these days I stay with my mom. hopefully it won't last much longer, as those readers who've seen my rant on the state of the real. It's a good deal (read:free) and not intensely crazy.. but that's a problem in and of itself. that I'm not totally allergic to this living. In and of itself this is a bad thing.
there's this girl I just met in the laundry room... she points to a washer and asks me if it's a dryer. naturally I became paranoid, and faked drying a shirt until she returned... then I smoov'd it on a little to find out where she lived; you know, the small talk about this and that. I had to lie a little and say I've only been here about a year... I'm going to turn in her ugly illegally-subletting ass. See, illegal sublets are a real problem in my moms' housing co. I think half the people here -literally- are subletting. Not my problem, right? I shouldn't care, right? Who gives a rat's ass, right? Oh but it is, I do, and I f'n SHALL.
The reality of the issue (not to get too preachy) is that when those of us willfully allow others to break the rules it diminishes us. This place is a low-income housing dev, so we sign affadavits once a year to set our maintainance.. it's like a poor man's co-op. Therefore, there's a big temptation to sublet as the space here goes for way below market.
My real problem is the security thing. I don't care if people are making money off the government.. but I don't want my mom living in a building full of transients and strangers.. what if she gets in a pinch and needs a neighbor? I worry. Weird how I can care so much about one person and so little about the others, eh? Well, I guess I'm really just a dude. A thirsty, tired, gotta go brush my teeth dude.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
104th and Lexington Avenue
Yes, so I'm looking for a new apartment, and I'm pretty irritated about the whole process. I'm so frustrated with RE Agents that I feel like I want to break something!
I understand that apartment hunting in NYC is a hard thing to do. It's a seller's market, which means the people working in the industry are ghastly. It means they can be abusive and flaky and immoral and get away with it. It means false advertising is the modus operandi. I've showed up to a place at least a dozen times, just to stand on line for twenty minutes to see it, only to learn someone had already signed the lease.
104 and Lex is not the Upper East Side. I'm sorry, there's no way around it. That's like saying City Hall is in Battery Park. It's just not. Neighborhoods have boundaries. They're not grey areas, they're not moving around- and this is a clear example. Just because they're not written on the street signs doesn't mean they don't exist. The same thing happened yesterday; I went to a spot in Bushwick, and somehow the woman showing the spot called it Williamsburg.
Listen lady, I've got some news for you. When you cross Bushwick Avenue, you're in Bushwick. That's why it's called Bushwick-- that's how you know where you are! Bushwick Ave! And this place I saw.. totally ridiculous... if you called it 200 square feet you would have included the walls. And it wasn't even in the building- it was in a little shanty you had to go through the streetside building and a garden to get to. There were two electrical outlets. Count em, two. A lamp and and an alarm clock. No phone jack, tv antenna, toaster.. forget about a stereo. Unbelieve! If I wanted to live in a shanty, I'd move to soweto and set one up for free.
In SF there's this neighborhood called South of Market. It means, strangely enough- everything south of Market Street. It doesn't mean four blocks north, or ten feet north!
I'm emotionally done with these jerks who feel like they're doing me a favor. They're providing a service and being well paid for it. Last week I called somebody about a space, and the guy on the phone was immediately frantic that I go and see it that instant. I asked if the next day was okay (because I'd already booked myself for the day) the jerk hung up on me! I called him back, got his voicemail, and he never returned my call! What a prick!
This is an exchange I had a few minutes ago;
Hi, I'm calling about the apartment.
When can you come to see it?
Well, can you tell me about it before I go all the way out there? I don't want to waste my time or your time.
It's nice, it's not that small.
O-kay, there are two rooms, right? About how many square feet are we talking?
I'm not sure.. I'm bad with measurements
Okay, that's fine. The kitchen is separate from the bedroom right?
Yes.
Could I fit a small table in there?
Well-uh, yeah, you could fit a small table in there.
A small table with a couple chairs, with space to walk around?
Can I call you back?
You know I'm not getting called back. That was almost an hour ago.
Okay, the rent I'm looking for is between 8-900. I expect to pay three times that amount- first month's, security, and the broker fee. For my ~$850, here's what I would ideally expect the agent to have as ready information:
I also realize that there's time to think about too. There are only so many days left before the end of the month, and I have only so many hours of the day to look.
Sheesh. This is getting ridiculous. It's hard to stay positive about this. I'm thinking coffee.
I understand that apartment hunting in NYC is a hard thing to do. It's a seller's market, which means the people working in the industry are ghastly. It means they can be abusive and flaky and immoral and get away with it. It means false advertising is the modus operandi. I've showed up to a place at least a dozen times, just to stand on line for twenty minutes to see it, only to learn someone had already signed the lease.
104 and Lex is not the Upper East Side. I'm sorry, there's no way around it. That's like saying City Hall is in Battery Park. It's just not. Neighborhoods have boundaries. They're not grey areas, they're not moving around- and this is a clear example. Just because they're not written on the street signs doesn't mean they don't exist. The same thing happened yesterday; I went to a spot in Bushwick, and somehow the woman showing the spot called it Williamsburg.
