march

goodness!  march is a blur.  i told my roommate at the end of february that i would be moving out by the end of march.  this began the process of finding something new.  i have been quite fortunate in terms of living situations, really.  i housesat for friends when i first arrived and it was a lovely one bedroom on the 23rd floor of a midtown high-rise right in the middle of everything and easy to get to things.  that couldn't last forever, of course, and i found a place on central park west.  the perfect location for getting out and enjoying the park and i was even able to enjoy some theological sparring with my roommate.  

we all have our vices.  mine is cheese which can really smell a place up.  his is smoking which can do similar things.  the former has seemed to improve my singing while the latter has hindered it, so as it seemed time to change settings, i started pounding the streets to find a new apartment...er...craigslist.    

if you've ever spent any time on craigslist you know that you can find just about anything on there.  some things shouldn't be found while other things can be quite beneficial.  the number of sublets in new york city at any one time is somewhat staggering.  i wrote to a number of them but also posted an ad in which i expressed my availability to be a renter for someone.  there was a response, i visited his place, and we worked out the details for me to move in mid-month.

in this case, mid month was friday the 13th.  i'm not very superstitious about things like this but maybe i will be now.  the day started in the normal way for a moving day.  woke up, went and rented the u-haul, drove back during new york rush hour morning traffic to my apartment building on central park west between 94th and 95th (kind of fun to drive again even if the ambience was the crazy streets of new york), met my friend who was helping me, loaded up all my things which aren't too much at this point and headed for battery park city where the new apartment was.  when we pulled up at the little guard station, the guy asked me what i was doing.  i of course told him.  he then said that i wasn't on the list.  this didn't bother me too much.  i just figured my new roommate hadn't called them to let them know.  i mentioned his name and was told that he wasn't on the lease.  now i'm a little nervous.  it turns out, i had become involved in an inappropriate sublet.  he was paying rent to someone else who was on the lease but didn't live there.  there's nothing wrong with that, but the amount he was paying was $400 more than the actual rent of the place.  this meant that the person on the lease was making a profit that the landlord wanted (and probably rightfully so since it's his place).  at any rate, after going back and forth with people for some time about my potentially moving in, it became apparent about 4:00 pm that it wasn't going to happen.  i had a full van of stuff, had moved out of my apartment, needed to return the van which was already in a penalty by this time, and i was supposed to be an extra on the angelina jolie movie "salt" the next morning which was filming some exploding funeral scene in manhattan.  in fact, i was supposed to be on set at 5:30 am.  even went to a fitting to make sure i looked right for the scene where they made it clear that there would be residue falling on my suit from whatever they were going to explode.  can't wait to see the finished film and all this residue on people.

anyway, this was as close to a melt down that i've come since moving to new york.  i forgot everything.  i forgot there was a god who loves me.  i forgot that i have friends here who would be happy to have me sleep on their couch.  i forgot about the apartment i left and that i had paid for the month of march and could go back there.  i began to panic and thought i could find something quickly on craigslist.  this was a crazy way to go.  to conclude this portion of the story, i'll just say that i spent the night on a random mattress on a random floor of a random apartment belonging to a random woman who responded to a random emergency ad i placed on craigslist.  crazy.

by the time i got to her place it was about midnight.  i still had the van full of things with no place to put them.  i was still supposed to be on the set of "salt" in a mere five hours.  thankfully i was able to tell central casting that i would not be able to make it.  of course, they may never cast me again, but they listened.  i found a place to park the van that was safe and in the morning when my head was clearer, i moved back into my place on central park west.  the doormen laughed at me but that was okay.  

i'd learned an important lesson about apartment hunting in new york...it's good to make sure that the sublet you're about to enter into is legal.  that and don't forget that you have friends who are happy to take care of you.  really.  they want to.  they are looking for opportunities to bless.  so let 'em know you need 'em.