about my move.

I have SO MUCH FUCKING STUFF and there is NO PLACE TO PUT IT ALL at this new apartment. I guess I could spend many hundreds of dollars adding storage to the place, but if I'm only going to be there a few months, then there doesn't seem to be much of a point. The obnoxious thing is that I've always kind of thought of myself as a minimalist... but no minimalist has the number of books, comics, and CDs that I have. And of course because I put off planning, I've got no option but to take all this shit with me to the new place and then figure out what to do with it there, instead of coming up with a solution before I have to pack and move it all.

I'm taking votes: Does anybody think I could be happy if I sold off nearly everything I owned? Has anybody done this before? What was the regret-to-relief ratio? I'm honestly curious here.

The only good news is that I'm taking Friday off, so I have the whole day to go buy more boxes, pack, clean, etc. I'm going to need every fucking second, apparently. ARGH.

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Homesick

nobody@vox.com(DYFL) — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:08:52 -0400

I made a big mistake.

At the end of June, my roommate, Ashley, informed me that she intended to move out of our apartment at the end of August, i.e. one year into our two-year lease. She intended to move to Park Slope with her friend Gem. I was not invited. I found this to be quite annoying, since I was the person who did all the legwork on finding both the apartments we've lived in in NYC and I feel like I've caught nothing but crap from her about both of them -- the first one (literally a block from her school) was too expensive, the second one (in a gorgeous, safe neighborhood 20 minutes from the Village and Midtown) was too small and she didn't like the neighborhood, even though it is awesome. I would've been a lot angrier with her if our landlord had not let us out of our lease so easily; as it stands, I've just decided not to be all that pissed about it. It's been pretty obvious that we were growing apart (I've sensed a real feeling of contempt on her part for all of us who went to high school together), so maybe this was the best thing.

However. I made a mistake. I decided, shortly after she told me this, that instead of trying to find a new roommate for the apartment we're in now, I would move out as well, and try to find something here in Greenpoint that had more space, as the room I currently occupy is 7' by 9' and the rest of the apartment is not huge either (the other bedroom is a decent size, about 9'x9' or 10'x10' overall, but the living room is not enormous -- the whole brownstone is quite thin). My rationale was that while this place was cheap ($1400 a month), and I could afford to pay $750 or $800 for the larger, nicer bedroom and offer the small room for only $600 or $650, the apartment on the whole was simply too small for me to share with someone I didn't know well (nobody I know was in need of a room right now, so I would have had to just find somebody on Craigslist). So I decided to go out and find a Craigslist apartment share for myself.

I saw a lot of places I liked here in Greenpoint, and some nice places in Astoria too (I wanted very badly to stay in Greenpoint, as I love the feel of the neighborhood and it's starting to seem like I've put down roots here, but I was maintaining Astoria as a back-up neighborhood), but initially none of them panned out. Trying to find a room share combines all the worst aspects of straight-up apartment hunting and, essentially, speed-dating or auditioning for a play -- you've got to come across as exactly what these people want in the space of a five-minute meeting, while ensuring that they match what you want or need as well. Ultimately, I did see a place, at the northern tip of the neighborhood, that I was offered and wound up taking -- it's a basement apartment, in nice shape, with a super-cool guy who couldn't be friendlier and is into a lot of the same things I am (his eyes lit up when he heard I worked at DC). The room is $800, which I can swing (though I'm in a fairly serious financial crunch right now), and I was pretty much at peace with how things worked out -- the block the new apartment is on is farther from the subway and amenities, and is not as pretty as the block I'm on now, but it is close to the bridge into Long Island City and the 7 train, which makes the late-night commute easy (at least in good weather, since there's an 8-10 minute walk).

However, I went over there today to give him the checks (deposit for the old roommate and first month's rent for the landlord -- the latter I had to get from my parents, unfortunately, which I hate to do since I'd been so financially independent up until now), and was disappointed to realize that the room is not as big as I'd remembered it in my mind's eye -- it's really only about 7' by 12', without much closet space, and with an angled door that makes furniture layout slightly problematic. At the same time, Ashley moved her furniture out today while I was with my sister and mother, and walking around the apartment I'm realizing how nice it would have been to have taken her room, and how much I really appreciate the block I'm on now. But it's too fucking late. I've paid for the new apartment, and while the checks haven't been cashed I can't ditch the guy who needs a roommate just days before he needs one; the landlord has already started showing our current apartment to potential new renters as well, and I suspect one pair has already taken the place. So I'm left sitting here tonight in a half-empty apartment (packing my hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, actually, in total -- of books, comics, and CDs is going to be a nightmare) coming to the realization that I faced a crossroads and I took the wrong path. It's not pleasant.

Between this whole mess, and my distressing inability to save any money, I feel like I'm really just moving in the wrong direction entirely in my life. Perhaps the new apartment will work out better than I'm expecting, but right now I'm glad to not be on the lease, because I may just want to stick around for six months or so and then try to move on to something better. In any event, the last thing I can really take right now is another period of time where it feels like I'm just killing time, treading water until things can get better. That's what living in this tiny room has felt like for the last year, no matter how much I loved the neighborhood, and unless I can get this new place to feel significantly different, then I just don't know what I'm going to do. Life should be getting better, y'know? It's not like it was already so good that a little setback doesn't sting. My happiness was contingent on a few fragile things going right and they're just not doing so anymore...

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Do You Feel Loved?

Blah Blah Blah

Panic On The Streets Of Greenpoint

Homesick