Listen lady, I've got some news for you. When you cross Bushwick Avenue, you're in Bushwick. That's why it's called Bushwick-- that's how you know where you are! Bushwick Ave! And this place I saw.. totally ridiculous... if you called it 200 square feet you would have included the walls. And it wasn't even in the building- it was in a little shanty you had to go through the streetside building and a garden to get to. There were two electrical outlets. Count em, two. A lamp and and an alarm clock. No phone jack, tv antenna, toaster.. forget about a stereo. Unbelieve! If I wanted to live in a shanty, I'd move to soweto and set one up for free.
In SF there's this neighborhood called South of Market. It means, strangely enough- everything south of Market Street. It doesn't mean four blocks north, or ten feet north!
I'm emotionally done with these jerks who feel like they're doing me a favor. They're providing a service and being well paid for it. Last week I called somebody about a space, and the guy on the phone was immediately frantic that I go and see it that instant. I asked if the next day was okay (because I'd already booked myself for the day) the jerk hung up on me! I called him back, got his voicemail, and he never returned my call! What a prick!
This is an exchange I had a few minutes ago;
Hi, I'm calling about the apartment.
When can you come to see it?
Well, can you tell me about it before I go all the way out there? I don't want to waste my time or your time.
It's nice, it's not that small.
O-kay, there are two rooms, right? About how many square feet are we talking?
I'm not sure.. I'm bad with measurements
Okay, that's fine. The kitchen is separate from the bedroom right?
Yes.
Could I fit a small table in there?
Well-uh, yeah, you could fit a small table in there.
A small table with a couple chairs, with space to walk around?
Can I call you back?
You know I'm not getting called back. That was almost an hour ago.
Okay, the rent I'm looking for is between 8-900. I expect to pay three times that amount- first month's, security, and the broker fee. For my ~$850, here's what I would ideally expect the agent to have as ready information:
- Size of the apartment - just give me a ballpark figure. You can guess, it's okay. I expect you to exaggerate.
- Availability - when can I see it, and why is this a problem for you? Do you really expect anyone who's looking to pay as little as I am (comparatively, folks) to be able to get out between 9AM and 5PM to see it? come on!
- Working knowledge of the neighborhood- if you can't tell me where the post office/police station/ library/closest train station is, we have a problem.
I also realize that there's time to think about too. There are only so many days left before the end of the month, and I have only so many hours of the day to look.
Sheesh. This is getting ridiculous. It's hard to stay positive about this. I'm thinking coffee.
Saturday, October 09, 2004
The deal with the mail is...
there's almost nothing good about the mail anymore, just bad news and junk. The check is in the mail? My eye. Needles in haystacks, brothers and sisters. A little accounting: How much of what we get in the mail every year goes straight into the recycling bin, and how many individual pieces of mail do we get that we're expecting, hoping for... dare I mash out the words 'stuff we want'?
So here's how I figure it: We get bills: 1-3 utilities, cable/ISP/phone, rent, credit cards, overdue bills and summonses to report for jury duty. We get checks: birthday cards (geez, when was the last time anyone you know had a check mailed to them on their birthday?) the occasional paycheck for those of us who freelance for big companies (well, when we finally get paid, anyway). Those are the ups and downs of the mail. Personal correspondence is nonexistent. I did it with my first two girlfriends, and was completely over it by '90. Oh, but the rest of the time, bro-ther! Nothing but catalogues of crap I don't want; lingerie, flatware, medical devices? How do these people get my name? I once got a B&H Catalog... it was bigger than my college biology textbook, notifications about events that don't apply to me or anyone I know or anyone in my neighborhood... and I get SO_MANY_MENUS.. I think I'm going to build a homeless shelter out of all the paper crap I have collecting. I've gone and threatened at the restaurants who do the menu-bombing, but that never helps. I've yelled at the deliveryboys but that doesn't help. So what's to be done? I tell you I want the bills, because I know who's sending them and whyl and roughly when, too. But this other garbage? Get it out, turn it off! It's worse than spam email, because I can't filter it out! and I can't stop it.
This is why postal employees go, well... postal! At one point the mail was a sacred institution and now, all they do is carry marketing and other lousy karma around to every house in America! I'd totally lose it there in a week. No doubt about it.
So here's how I figure it: We get bills: 1-3 utilities, cable/ISP/phone, rent, credit cards, overdue bills and summonses to report for jury duty. We get checks: birthday cards (geez, when was the last time anyone you know had a check mailed to them on their birthday?) the occasional paycheck for those of us who freelance for big companies (well, when we finally get paid, anyway). Those are the ups and downs of the mail. Personal correspondence is nonexistent. I did it with my first two girlfriends, and was completely over it by '90. Oh, but the rest of the time, bro-ther! Nothing but catalogues of crap I don't want; lingerie, flatware, medical devices? How do these people get my name? I once got a B&H Catalog... it was bigger than my college biology textbook, notifications about events that don't apply to me or anyone I know or anyone in my neighborhood... and I get SO_MANY_MENUS.. I think I'm going to build a homeless shelter out of all the paper crap I have collecting. I've gone and threatened at the restaurants who do the menu-bombing, but that never helps. I've yelled at the deliveryboys but that doesn't help. So what's to be done? I tell you I want the bills, because I know who's sending them and whyl and roughly when, too. But this other garbage? Get it out, turn it off! It's worse than spam email, because I can't filter it out! and I can't stop it.
