Tuesday, April 27, 2010

About that time I become fluent in Swedish.

I would have never thought when I started making the normal rounds of "Hey who wants to help me move", that Jesus would be game. That's right folks Jesus was here today for the first round of Apartment cleaning/moving/IKEA fun.

Let me explain.

I've been hanging out at our new place for most of the day in order to make sure I was here for the IKEA delivery people. Yeah it was 89 bucks to deliver what could easily fit into the back of my borrowed car, but who really wants to carry all that crap up two flights of stairs. Not me. Anyway, so after everything arrived safe and sound I really wanted to start setting up stuff and the most logical piece of furniture was obviously the sofa bed. So here I am sitting on the new sofa bed and guess who rang the door bell. Jesus! Well, not actually him, but one of his people trying to sell a doomsday newspaper called the Final Call. I assume they were proselytizers and not girl scouts, but that's only because they were middle aged men in suits, but maybe Girl Scouts of America is trying to reach a new demographic and I just refused the opportunity of girl scout cookies.

I'll no doubt have more to say about the new apartment. We're having folks over on Friday night to help paint and get toasted on Kosher Wine (don't judge, it's cheap and tastes like grape juice, what's not to love?!) so I will try to document the fun with photography!

Until then, take care.

Friday, April 9, 2010

An end to an Adventure

I'm thrilled to be able to announce the end of an adventure for this Brooklynite. Ladies and Gentlemen, I found the place to live, not just a place, but the place to live.

Although we did much journeying through most of Brooklyn, using criaglist et al. as our unwitting travel guides, my roommate and I, after wandering through Clinton Hill on the Saturday before Easter, decided that we really enjoyed living here and wanted to stay. The periphery is a nice combination of yuppie, hipster and ghetto, most importantly though, it's cheap and close to the subway, which means Manhattan is easily reached.

After what turned out to be a draining week filled with fake adverts and shady landlords, my roommate, with her blessed OCD found an advert that was posted 40 minutes before she logged on. To be honest, it sounded too good to be true, 1,200 for a two bedroom apartment, 3rd floor (2nd floor for you English) walk-up, with HUGE rooms, an eat-in kitchen, full living room and a bathroom, with a sink! (I neglected to mention the charming apartment we found in south, south park slope that I kid you not, had no sink in the bathroom). Either way, I scheduled an appointment right after work and discovered that it was actually legit, and gorgeous. We're talking Pre-war, solid construction, best of all, Rent Controlled. The Holy Grail of Apartments. I obviously jumped at the chance and had my roommate come right after work.

We put a deposit on it today and sunday I sign the lease. These types of apartments don't come on the market everyday, usually people move in and then the only way they leave is on a stretcher. To make the deal even sweeter, because I'm a poor student we qualify to enroll in the low-income housing program which was started by former mayor Guiliani in order to re-claim tenant occupied, but owner abandoned buildings, while also keeping low-income housing, so I'm only paying 1,015. I'm so thrilled.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

I ventured from Brooklyn, but it was for Jesus, honest.

I write this having just returned from attending "the great Easter Vigil" at St. Thomas in midtown. Yes, I will take the hisses and boos from you dyed in the wool Brooklynites (if there are even any among you) who denounce such a besmirchment of my Brooklyn blog with tales of a foray into the whore to those whom will pony up the cash to buy her. But anyway. Yes folks we're gonna talk about god, go get your drink now, I'll wait.

My relationship with god (forgive me from quite literally yet unintentionally yoinking the phrase from some hick town preacher's pulpit and plopping it here, but I lack a better phrase) is a bit like a friend whom you call when you realize you've run out of plans and don't want to spend a night in, baking Easter eggs cookies (mightve happened just sayin'). Now granted if were to take the angry, I shall smite you heathen! approach of God, I should fully expect and deserve to have a ceiling that leaks, a roommate that squeaks and well you get the point, but I don't, I prefer to think of my luck as crap and my God as some similarly minded friend who calls me when he/she/it is bored, but otherwise leaves me to my devices (again, which might lead to baking, icing and packaging 3 dozen Easter cookies).

So that's that, it was an Anglican service which is mostly because I was tagging along with a friend, far more godly than I (hard to convince someone else to come to another sect's church, if you haven't actually been to services in 10 years). It was though quite nice and the choir and building was quite definitely worth the effort. Would I start attending again out of some god fearing/appreciation/respect/buddy-buddy feeling? Probably not, but I wouldn't mind going to another Anglican service if not for the choir then for the forced 2 1/2 hour contemplation time. It was quite nice to find some silence in a city (even in Brooklyn and don't you hipster naysayers claim otherwise) where peace is so rare.