Mini Golf Rug

Is this rug a mistake for our kitchen?

I kind of love it but at the same time worry having to put yet another thing together will result in some kind of murder-suicide at the homestead.

In other astroturf news: we're playing with the idea of making a large, low, big square flat box (kind of like a cookie sheet made out of wood), planting grass, and making our alleged "balcony" a 3x3 lawn for the summer.

Finally, furniture stops making our lives miserable...

After a hellish week, we initially planned on spending our first apartment Friday on some kind of a date - movie, dinner, exploration, etc. I got out of work a little early, so I rushed home to start getting the backing onto our massive IKEA HOPPEN - I thought it would be a nice surprise for Sue, since she could then finally start putting her stuff away in earnest.

Sue came home, and we got into a little furniture-building frenzy. After a few hours and exactly 48 screws we had all our furniture built and all our clothes put away. It was a spectacular bit of teamwork.

Saturday morning was equally positive. Raymour & Flannigan delivered our furniture at exactly 8AM. While they didn't deliver our sofa, they did deliver a lot of seating and, yes, TABLETRON. We Swiffer-ed, I fixed the media center, and now I have the 4 food groups (Wii, PS3, XBOX, HDTV) and a place to consume them. We have lighting, we have clean floors and, finally, some bit of peace.

We still have a to-do list, but it's substantially shorter:
-Rugs
-Sofa
-Microwave
-Cable / Internet
-Food That Is Not Horribly Unhealthy

Ikea Is Causing Me Tremendous Stress

At first, we planned to avoid Ikea entirely.
Then, we found some things that looked nice, were cheap, and were solid *in the store*.
I thought building Ikea furniture would be fun.
It is not. It has been incredibly stressful. I have traced the source of this stress in an effort to let it go:

I've been hypersensitive to the noise I'm making because our irrational downstairs neighbor complained about the noise of us moving boxes into the apartment. As a result, I only constructed the furniture to the extent that could be done quietly, which meant that I did not put the backing on any of the Ikea furniture we made. This decision was made because I had not yet realized that the backing is essential to stabilize Ikea furniture.

I put together our media center, and put the TV on before the backing. Last night, Sue and I started to fasten the media center's backing with nails, and found that it didn't line up on all four corners. We *thought* this was because the backing was not cut properly. We were wrong. The backing was not lining up because the weight of the TV - without the backing - had caused the media center to buckle in the middle. Of course, I didn't realize this until after I had put about 15 nails into the unit. I'm now going to need to take all the nails out, take the TV off, and redo the whole thing OR just try to live with the bent media center and attempt to reinforce it. The latter may result in an eventual collapse and destruction of my TV and other media stuff.

I'm sick of building furniture and this is, as previously stated, causing me stress.

So: hypervigilance about noise led me to unwittingly build the furniture incorrectly which caused damage to the furniture that I must either attempt to repair or live with and simply *hope* that it does not collapse and destroy all my media equipment.

At some point, this will get easier, right?

Fight week 2009!

Over lunch I went to Century 21 with two of my lovely co-workers to pick up curtains and a duvet and a host of other boring items.

While on line, some sort of alteraction broke out between a customer and a cashier. As far as I understand, the customer hit the cashier. All we saw was the cashier charge out from behind the counter wielding a stapler yelling "I DON'T CARE I'LL GO BACK TO JAIL!"

I didn't even know people said that in real life. We had to smush into a corner of pillows to avoid stapler related fallout. It went on for quite some time and was awesome.

This Man Stuff is for the Birds

I got entangled in a little event last night that I'm throwing in with the rest of our new-to-NYC experiences. I have been thinking it over nonstop since it happened, and naturally hindsight has shown me that I made some bad decisions.

Sue and I went shopping last night a few blocks from our apartment, paid the $4 for delivery, and walked home.

