Friday Video Fun

In the spirit of getting things back to normal around here, it's time for you know what...

Damn right.

The weekend.

And also Video Fun. You know, since it's Friday and all.

I am starting the apartment hunt in earnest now - looking for a place in Manhattan. I can't move until February 15th because I am a broke bitch and I need to wait for my bonus (which comes a convenient two months after Christmas) and my raise to kick in. The bright side is I make enough now (or will soon) to afford to live by myself. And I love myself. Constantly.

Let me express to you how horrible it is to look for apartments in NYC.

First of all in order to even find a place worth living in you pretty much have to pay a broker's fee. That's basically a fee of $2000 for someone with access to apartment listings to refax your info to the landlord for you.

Awesome.

Did I mention rent is at least $1500/month to live in a shoebox? That's if I get lucky and find a cheap place to live.

Now I get to deal with apartment brokers showing me small places in old, gross buildings and trying to get me to into apartments I don't like. Good thing I'm a crabby, spoiled, picky person who doesn't mind telling a broker they have to actually earn their fee by showing me 900+ apartments this month.

Whatever.

Unfortunately I am the kind of spoiled, crabby person who isn't patient enough to actually go look at that many places. So here I am starting the hunt for a new apartment.

That being said, while I'm not excited to look for a place and to actually move, I am excited to live somewhere new and to not commute an hour each way on the subway every day.

(I'm not sure if I've mentioned before my extreme contempt for the F train. No? Oh, well I dislike it immensely. True story.)

OK, so wish me luck on the apartment search. I will leave you with this video...

I honestly don't even know what to say about this, just watch it.






Have a great weekend!

There is no Spoon

Wow. I haven’t been here in a while. Sorry about that. Helmet Week 2008 really took the wind out of me.

But you are the wind beneath my wings.

Seriously. You are.

Helmet Week is over and I am paying for it dearly right now. I am so sick from the abuse my body (and mind) endured during said week, and all the…uh, stuff I may or may not have…uh, ingested. Dig?

I got effed the eff up. For real. And now I am having the flu and trying to habituate and adjust back into normal life. Not cool dude. So not cool.

On top of that I have a ridiculous amount of work to do now. You know how I got promoted before I left? Well, it seems that they expect me to do more work since they’re now paying me more. WTF is that about, right? Did I just type WTF?

(OMG, I just LOL’ed in my pants.)

And technically, since the paperwork hasn’t gone through, they aren’t paying me more yet. I’m just working harder and being sicker. And not in a good way.

The past two days (wow, has it only been two days since I came back to earth? Help me) have been so rough, it has got me thinking - which is generally pretty dangerous. Why should I work? I dislike it immensely I think. I would so much rather not do anything than have to wake up early, commute (on the bane of my existence, the F train, no less), work, rinse, repeat.

The odd thing is: I have an AWESOME job. I mean everything about it is great as far as jobs go – other than the whole waking up, commuting to get here, etc part. I have the best boss ever, the people I work with are fantastic, I get paid enough to not be homeless, and I don’t ever stay late. Like ever. My job rules; I just dislike working in general.

Working after two weeks of super extreme party patrol and being sick when you come back is even worse. Trust me, I died a little this week.

I have also been thinking about the path I am on. The path I used to be on. The path so many people end up taking in life...

How come so many people follow the cookie cutter path? School > Work > Marriage > Kids > Being old and gross and probably playing a lot of golf (Encore: Tweeprise>Death)?

I used to live such a righteous and groovy life. I followed the Phish band; I skied and threw myself off of massive cliffs everyday before drinking myself into an ulcer. Now I work in a cubicle?

I actually got excited today about moving into my new cube.

Let me repeat that: Cube*.

I shouldn’t be psyched about that, should I? I used to get psyched about a big second set opener, or a 14 inch snowstorm overnight (that’s what she said!). Now it’s come to this?

I remember thinking about how I would never be one of those people who ran the rat race and sold out to the man. Shit, I am like one step away from becoming the man now. And not in a good way.

How the shit did this happen?

What do I do now? Do I bail on all this (all this what? I don't have THAT much going for me)? Do I move back to Colorado and start skiing again? Maybe a beach in Indonesia? I mean, Phish is coming back soon... I am so worried I am going to spend my whole life running on this hamster wheel and not realizing I wasted my life doing until I am old and gross.

Or have I realized it already?

I don’t know if I am moving down this path because that’s what people are “supposed” to do, and since I’ve never been one for doing the things I am supposed to do, I am trying to make up for it now. Or if I was on the cool path and lost a fucking wheel and have veered onto the “normal” path of supposedness somehow.

OMG, WTF… I am having an existential meltdown. I used to be cool and awesome. Now I am totally in the Matrix. And not in a good way.

Morpheus, hook me up with the blue pill dude, stat.

Ten days of relentless helmetness (yeah it rhymes fool!) and I start questioning it all. Or maybe it’s the three days of helmetlessness since then. But man, I either need to find a way to never work or start thinking seriously about what I really want to do in life. Actually those things might be one in the same.

