Employment.

It finally happened - after three rejection-filled weeks of sketchy bartending interviews, one fine establishment has decided to bring me on board. They're training me next week and then starting me on some shifts. As an added bonus, they've also asked me to do some freelance graphic design work for them - so I'll be able to make some extra cash before I start at the bar.

Looks like I'll be able to pay the rent after all.

Hopefully lease application #3 will actually result in a lease.

After debating the benefits of a super-trendy hood against the perks of a pimped-out apartment, we've decided to go with the place in Prospect Park South. Firstly, I'm sure that when January rolls around, we'll appreciate having laundry in the basement, draft-free windows, and a brand new heating system. And it will be nice to eat our meals at an actual kitchen table instead of conducting all of our operations from the futon. But what really made us ditch hipsterville was the realization that, if we're actually going to be paying rent and utilities for the next year, we won't be able to chill out in trendy bars and restaurants every weekend. Living on a budget means ditching the daily iced soy chai latte, so why bother living across the street from a super-hip coffee shop? Moving to a neighborhood with more essentials than indulgences will definitely be friendlier on the wallet.

So we're applying for a lease and hoping to get that squared away pretty soon. Third time's a charm?

Dilemma.

So, we've narrowed the list down to two possible apartments. One is in Windsor Terrace and one is in Prospect Park South. I can't decide which I like better, so I'm going to sort it out by making some lists.

Windsor Terrace

Pros:
- great neighborhood (very safe and full of obnoxious hipsters just like me)
- affordable
- big bedrooms (each one has a closet and is big enough to fit a full bed)
- very clean with new kitchen appliances
- live-in super
- 4 blocks from the subway

Cons:
- on the first floor (requiring metal grates on the windows to deter rapists)
- very small living room
- kitchen does not have room for a table

Prospect Park South

Pros:
- very big bedrooms with lots of closet space and enough room for full beds
- huge living room
- big kitchen (with room for a kitchen table and chairs)
- brand new and very clean
- elevator
- laundry room in the basement (with a treadmill)
- 1 block from the subway
- 1 block from Prospect Park
- live-in super
- air conditioning already installed

Cons:
- slightly over-budget
- in a less cute neighborhood (lacks hipster flair)

I guess it comes down to badass chick pad vs. hipster central. I keep wavering between the two - but according to the above bullet-point lists, the place in Prospect Park South seems to have more pros and fewer cons. Maybe that means I should sacrifice living in the trendiest neighborhood ever in exchange for a baller apartment?

Advice is welcome.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this?

I discovered www.walkscore.com and it is amazing. It rates the "walkability" (i.e., convenience) of a neighborhood by assessing how many amenities (grocery stores, drugstores, restaurants, etc.) are within walking distance of a given address or intersection. Aside from the fact that my mom seems to be confused about its purpose and keeps calling it streetwalker.com (that would be something entirely different, though perhaps equally useful for some apartment-hunters), this site is way more informative than wandering around unknown parts of Brooklyn and hoping to find a laundromat.

Round two.

Apartment-hunting is like riding a horse: you fall off, and then you get back on.* So, Sarah and I are heading out tomorrow morning with a brand new broker and a brand new list of apartments to look at.

We will see how it goes.

*What really happens is that your amateur ass gets thrown off the horse because you don't know what you're doing, your limp body gets trampled by the razor-sharp hooves of an unyielding beast, and then you crawl, weeping and filthy, back onto the fucking animal. But let's try to be optimistic here.

I guess this would be the part where we totally start from scratch.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that moving into a building with a shitty reputation is pretty objectively stupid. I'm sure that wherever we move will have some sort of flaw that we discover after living there - but picking an apartment that you already know is potentially incredibly flawed? That just seems dumb. And it would be really sad to eventually say "I told you so" to ourselves.

So I guess it's time to scrap the apartment, scrap our broker, and start fresh. This makes me want to fucking destroy something - but I don't think there's really another option. Sure, my brain has finally reached the point at which thinking about apartment-hunting triggers an immediate psychophysical reaction that probably lies somewhere between enraged frustration and emotional meltdown. But who doesn't love a good emotional meltdown? Screw my psychological stability - bring on the real estate!