About one block from our apartment, I saw a guy yelling at a woman who appeared to be his wife. He was a white guy, taller and bigger than me, in a suit and overcoat. The woman was much shorter, and thin. As we approached, I saw him grab the woman by her neck and throw her up against a store window, screaming at her. He then yelled, "why do you make me do this to you on your birthday!?" He smacked her in the face, elbowed her in the stomach, and choked her. It was like something out of a movie. There was a look of absolute terror - but not surprise - on her face, and absolute rage on his.

I was shocked, but probably not as shocked as I would have been if I weren't a city n00b. I've prosecuted a lot of domestic violence cases, and seen the aftermath of evil men doing evil things to women because of their culture, BAC, or plain-old pathetic insecurity. Seeing it in person, however, was new to me. The sheer horror made me feel compelled to get involved in. At first, I was the only one who seemed to feel this way.

Bear in mind, internets, that I am by no means a fighter, much less a macho-guy.

This is what I did:
I walked up to the guy, got in his face, and started yelling at him.
While still holding her by the neck, he turned and told me to "get the fuck away, or he'd fucking stab me."

For some reason, I decided that this guy probably fit the profile of the "typical" domestic abuser - tough on women, but not tough with men. So I didn't back away. I stayed in his face. I honestly believed that this guy would not touch me, much less stab me. Adrenaline-fueled logic, clearly not holding up to appellate review.

I kept some distance, pulled out my cell phone, and started to visibly dial 911. I continued to stare the guy down. For what it's worth, he did stop hitting her. He told met to "put the fucking cell phone away." I did not. At this point, a second guy noticed the commotion and joined the yelling and cell-phoning.

He tried to intimidate me by yelling, which probably works for him with his woman. I kept eye contact and stared him down. Lots of threats but, thankfully, no action. He let the woman go. He walked past me, threw a shoulder at me while he went, and just walked off. The woman followed a few feet behind. The other guy called 911, and we went home.


I remember hearing Sue, at one point, yell "Gui, stop, I can't afford to pay the rent alone." lulz.




This is what should have happened:

A *slightly* better course of action would have been one in which I kept my eyes on his hands instead of maintaining eye contact. After all, eyes don't stab people, hands do.
A *moderately* better plan would have been to yell like crazy and draw more attention to the situation, so it wasn't just me vs. him initially.
Probably the *best* course of action would have been to walk around the corner, call 911, and just stay out of sight until the NYPD arrived.


The Aftermath
Upon reflection, I realize that I shouldn't have proceeded as I did, and apologized to Sue. In my line of work, I don't make many decisions based on adrenaline; certainly none that involve physical danger. Lesson Learned.

We went back to the apartment and built an Ikea table. Manly enough for me.

Bonus: Our kitchen table is also a transformer, although it is not Starscream. I don't even know what they name their transformers in Sweeden. TABJLESUUTRUN or something.

Let Me Handle The Gadget Posts, Cupcake

...because a simple one-liner reference to TABLETRON does not do it justice. The table, being constructed primarily of future and magic, gradually transforms in a three-step process. The transformation is extremely rapid, but I have provided images from a recent test taken with a high-speed camera.

Behold, and let TABLETRON's awesomeness be hewn into your mind!


This is the table in its normal form:




Approx. 1/3 transformed:

Approx. 2/3 transformed:



Fully transformed:

As promised, we murdered Ikea. Ikea went down fighting.

We've been in the apartment "officially" for about three days, and this is the first morning we both got up and went to our respective jobs instead of blazing out to LI to pick up more stuff and go on our daily death march through Ikea.

The last few days are admittedly pretty boring to everyone except Gui and me; we're both hyperventilating over having a place to live but now being completely broke. So read or do not, there is no try, and it's all good either way.

How we got stuff into our building: we double parked (three nights in a row) and then unloaded things from the truck to the lobby at a dead sprint through the snow (also three nights in a row. Ask me why it's cheaper to start a lease in January). Then one of us protected the stuff while the other made trips up and down to the apartment and threw things in until the lobby was clear. Rinse, repeat. We've been taking a lot of Advil.

