>> Oh, have I got a story to tell you.

I'm going to wait until the story is actually finished before I try to tell it. But suffice it to say, the move didn't go as smoothly as it could have.

Argh.

>> I'm officially starting to run on empty, and we're still thirty-six hours away from the move. Not good. Must sleep a lot tonight. I wish I could say I was totally confident that everything's going to go all right, but I'm not -- the truck is rented and the keys are in my hand, but a couple of weird little things came up tonight that I'm not really cool with and they're kind of throwing my "we're entering the home stretch" mentality out of whack. No good. (For one thing, visiting the apartment tonight just reminded me how insanely hard it's going to be to get our furniture in, even with a bunch of people helping us. Bah.)

Anyway, tomorrow night will be the last time I have internet in my home for the foreseeable future -- there may be issues with getting it set up at the new place, I'm not sure yet. (Gleep!) Obviously I'll be able to check my e-mail etc. at work, so I'll be around, just don't be surprised if I'm not posting every second of the day, or if it takes me a little while to respond to your e-mails.

If things go smoothly enough that I can sit down on Saturday night and breathe a giant sigh of relief, I'll be very pleased. I'm really, really looking forward to that moment, but it feels like it's never gonna come.

>> Anybody in the NYC area want to buy some of my crap? Here's the info from the sign I just posted above our building's mailboxes:

SONY STEREO SYSTEM - $20
Includes 51-disc CD changer (!), two tape decks, AM/FM radio, two large speakers and two smaller surround-sound satellite speakers. Tape deck doors need to be held shut with tape, but they still work, and radio needs a new wire antenna. But hey, 51 discs, good sound, and $20.

19" TV - $10
Basic TV set. Has only one audio jack, but I'll include the little jack-splitter dongle I got at Radio Shack. Picture occasionally blinks, but a swift tap will correct that. And again, ten bucks.

BIG WHITE BOX - $2
Wooden hinged-top storage box, painted white. Has no bottom (i.e. stuff rests on floor, covered by box). Would be a pretty decent bench, side table, whatever, with room to store crap inside -- currently has the stereo system sitting on it, so perhaps you'd want it for that. (If you buy the stereo, you can have it for free.)

Mention this blog and get $5 off any one item! (And no, that doesn't mean I'll pay you $3 to take the box.) If you want anything, just drop me an e-mail and I'll send the directions to where to come to get it (you'll probably need a car, unless you've got a hand-cart and totally love lugging huge things into the subway). And yes, I know nobody reading really wants this stuff, but it can't hurt, now can it?

>> Without getting too far into it (since not everything's pinned down yet), suffice it to say that yes, I did wind up signing the lease on that place. Yes, I will be living in that tiny bedroom. But it looks like it might work out a bit better than expected, since my bed might fit across the room instead of down the long way, and then I might be able to put a small computer desk in there too and would be able to avoid living a good chunk of my life out in the living room when I don't particularly want to. So: yes, we're moving (probably around the 27th or 28th -- anyone wanna help carry shit up three flights of stairs?), and as of now I'm apprehensive about the whole process, but am optimistic that the apartment itself will work out. Expect to see a post or two about items I'm trying to unload before the move sometime in the future, since I really need to travel light for this place.

There's lots of other stuff going on too, believe me. For example, you might've noticed today's Flickr photo (God I'm so dumb). And other more personal stuff. And things. Yes. Sorry, I'm dehydrated from walking around in the fucking unbelievable heat today, and have a headache and should be lying down with a big glass of water, not blogging about trifles.

I also have a belly full of shawarma from my much-beloved Zaytoons, the only thing I'll miss about this neighborhood. FUCK are they ever good. And cheap! And much quicker than the pizza place! Or the Cuban place! Etc.!

>> Finally, a Dictionary.com "Word Of The Day" that I didn't already know (I have them as part of my google.com/ig set-up, though they always tend to be about one step down from the level of vocabulary I'd like them to be at): "captious", meaning "Marked by a disposition to find fault or raise objections."

I'm pretty sure there's at least one reader out there who finds it funny that I didn't know that one.

>> If you see this post before the afternoon of August 6th: Help me decide where I'm going to live for the next year.

OK, here's the deal. I currently live in Clinton Hill -- but if we're not shitting ourselves, it's the outskirts of Bed-Stuy -- in a nice, spacious two-bedroom apartment, with my roommate Ashley who is extremely easy to get along with. Our bedrooms are equally sized and the place is lovely, but I'm paying slightly more than I want to be, especially for the neighborhood in question, which is situated in a spot on the G train that makes trying to get anywhere else in the world feel like an interminable slog, and which also has very little to recommend it, if we're being honest, beyond a very good Mid-Eastern restaurant. We have the option of re-signing our lease, but the rent would go up about $60 a month for me, and I need to decide very soon.

Meanwhile, we have the option of taking an apartment in Greenpoint, a neighborhood that I totally love which would be much more convenient for me (my roommate, who goes to Pratt, would have a commute introduced into her life, but it's a tolerable one, IMHO, with no transfer). The apartment is on a freaking gorgeous block, close to the train and the supermarket, and the building is very nice. Everything about the apartment is lovely, with one exception -- one of the bedrooms is great (the size of our current place's), and one of them is fucking tiny. Like, 7' by 10' tiny (possibly a little less than that). My roommate has already said she couldn't live in that bedroom, even when paying proportionately less for it, and since she has a drafting desk and other such equipment to wrangle, and also would be the one inconvenienced by a change of neighborhood, that's a totally reasonable refusal. But would I be insane if I took that room? I feel very strongly that I want a change in my life, and I also feel very strongly that I'd like to leave this current neighborhood -- and saving some money while I do it would be awesome. But is a room like that simply too small? It'll fit my queen bed and practically nothing else. Is the sleeping-capsule lifestyle worth putting up with in order to get an improvement in nearly every other aspect of my housing situation? There is a decent-sized living room in which I could conceivably set up my computer desk, though of course I'm hesistant to dominate that room too much since I do have a roommate.

Should I suck up the hefty price tag and irritatingly unpleasant neighborhood / commute in order to conserve my spacious lifestyle? Or should I learn to go Zen-minimalist and improve my less immediate surroundings while saving some cash? All I know is, I have to make my decision fast, because there are realtors waiting.