I'd feel a lot more positive about this whole thing if I thought there was any chance of getting a place by August 1st, which is the move-in date we've been planning all along. But, given that today is July 26th (and that applying for a lease has taken a freakishly long time and been a catastrophe unto itself every single time), that probably isn't going to happen.

I would also feel more positive if I had a job ... but that's a separate failure. Why did I take an unpaid summer internship? Man do I feel stupid about that.

Evidence of how broke I am.

I just saw 2 quarters on my floor and got excited.

Somone please help me figure this out.

So, the building we're supposed to move into may or may not have a bedbug problem. After conducting thorough research of the Greenpoint blogosphere and utilizing some (probably more reliable) government-backed sources of information, Sarah and I were able to conclude that a handful of apartments have reported bedbug problems in the past and that one apartment so far has reported having bedbugs in 2009.

What we haven't been able to figure out, though, is if the building is doing anything to prevent bedbugs. Given that the New York City bedbug epidemic has become urgent enough to call for the establishment of an advisory board to confront the problem, this would be a logical move on part of the management (and incredibly reassuring for those of us considering moving there).

But this epidemic is raising another question for me: if pretty much every single non-luxury building in New York City is at risk for developing some level of bedbug infestation, then is there any point looking for afforable apartments that have never been touched by the things? Given our budget and the city-wide situation, are we ever going to find a place that's genuinely immune to insects? Or is this a risk that we're going to have to be vigilant about no matter what? I know that it's possible to do the research and try to figure out whether a building is currently clean - but I'm starting to think that trying to find an inexpensive place that has never had bedbugs and is immune to ever attracting them is an impossible task. Not that I would ever move into a place that was currently infested - I'm just unsure that we could ever find someplace with a pristine record and a bedbug-proof plan for the future.

That said, I have no idea where to go from here.

Congratulations, 17-year-old brother. You cracked the case.

After GChat-complaining to my brother that I was too broke to buy coffee in the morning, he offered the following explanation for my unemployment:

me: i'm unemployed

Nicholas: well

you majored in art

at harvard

me: yeah but it was harvard

Nicholas: yeah but

yeah but

me: HARVARD

Nicholas: you could have done like

art history

or

me: i minored in art history

Nicholas: something

substantial

not just

pretty pictures

and tampons

So it really is universally understood that I am fucked.

Because signing a lease needs to become an emotional rollercoaster.

I'm going to do this as calmly as possible. That is the only antidote I can come up with to the screaming in my head.

This morning, Dawn called me and told me we got the apartment in Greenpoint. For a price that we can afford. And we can sign the lease tomorrow. Hooray, celebration, etc. Everything is great.

Then my mom Googled the building (why this had to wait until 24 hours before the lease signing is beyond me) and dug up some not-so-positive blog posts about the building. Aside from the fact that the building's superintendent appears to be a potentially pornographic photographer, a lot of tenants complained about bugs and shitty maintenance in 2007 and 2008. The fact that there haven't been any posts about this stuff recently is encouraging ... but the building's history of pornography and infestation (I'm not really sure which is more troubling) is still cause for concern.

So that sort of puts a damper on the whole we-finally-got-an-apartment-hooray situation - but at least I got about an hour of happiness in before reality came and pissed on it. Given our previous knowledge of the giant bedbug problem in New York, we were already planning on completely fumigating any place we moved into - so I guess this just makes it a much more urgent item on the to-do list. We're also going to try and get through to the building management and ask if they've done anything to change their maintanence practices in the last year, since that would be a logical explanation for the lack of recent blog posts concerning the infestation (the alternative explanation being that the residents have been defeated). In any case, it's something we need to think seriously about.

And as for the perverted super ... maybe his preference for young women will encourage him to take care of our maintenance problems in a timely fashion. See, there - I found a silver lining.

Dear job market, Please exist. Love, Sally.

I've spent the last two days at work desperately searching for jobs. Even ignoring the bitter irony of the fact that I spend eight hours a day at an unpaid internship doing nothing but apply for paying jobs, this process has been incredibly depressing.

In the past 29 hours I have applied for 32 jobs: 23 freelance design/illustration gigs, 8 bartending or hostessing positions, and 1 desperate response to a Craigslist ad seeking a series of hand-knit baby hats (this is what my last resorts are starting to look like). So far, I've received two responses - one potential yes from a guy looking for a tattoo design, and one big no from a musician seeking album art. I'm assuming the other 30 are also no's.

