apartment stories

man, i can't wait to have my own work area again. my computer back with my monitor, MY stuff! my clean, useful stuff. my life has been in storage since the end of july 06. i went through my stuff when i was moving and picked out what i really thought i need and left the rest in queens in a storage unit. i want my shit back and i want it behind real walls.
real walls. i never really thought of a wall not being a wall until i moved into my current apartment. i truly believe that a thick curtain may have been the better choice when they were dividing the space. Here are some fun facts about the wall.

1. the wall is not actually finished. light seeps in from the top and the sides.

2. due to #1, if a person of any size leaned on it for even a couple of minutes, the wall would be irreparably damaged.

3. there is virtually no sound filter between the person sitting on the couch who's back is against that wall and my 'room', so this means that all activities on either side of the wall can be heard with extreme clarity, resulting in virtually no privacy.

so this means that if i've had a conversation with you on the my-bedroom side of that wall, if anyone is sitting on the other side of that wall, they too are a part of our conversation. not to worry though friends, i've taken the appropriate precautions to safeguard our privacy. but that i have to do this has pushed me to an interesting investigative phase. i am absolutely fascinated by some of the options.

i have a friend in real estate who is, unarguably, the hardest working man in the whole joint. he is totally goal driven on his accomplishment criteria and wants to get shit done. this is the ideal situation for me because i'm looking for a new place to live that is both nice and reasonable within realistic expectations. the two options then are: one, to scour through the rags, the craigslist bullshit and just asking around. This however, requires an immense amount of time, stress and frustration. option two requires paying someone to access a wide database of both privileged work files and personal contacts. generally this person costs between $2500 and $5000 once the apartment has transacted and requires up to or less than a 5 hour commitment on my part on my schedule.

i haven't actually done the math on this, though i now know a former math major who could, but basically in life dollars, i'm starting to think that option two is more than worth it. i've done some sporadic looking on my own recently, but within a quarter of the time in research, my friend found several places that were all within my budget and fairly realistic places. sooo impressive. just happens that when i found one that i liked, my lack of guarantor was just a little too scary. understandable. when life actually starts turning around for the better, there are always a few interesting growing pains. but it was worth it just for the places we saw, with one exception.
we walked to a nice block on the east side and cruised up to the 3rd floor. upon opening the door i noticed that it was a true one bedroom and that there was pretty good light, a cute view of the garden and a small, but workable kitchen. then i took a second look at the place.

the bedroom was of a decent size, but was on about a 4% grade. anything you put against one wall would roll to the other in a jiffy. i had a place like that in boston and it was kind of endearing after a while. so next i take a peek in the bathroom. not a bathroom, a toilet. tiny toilet room in the bedroom. then the real confusion started to set in. where's the shower? is this a situation where i need to shower at the gym and shit at home? spit bathe in the sink? i remembered we had passed a closet in the kitchen when we exited the bedroom to see the livingroom. it had shuttered doors, but i hadn't opened it. i walked over, swung them open and there it was.....the shower tucked away in the closet in the kitchen. i wanted to move in immediately. i mean who wouldn't rent a place with the shitter in the bedroom and a shower in the kitchen. i wonder, did anyone actually set any criteria for this process (that of creating livable apartment spaces) when they started doing it? really, a person could conceivably get away with a totally unsavory apartment like that for a long time in new york because there are so many places and so many ways to get around any set guidelines, it would be impossible to find all of those that are sub par. i must point out that i can say with totally assurance, that my current situation is, by some standards fantastic, so i make no complaint; i merely comment.

but the search goes on, and thanks to my hardworking friend, i am not alone in this quest. but this process leaves me time now to do things like get my laundry done, have a series of insanely long phone calls, do the dishes, clean the bathroom and welcome the new roommate who i never met or heard of in my life, into the house and tell him where everything is. see......this is what i love about new york. no, seriously.