This is why postal employees go, well... postal! At one point the mail was a sacred institution and now, all they do is carry marketing and other lousy karma around to every house in America! I'd totally lose it there in a week. No doubt about it.
baby steps
This was a bad idea, or a good idea gone bad. I had so much to say to myself just twenty minutes ago... where did it go? Out with the food I didn't bother digesting this evening, I'll wager. It tasted so good my body immediately knew it couldn't possibly have been food. Cold Noodle with Sesame Sauce is just Ramen, Skippy and a little Vegetable Oil, with some bleached Sesame Seeds on top for good measure.... Maybe it was the seeds. Who knew that my system can't handle little bleachflakes fried in MSG? So I got a chill, cramped all over, shaking, sweating.. needless to say I walked home. Briskly. I passed buses.
But back to blogger's block. This space could be so much more than a venue for disgusting monologue and vapid freewriting... this deserves some thought. At a later date. Meanwhile, other topics worth exploring: Words that should be deleted from the lexicon, my general malaise and shall we say career ambiguity, Cats as pets- should we bother? and possibly an ode to H2O; You Make Our Chemicals Jibe.
But back to blogger's block. This space could be so much more than a venue for disgusting monologue and vapid freewriting... this deserves some thought. At a later date. Meanwhile, other topics worth exploring: Words that should be deleted from the lexicon, my general malaise and shall we say career ambiguity, Cats as pets- should we bother? and possibly an ode to H2O; You Make Our Chemicals Jibe.
Friday, October 01, 2004
~shiza!
This was hilarious... unless you didn't like Silence of The Lambs. In that case it's whatever you thought of that, perhaps brought down one denominator. Put anything to a beat and somehow that thing becomes more spiritual and less intelligent.
In all the hubub about my last meal (it may have been!) I completely forgot to talk about today's weirdness (read: moral dilemma) that came in today's mail... the mail itself is a weird thing.. I'll chronicle that momentarily.
So I have this 401 that came along with my last w-2 job, which I never signed up for... weird enough. I started getting statements right after I quit. And every once in awhile there's a little more money in there. I'm not complaining! This is a good thing! We're not even talking about hundreds of dollars, but since it's in my name, I guess it is mine, right? Possession and the law and all that. Thanks, Boss Hogg! There go two chirstmas bonuses I never got, and definitely deserved... nearly two whole take-home paychecks at slave-wages-- free and in the bank and mine, all mine. Almost pays for all the juice I'm now undeniably addicted to and have to buy. So here's the dilemma: report the possibly undeserved income? I automatically assumed the worst (always do)... I couldn't possibly enjoy the benefits of my own labors legally... Hell, I might just find out that I did indeed sign up for this program and that no mistakes were made. But what are the chances that I don't deserve it, it isn't mine, and if someone at this Inc knew about it, I'd be asked to return it... so what's to be done?
I don't know why I'm bothering asking "out loud".. I personally have no dilemma here, just wanted some context to kvetch. Maybe I wanted to see what the moral color of my two readers is....
My only indecision is-- should I cash it out and roll it into something else, or wait and see if any more dough materializes there? The danger there is discovery-- if this is indeed illicit dough and it is found as such, I risk losing it all. One might postulate that since I never signed up for it, none of it is mine, so I should just leave it. If it grows, good, if it disappears, oh well-- no loss.
In all the hubub about my last meal (it may have been!) I completely forgot to talk about today's weirdness (read: moral dilemma) that came in today's mail... the mail itself is a weird thing.. I'll chronicle that momentarily.
So I have this 401 that came along with my last w-2 job, which I never signed up for... weird enough. I started getting statements right after I quit. And every once in awhile there's a little more money in there. I'm not complaining! This is a good thing! We're not even talking about hundreds of dollars, but since it's in my name, I guess it is mine, right? Possession and the law and all that. Thanks, Boss Hogg! There go two chirstmas bonuses I never got, and definitely deserved... nearly two whole take-home paychecks at slave-wages-- free and in the bank and mine, all mine. Almost pays for all the juice I'm now undeniably addicted to and have to buy. So here's the dilemma: report the possibly undeserved income? I automatically assumed the worst (always do)... I couldn't possibly enjoy the benefits of my own labors legally... Hell, I might just find out that I did indeed sign up for this program and that no mistakes were made. But what are the chances that I don't deserve it, it isn't mine, and if someone at this Inc knew about it, I'd be asked to return it... so what's to be done?
I don't know why I'm bothering asking "out loud".. I personally have no dilemma here, just wanted some context to kvetch. Maybe I wanted to see what the moral color of my two readers is....
My only indecision is-- should I cash it out and roll it into something else, or wait and see if any more dough materializes there? The danger there is discovery-- if this is indeed illicit dough and it is found as such, I risk losing it all. One might postulate that since I never signed up for it, none of it is mine, so I should just leave it. If it grows, good, if it disappears, oh well-- no loss.
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