If I have to apply for 32 jobs just to get a few responses, how many applications am I going to have to file before I actually land something that pays me?

My mom bought me a bed.

So now I'll have someplace to sleep. In my new apartment. Which doesn't exist yet.

Apartment suspense, round 2.

So here we are again. Papers are filed and fees are paid for apartment #2. We're supposed to hear something from the landlord tomorrow, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. Any sign of progress at this point would ease the stress ... though a sign that our rent will be affordable would ease the stress a lot.

In more positive news, I now own an N64 console with 2 controllers. Now all I need to do is buy some games. I guess that'll be tomorrow's workday task.

Real estate fail.

Our first apartment-hunt, our first tragic loss. The DUMBO apartment went to another broker yesterday morning. Cue shattered hopes.

So this totally sucks - but I'm not going to ramble about how hugely it sucks. There's nothing I can do about it, and I'd ultimately rather cling to deluded optimism than wallow in sorrow. So, it sucks, but we're still looking and I'm sure we'll end up not homeless.

We did some searching yesterday, and, after being traumatized by some Bushwick apartments located on top of an auto-body shop that was guarded by a large dog, we landed on a nice 2-bedroom in Greenpoint. It had a big kitchen, a separate living room, 2 sizeable bedrooms, and lots of closet space - plus it was on a nice, tree-lined block in a cute neighborhood full of convenient shops and restaurants. And it's very close to the subway (albeit the G, but we had to settle somewhere). It was definitely a nice enough place to take our minds off the tragedy of DUMBO, so we're applying for the lease today.

The only problem is that the apartment is a bit beyond our budget. Hopefully once we apply for the lease we will have the bargaining power to lower the rent, but that's the sort of thing we'll just have to wait and see about. I hope we know soon, though - the apartment-hunting process has definitely lost its charm.

If we get screwed out of another apartment, I will raise hell.

Mario Kart win.

I am currently bidding on an N64 console, complete with one controller and a copy of Mario Kart. I am also bidding on 3 additional controllers. All this could be mine for under $20.

The future has never been brighter.

It's on.

Another broker has filed for the apartment we want. The race begins!

Essential decor.

Since the apartment-hunt began, I've been making a mental list of things I'll need to buy for the new place. Since we're inheriting a lot of furniture and miscellaneous housewares from various family members, the list is pretty short - my main priorities for now are 1) a bed to sleep in, 2) a mattress to put on said bed, and 3) sheets to put on top of that.

But after a lot of thought, I realized that I was forgetting something absolutely essential.

And that is an N64.

I understand that this whole process of moving out/getting a job/working toward an advanced degree is supposed to be part of the so-called maturity effort - but I don't think that video games are necessarily an indication of immaturity. In fact, Mario Kart contains subtleties and high-level nuances that might be lost on the ignorant gamer. Also, Mario Kart goes great with beer. And I fucking love it. And I'm going to find it somehow.

So I'll be taking the rest of this workday to peruse Craigslist and Ebay for abandoned consoles. If anyone out there is looking to rid themselves of their frat-boy shenanigans and put their N64 up for adoption ... I will gladly purchase the remains of your undergraduate glory.

Seriously, hit me up. It's been a while since my last Grand Prix and I'm pretty sure my thumbs are getting out of shape.

Moving forward.

I got a call from Dawn yesterday, finally giving us the go-ahead on the DUMBO apartment. She heard back from the landlord and managed to talk our monthly rent way down - so now this place is actually within our budget. Is Dawn a savior and magician? Yes, and yes.

Today we have to drop off our fees for the credit check, and then the powers that be will take it from there. We're still going to look at some back-up places tomorrow, in case something goes wrong and we don't end up with the apartment ... but mostly it'll be an effort to placate my parents, who will forever believe that our neighborhood of choice is a ghetto (despite city-wide statistics indicating a higher rate of violent crime on the UES than in DUMBO).

So things are looking good. We still have no furniture and no jobs ... but we may have an apartment.

Potentially the sketchiest career path ever.

Yesterday I finally started interviewing for bartending jobs. I knew that the bartending industry would be shady, but I guess I didn't realize how completely random and bizarre the job search would be.