Hi, I missed you.





*My new desk is actually pretty sweet. I’m just saying…

Oh Think Twice, it's Another Day For You And Me in Paradise

I am kind of bummed today. I am moving out of my apartment in February. My roommate is moving to Brazil to live with his girlfriend and I cannot deal with the (nearly one hour) commute to and from my office anymore. So it's time to go.

About a month ago a good friend of mine, we'll call him E, mentioned that he had a close family friend, who we'll call W, with an apartment in Gramercy that she owned but didn't live in anymore because she got engaged a while ago. Her and her parents were bleeding maintenance fees every month and haven't been able to sell it (something about the economy?). So here they had a fully furnished one-bedroom apartment in a really nice neighborhood in Manhattan and no one living in it. They also didn't want just anybody living there, they wanted a family friend, a nice Jewish boy (or girl) to live there if anybody at all was going to. Being the upstanding citizen that I am, I offered to move in and pay a ridiculously low rent (all that I could afford, actually a little more than I could afford). They liked the idea. And even though I could only afford a rent that was $200 less than they wanted, they figured that they weren't going to put it on the market as a rental, and here I was offering to rent it for more than they pay in maintenance fees.

I've always felt like I need to live in Manhattan at some point while I'm still young to get the full NYC experience. As much as I love Brooklyn, I enjoy the city a lot and I feel like I need to live there soon. Also, I really, really loathe the fucking F train and am so over riding it every time I need to go somewhere.

The other night E called and said everything looked good, W's parents (who help pay the maintenance fees) were into the idea and so was she. All I needed to do was go through the paperwork stuff, etc.

Yes!!

From my new apartment in Gramercy I can walk to work in less than half the time it now takes me to ride a slow, crowded subway (I cannot express to you how intense my hatred is for the F train. If I could karate chop a subway line in the throat, I would do so until my hand broke and my arm fell off. That is grossly understating my contempt for the F. Fuckingashitfuck.). I am also living much closer to my favorite bars and restaurants, my kind-of-girlfriend-kind-of-not-girlfriend-kind-of-not-sure-right-now, the village, work, my job, work, my office; And I am in a great part of the city.

Except I didn't actually get the apartment.

Yesterday E called back and said W's best friend just broke up with her boyfriend of three years and that she was moving out and into W's place. So I'm shit out of luck on my sweet new pad in Gramercy.

Awesome. Super duper.

The thing is that I can't really afford to cough up an insane amount of money right now to move somewhere else (broker fee, first/last/security = like $4000+). This place in Gramercy would have been nice (in addition to all the aforementioned reasons) because I could have paid the first month's rent and paid the security deposit over the course of a couple months.

Now I have six weeks to find a new place. I have like $200 in my bank account (sadly that is actually true) and I really was looking forward to living alone. In a sick location. It's not that I don't make enough money, it's that I excel at spending it so fast. I like to eat at nice restaurants and I make ridiculous impulse purchases all the time (who doesn't need three iPods and an authentic Karate Kid headband to go with those new shoes you'll only wear once?). Saving money is a foreign concept to me, like seeing boobies everyday or soap.

I did however just recently do the math on how much I can save if I stop buying coffee and lunch everyday. Holy effing luxury tax Batman. You want to feel bad about yourself? Add that up and realize the percentage of your income that goes towards keeping yourself fed and caffeinated at work everyday. Last night I made food for the entire week's lunches and I started today drinking the coffee in my office.

All I need now is a retainer, a pocket protector and a lunchbox and I will be a full blow nerd.

To live alone at this point is not an option unless I start moonlighting as a male prostitute (and let's face it, I'm not nearly attractive enough and I have far too much body hair to make real money at it) . I am more than likely going to have to move into a share situation and hope that I don't get some skin-eating psycho as a roommate.

I am crushed that this place in Gramercy didn't work out. Devastated in fact. I knew it was too good to be true and I tried not to get my hopes up, but the night before it fell through I gave in and got excited (when E told me it was happening). So now I start the apartment hunt, which is going to suck. I've already talked to a couple brokers - a situation which I can't afford the fees for anyway - and I've been cruising Craig's List for apartments since yesterday afternoon. Apartment hunting already sucks actually, and I'm realizing quickly that I have a serious cash flow problem (being that I'm broke and all, but I do have some mighty cool shit to put on eBay). I might have to start selling my nude photos to Jizz Hut, but I doubt they'd be worth much.

I should let you know right now that I may be homeless pretty soon, so if I stop blogging for a bit it's because I can't find a place to plug in my laptop outside while relaxing in a cardboard box. If you don't hear from me, worry.

So, shamelessly I'll close by asking if anyone knows of a super sweet deal on a nice (read: standing, with a roof and running water) apartment in NYC. If so, please email me or let me know how to get it.

Oh wait... Actually, just start sending me money so I can afford a really nice place and/or pay a broker's fee. Yeah, that's a much better idea.