Moving In

If you've never moved by taxi then you are missing out on one of life's great adventures. For those of you interested in trying it sometime (kids, ask your parents first!), here are some simple steps to follow:

1. Carry the boxes to the street. Try and find a place to stack them that is not filled with trash, animal feces, or unidentified liquids.
2. Leave the boxes with a friend who PROMISES to watch them and not get distracted by his phone, iPod, cute boys, or shiny objects. Failure to follow this step will result in missing Hummels (or whatever it is that you have in your boxes).
   
3. Hail an unsuspecting cab. Distance yourself from the boxes so that the driver has no idea they will have to deal with a freak who decided to move his entire life in a cab.
4. Look like an absolute idiot loading large boxes into the trunk, back seat, and front seat of a cab. (Tip: Do not ask the driver if you can tie a box to the top. The answer is "no".)
5. Remove boxes and stack on the street in front of your new apartment. Once again, try to find a space not filled with trash, animal feces, or unidentified liquids.
6. Do not feel bad about the symphony of car horns that persists as vehicles try unsuccessfully to get around your cab. Instead, take their noise as joyful cheering urging you to the finish line. You can carry two boxes at once and one on your head!
   
7. Be thankful that you only live in a 5 story walk-up. 10 stories would be death.
   
8. Thank your friends for helping you - you'd be lost without them.

I'm in the apartment! 9 boxes, a bed, and a mattress are here so far. More to come....

Manhattan Apartment Hunt

All the rumors you've heard are true: finding an apartment in Manhattan is a ridiculous, frustrating, and complicated process. It is my personal belief that the Secret Service and CIA are somehow involved. Why else would my landlord have needed a blood sample? And the question regarding whether any of my relations had a surname of "bin Laden" seemed a bit suspect.

Anyway, I arrived in the city last Thursday and immediately started looking for a place. Of course you can't just browse Craigslist here like you can in the rest of the country. Oh no, you have to work through a licensed broker who charges you a few thousand dollars so that they can take you around and show you absolutely crappy apartments that you would never, ever want to live in. One place I looked at had the shower in the kitchen. You could literally get trapped in the shower if someone opened the oven door. That has to violate some sort of health or safety code. I had visions of being found dead in the shower - starved, naked, and pruned up - all because the latch on the oven door failed to work one day. I shudder to think about it.

After looking at apartments with holes in the floor, pink bathtubs, peeled paint, and god awful smells, I did eventually find a place that I absolutely love, and at a fantastic price. That's when the real fun began. The paperwork - oh my lord the paperwork. It was easier to buy in Seattle than to rent this apartment. I had to provide bank statements, tax returns, paystubs, my most recent power bill, and a letter stating why I wanted to live in the unit (you know, because I need a place to live!). Then I had to wait to see if they would "approve" me. I swear, the anticipation was worse than waiting to find out whether I had made the high school cheerleading squad.

The good news is that I was approved, and I signed the lease yesterday (after jumping through a number of hoops to find a notary). I move in on Sunday, at which point I will be an official Manhattan resident. It's pretty exciting stuff. I can't wait for visitors!

You can view the unit here: http://www.citi-habitats.com/viewlisting.php?adID=917857&scroll=1