I started at a hipster dance club on the Lower East Side. I had been told to show up anytime after 7, so I wandered in at about 10 after. The old man behind the bar cracked open a beer and told me that the owner was out that night because he had broken his wrist. He then explained that the owner wasn't even the one responsible for interviewing applicants - that would be someone else (whose name I have forgotten), who didn't get in until after 9:00. The scary old man added that he wasn't aware that they were hiring, but mentioned something about only seeking barmaids. So I thanked him and got back on the train.

The next stop was a manly-man pub near Port Authority. This place, despite being a dive bar covered in peanut shells, actually seemed more legit than the last one - as in, there was a manager in an office behind a desk rather than a drunk old man rambling about barmaids. I filled out an application and talked to the manager for a while, and he said he'd give me a call.

Then I went home to continue the no-Mom-and-Dad-all-bars-are-not-like-Coyote-Ugly-and-I-am-not-becoming-a-prostitute conversation. I'll head back to the first place tonight and see if anything more productive comes of it.

I'll also be calling the employment agency for a few additional leads. Based on last night's adventures, I think some more options would be swell.

I would love to be employed soon.

Reasons that grad school will be amazing.

1. Classes meet once a week
So what if they're also a brain-melting 3 hours long? I'm only going to have one class on Mondays, two on Tuesdays, and one on Wednesdays. Followed by a four-day weekend. Hell yes.

2. Winter break is a month long
Suck it, Harvard intersession of my undergraduate past.

I know these things because I got excited about course registration and put my Fall semester course schedule, as well as the entire 2009-2010 academic calendar, into my GCal. You can take the girl out of the Ivy League ...

I guess this grad school thing is really happening.

Online registration takes place this week, which means I will actually be going to school and taking classes in the very near future. Here's the lineup for this coming semester:

Typography I
An "introduction to the concrete and conceptual aspects of typography" and an exploration of the "historical and current forms of alphabetic communications." Let the geekery begin.

Visual Communications I
This course will teach me a "disciplined, systematic approach to concept development" and help me master the "problem-solving process applied to graphic design." Sounds legit.

Visual Perception
This is a survey of the "physiological and historical perspectives of visual perception." It's unclear what that actually means, but I'm getting a big red flag from the fact that the course description mentions "readings, presentations, discussions, papers and visiting lecturers." That sounds a bit too academic for me.

Digital Design
Here's something I know nothing about: "the core ideas and technologies surrounding image-making, sound and time-dependent media." At least I can rest assured that "the primary focus in this class is on the learning process, which puts more emphasis on the conceptual thinking behind each assignment than on the finished products" - so I don't actually have to do anything well as long as I learn how one would hypothetically do something well.

And that's my course load. It was pretty easy to figure out, because the Assistant Chair of the GradComD Department told me exactly what to take (I love having no agency). She also told me that my prerequisites were waived (I'm apparently qualified to go to this school?), so I'll actually be able to fulfill all my requirements in two years. I guess I'm really getting a degree.

I can't take the suspense.

Just tell me whether this apartment is mine. Please.

The apartment hunt, day 4: great success.

Today was grueling. But we may have found the best apartment ever.

I don't want to jinx anything, since we're still sorting out the paperwork and there's a chance someone else could jump in and get their application approved before we do (thereby dashing our dreams and probably earning themselves the worst karma in the world, not to mention a death wish from yours truly). But if everything goes smoothly, there's a good chance we'll end up with the best apartment ever.

But let's take a step back. Here's how the day went.

We started with Sal (formerly known as Craigslist Lady), who showed us two pretty nice places in East Williamsburg (whether East Williamsburg is just a euphemism for Bushwick or in fact a unique neighborhood that lies between Williamsburg and Bushwick is still up for grabs). They were both definite possibilities, but we wanted to keep looking.

Our next stop was also in East Williamsburg, and it was another I'm-not-going-to-be-there-but-the-super-can-give-you-the-keys sort of visit. We didn't realize that the super was going to drop the keys out her window to us, though, and I can't decide whether this was endearing or weird. In any case, the apartment was a walk-through. So we left.

