Money, I hardly knew ye

Because I was running out of time, and because I don't know squat about finding a place to live in this city, I decided to hire a broker today. We spent all day looking at places within my price range. Apartments within my price range, it turns out, are limited to spaces so insanely tiny I almost wept when I saw the first few. We're talking as-small-as-my-bedroom-in-Dallas tiny. I'll have to measure my new place tomorrow after I sign the lease, but I fear I won't be able to have my keyboard here. This causes me no small amount of sorrow.

One rather cool thing about the new apartment: It has a sleeping loft, which I find both amusing and terrifying. As I've mentioned here before, I have rather dangerous nocturnal habits. What if I sit up abruptly and get a concussion? What if I fall off the loft? What if I fall off the loft onto young Simon?!? If I prove too clumsy to use the loft for sleeping (and friends, that's a distinct possibility) I guess I'll use it for storage and get a sofa bed or futon or something. I hope it doesn't come to that, though, for unfolded, one of those would easily take up a third of the living space.

And all of this for more than twice what I was paying for rent in Dallas, for roughly one-third of the space. Ugh. Still, it's a good location on the Upper West Side, and even if it is a fourth-floor walk-up for which I'll have to supply my own window AC unit, I think I'll be relatively safe and happy there. Plus I won't have to buy a gym membership. And it's fairly unlikely I'll ever have trouble finding anything in the apartment. So, that's good.