I know that I'm long-winded

So these last few months of being unemployed have really taken an emotional toll on me. The other day, I nearly had a breakdown...I have been somewhat frustrated by the silly tasks assigned to me at my job, and even more frustrated by the fact that I feel this way, when I should just be grateful to have a job! Also, the apartment hunt has been less than fruitful. Wait, let me rephrase. There are HUNDREDS of apartments available, just very few that are 1) in the right area (meaning no sirens or gunshots within hearing range), and 2) affordable. Apparently, those two requirements in one package = too much to ask for. But I puttered along, trying to keep my head up, even though I felt as though I were being eaten alive by this giant rotting Apple.

Then, on Friday, (a mere two days after this near-catastrophic mental break), I got a phone call from the City Council! They offered me a position! I thought I had gone completely over the edge and was now hallucinating! But it actually did happen! Mike was standing right next to me when I got the phone call, so he's my witness! Although I was on cloud nine, I realized that was only half the battle. I still had to find a place to live, and time was running out. Jennifer (my roommate) and I went around to several places this weekend in Park Slope, a very nice area of Brooklyn, right next to Prospect Park. Now, a two-bedroom apartment here is way out of our price range (ranging anywhere from $1800 to $3000 per month-location location location!). After hours and hours of us both combing through www.craigslist.com, we finally came to terms with the fact that a two bedroom apartment in Park Slope was just not in the stars for us at this point. But we love the area so much that we agreed to look for one-bedroom apartments. No big deal, right? We're both girls. We'll just be in each other's space again for a while, but we can handle it (after all, we did it when we first moved here). So we looked at one-bedrooms. We saw a fantastic apartment on Saturday, and although we loved it (and were ready to take it on the spot...where do we sign? who do we make the check out to? ), they were not so eager to take us. Same thing happened yesterday afternoon...it seems we're not "A-list" candidates (his words, not ours). I tried to convince the building owner that we are, indeed, worthy of an "A-list" title, but he seems to think our lack of income might prove to be a problem when it comes down to the pesky little detail of rent. Wha-??!!

Not to be dissuaded, and having seen how dog-eat-dog the world of apartment shopping in New York can be, we mosied on down a few blocks to a two-bedroom (that surprisingly was more affordable for us, probably somewhat due to the fact that it is located on the border between Pleasantville, otherwise known as Park Slope and Graffitti-ville, aka Sunset Park, and the bedrooms are only big enough to fit one full-size bed and nothing else). The bedrooms are ridiculously small, but the living room and kitchen are both ridiculously big, especially for New York. So we jumped on it. We jumped on it about two seconds before the other girl who was there looking at it decided to jump on it, and because we pre-empted her, she threw a tantrum! No kidding. The guy who was showing us the apartment said that if we were interested, to call this woman (the landlady) in Staten Island to make the arrangements, which we did. The other girl storms out of the building in a huff, saying "This is like the fifth time this has happened to me!" and I was like "Oh, poor girl. I feel your pain." Meanwhile Jennifer is on the phone with Staten Island and the tantrum girl, who has left the building and is now out on the sidewalk, calls in (to Staten Island) and begins saying that SHE wants the apartment and Staten Island says "Oh, goodness...I don't know what to do! I'm in between a rock and a hard place!" Well, we tell her that we are ready to write her a check right this second if she'll just tell us who to make it out to (CASH) and she goes back and forth between us and the toddler downstairs who is now in full-blown hysterics. Staten Island asks to speak with the gentleman showing us the apartment, and because she is from New York and hasn't heard of the term "12-inch voice", we hear everything she says. She wants to know what he thinks about us...do we seem nice, like good tenants, should she just give the other girl the apartment. And this whole time, Jenn and I are saying "NO! We're nice girls! We're social workers!" I mean, why she would even consider giving into that girl downstairs, who was now actually yelling at her over the phone, is beyond me. Finally, good versus evil wins out. We got the apartment and wrote the check out to cash. I was very skeptical about the whole thing, so I had my boyfriend call Staten Island pretending to be interested in the apartment and thankfully, she informed him that it had already been taken. I was worried that we had just been scammed out of a whole lot of money. The verdict is really still out on that one though...we don't have keys and we don't have a lease (check back with me on Sept. 1).

I know what y'all are thinking: "Man, is Kelly ever going to finish telling this story? This is like a continuation of the Odyssey." And the other thing you are thinking is "I would never give money for an apartment without seeing a lease." But man, this place makes you desparate. You see how we were pressured into signing over $1,500 without even seeing, much less signing, a lease? We had been to at least five other places and called/emailed three dozen others from around the safest parts of Brooklyn, and to no avail! It is really getting down to the wire and while we are fortunate enough to have friends around who can offer us shelter, we were pretty close to being homeless. Don't get me wrong...I don't feel great about this place either. But desparate times call for desparate measures (as Cecilia who is going through some of her own trials right now, can attest to). It's a tough town, and my skin is getting thicker by the minute.

Hope I haven't bored you to tears. Love y'all!