Then we met a real estate broker in Clinton Hill. We were pretty excited to check out the neighborhood, since we weren't too familiar with it and it seemed to be the most affordable area on our list. However, things are usually affordable because they suck. I don't know why this didn't occur to us earlier - but if Clinton Hill is the cleaned-up version of Bed-Stuy, I don't want to know what Bed-Stuy looks like (especially not after dark). I'm pretty sure at one point a piece of glass fell from the sky.

Needless to say, we were a pretty fatigued by the time we met up with Dawn - and I had some serious doubts about her claim to an affordable place in DUMBO (a neighborhood so trendy we hadn't even considered it an affordable possibility). Still, she seemed so friendly (and had such cute shoes) that I couldn't help but trust her - so we hopped in her car and let her do her thing.

When we got to the apartment, I'm pretty sure we almost peed ourselves. This place was amazing. Not only was it on the second floor of a nice, new building with a functioning intercom system on a beautiful block in DUMBO - but it was so big that Sarah and I got confused and started asking where the doors went (Dawn actually had to explain to us that they led to more rooms). The apartment had a beautiful new kitchen, a nice bathroom, two big bedrooms, a living room, and even a separate dining room. So many rooms. More rooms than we would know what to do with. It was huge, it was in DUMBO, and by some miracle it was affordable. It was the best apartment in the world. I wanted to give Dawn a hug.

Having made up our minds that Dawn was magic, we let her drive us to an apartment in Park Slope. We were a little skeptical about what an affortable place in Park Slope would look like after last night's disaster apartment, but we were too enamored with Dawn to protest. And the place was great - new kitchen, big bedrooms, bright living room, and even an outdoor area through the back door of the building. It was definitely nice and still within our price range, but we were too in love with the apartment in DUMBO. So Dawn shelled out the paperwork and gave us all the details about applying for the lease.

Sarah and I headed home, exhausted but victorious. We're in the middle of getting all of our forms filled out and faxed in, and Dawn is going to start talking to the landlord tomorrow. This weekend will be pretty crazy, since I'm headed up to Cambridge for some college nostalgia and Sarah's got a pretty important audition - but we'll be in touch with each other and with Dawn and we will keep our fingers crossed that this place works out. If it does, it will be completely above and beyond anything we ever thought we could get. If it doesn't, though, we're sure Dawn could find us another place. We're too in love with her to ever leave her side.

The apartment hunt, day 4.

Today is the big push. We're meeting Sal in Williamsburg at 10:30, Joey in Clinton Hill at 11:00, Mark in East Williamsburg at noon, Dawn (we found her!) in Williamsburg at 12:30, Omar in Clinton Hill at 1:00, Jeffrey in Clinton Hill at 1:15, Django (he wins for best name) in Williamsburg at 3:30, and Joseph in Clinton Hill at 4:30.

God help us if we don't find a place by the end of the day.

The apartment hunt, day 3: conclusions.

Last night was far too time-consuming and exhausting for the minimal number of apartments that we ended up seeing. Somehow three apartments took us close to three hours and completely wore us out. We need to work on our endurance if we're going to get through the 10+ places on our schedule for today.

So here's how it went:

1) Williamsburg

I take back what I said about being murdered by Craigslist Lady. First of all, Craigslist Lady was a man. Secondly, (s)he was very nice. So I feel bad for thinking that he was planning on scamming and/or knifing us (and also for thinking that he was a woman).

He showed us two places in Williamsburg, about a 5-minute walk from the L at Bedford Avenue. The first one was nice and the second one sucked. But we're meeting him again today to look at more places.

2) Park Slope

Holy hell. Not only did this landlord have no intention of meeting us at the apartment, instructing us instead to call the super and ask her to let us in, but he also gave us the wrong address (how is that possible?) and sent us wandering around Park Slope for half an hour (we had to stop two guys on the sidewalk and ask them to look up maps on their iPhones). When we finally found the place, it turned out to be a shotgun apartment rather than a railroad apartment (these terms really should not be used interchangeably) and only had one closet. In the entire apartment.

My favorite aspect of the apartment, however, was the fact that the bathroom was too small to accommodate a sink, mirror, and towel rack - so they were outside the bathroom. In the kitchen. See below for reference:



That's almost too funny to be sad.

The apartment hunt, day 3.

After blitz-calling a million realtors and Craigslist randos last night (and continuing to chase down the difficult ones all afternoon), Sarah and I have got a pretty solid schedule down for our 24-hour apartment-hunting extravaganza.* Tonight we're checking out a few places in Williamsburg with a potentially crazy Craigslist lady whose name I have forgotten and who insisted upon meeting us at the intersection of South 3rd and Roebling rather than inside an actual building. I'm not quite sure where she's taking us, but I hope that she is not a sociopath.

After perhaps getting slain underneath the BQE by Craiglist Lady, we're going to look at a place in Park Slope. We were hoping to see two other Park Slope apartments tonight - but one of them is being rented by huge flake named Dawn and the other was listed by a skeevy realtor who refuses to show apartments to anyone uwilling to sign a lease immediately (does that not make any sense to anyone else?). So we're down to one place in Park Slope - potentially two if we ever find Dawn again.

This would be a lot easier if the real estate world was not run by crazies.

*I might have created and shared a Google calendar outlining all of our visits, complete with each realtor's contact information, the price and location of each apartment, and which (if any) utilities are included in the monthly rent. I wonder if there are any padded cells for rent on Bedford Avenue.

It would be better for everyone if I was never employed.

It is 4:25 pm. I got to work at 10 am. I just started doing work.

The hitlist.

Last night, I compiled all of the real estate links that Sarah and I had emailed to each other over the course of the past week into a massive Googledoc. In a drowsy 2 am phone conversation (Sarah had a rough time driving back to Chappaqua after the Mets game), we pored over the list and narrowed it from 45 apartments to 28. The goal was to cut it in half - but we got pretty close. And we were sleepy.

Because I am so good at doing anything but my actual job while I am at work, I spent all morning putting these 28 listings into a Google spreadsheet. This anal-retentive gem of a spreadsheet is not only broken into four columns (location, price, contact information, and interwebz link), it is also color-coded by neighborhood - green for Clinton Hill, grey for Williamsburg, yellow for Greenpoint, orange for Park Slope, and blue for Manhattan.*

So tonight we're meeting up for dinner at an internet cafe near Union Square (apparently those still exist in New York) to go down the hitlist, make phone calls, and schedule appointments. Hopefully we can schedule the bulk of our visits for this Friday and get most of our hardcore hunting done in one death-defying day of pain - because how cool would it be if we found a place this weekend? Maybe I'm being optimistic ... but if we totally destroy our bodies in one eight-hour apartment-hunting marathon, it could happen.

*My initial goal of color-coding the spreadsheet in a way that corresponded with the colors of the subway lines that ran through each respective neighborhood had to be partially compromised when I realized that the G runs through both Clinton Hill and Greenpoint (this added to the conflict I was already having about whether to ditch the MTA-inspired color scheme and make Greenpoint green because it has green in the name). The fact that there are a million subway lines that hit Park Slope (not to mention the fact that the two places we're looking in Manhattan are on completely different lines) added to the difficulty of this task. But, being the expert problem-solver that I am, I think I pulled it out in the end. And I think my spreadsheet is awesome.

The Village Voice: more or less sketchy than Craigslist?

While I've been pretty devoted to Craigslist as the internet mothership of apartment-hunting, Sarah may have found a potentially less-sketchy source of apartment listings in the Village Voice. Since the Voice's online classifieds page is formatted exactly like Craigslist (and since it's the Voice), there's a fair chance that these listings will turn out to be just as (if not more) sketchy than the Craigslist posts we've been surfing. Still, something about the fact that they're loosely tied to a legitimate publication makes us feel a little bit better. So we're giving it a shot.

Relatedly - these next two weeks are going to be our hardcore apartment-hunting weeks (since moving to a new place on August 1st requires having found a place to move before August 1st). No more of this meandering around Williamsburg and stopping for cocktails every 6 blocks in the interest of "exploring the neighborhood." We're placing phonecalls, making checklists and Google spreadsheets, and hitting the pavement hard until we find the perfect chick pad. Only once we've signed a one-year lease on our dream home will we resume getting tanked in hipster bars every single time we see each other.

Evidence that I will not be forced to live on ramen noodles and microwave popcorn for the next two years.

Yeah, that's food. In a pan. I put it there. And it turned out edible.

There was only a little smoke.