Getting that mattress in was the easiest thing we did. It was early on, and we still had some energy, no injuries, fair levels of hydration and a lot of adrenaline. We folded it in half, stuffed it into our tiny elevator along with ourselves, and just shoved it into the apartment. I hit my head pretty badly on the low ceiling at our upstairs doorway but whatever. Rally. We both hit our heads at various times during the weekend. I am covered in bruises from places in our apartment that just reached out and smacked me before I realized they were there.

So on our first night there we threw the mattress upstairs and agreed to clean the apartment like we were hiding a chainsaw murder. This included much on the knees Cinderella like scrubbing, some chemical burns to my lip where I accidentally brushed it with some kind of industrial cleaner, some definite lung scarring from inhaling the aforementioned, and occasional gasping fresh air breaks on the balcony so that neither of us passed out. We cleaned for four hours and then went to a party in Gramercy, a neighborhood that undoubtedly has the highest per capita meathead to civilian ratio on earth (with the possible exception of Fort Lauderdale during spring break). We went home on the 6 around midnight. It was nice. We are old.

The next day we set out for and accidentally purchased furniture that would pass in pretty much any abode populated by adults. This was fortuitous, as we nearly purchased a leather set that probably would have been better situated in more specific places Populated By Certain Consenting Adults. Places that are legal in Nevada. You get it. Our exhaustion may have clouded our judgment when we were discussing why a room full of polyurethane coated bonded leather was an "awesome idea."

So instead we got this set for downstairs, in a nice, easily washable but still non-brothel friendly taupe microfiber. We got the sofa, love seat, chair and ottoman, all matching, and are having it delivered because we are on the brink of death after the weekend.

Still mourning the loss of our bionic bed storage, we also got this transforming coffee table, which Guido has named "TableTron." Click on "more views" to see how the top pops up to form the table on which we will eat most of our meals, should we ever be able to afford food again, and where we will play on the internet and spend quality time not developing carpal tunnell while playing XBox.

And then came Ikea.

Stupid Ikea with its unpronouncable, unnecessarily umlaut laden and consonant heavily named "furniture." Stupid Ikea, with which we have furnished the rest of our apartment. Stupid Ikea, at which we spent more money than we should have on a non-bionic bed which looks lovely, fits in our nook, but required a Home Depot run to make usable, and is now set up in such a way that I have to vault over Gui to get out of bed at night, which is bad for both of us, especially when you've been poisoned by the neighborhood pizza and are severely unwell. See: last night.

But I like our bed. I do.

I really need to get down to lawyering and billing for my time for the day, so here's the rest, in short, more or less. Everything hereafter is in black-brown unless specified otherwise.

This is the entertainment center on which Gui's giant TV now rests and in which his myriad electronics will soon live. These are the end tables on which our drinks may rest without coasters, because they were only $13 each. These are the dressers which will flank the entertainment center, a) because our apartment has no storage and b) when I say "will" and "flank" I mean "well, we thought they would" until last night when we realized they might not both fit without completely blocking our staircase to the downstairs, and closing off the entire room like some awful post yuppie Swedish version of the Count of Monte Cristo. This one is still a work in progress. This Ikea stuff is remarkably heavy.

For our middle floor, our kitchen, now known as "Middle Earth" we got this table. It expands. We have not built it yet.

For the bedroom, we got this little guy for more storage, and this big guy for way more storage. We got the Hopen with mirrored doors because I found walking out of the apartment every day with absolutely no idea at all what I looked like to be very disconcerting. The big wardrobe is a medium wood color of some sort. No one cares. I know.

There's a ton of stuff in the kitchen, 99% of which is not food. We're going to try to remedy that tonight.

And that's where we are. The couches come this weekend. We need rugs post haste because our already uppity neighbors already hate us. We need lamps because Gui has been assembling brown-black furniture in relative darkness, which is really impressive but probably not a good time.

I want to buy this apartment so we never have to move again. Gui and I generally never fight (it's a mellow acceptance thing we've developed over time, not a sick Stepford icy silence building resentment thing) but this whole move has worn us down to our last nerves. We need a break. And pre-assembled furniture.

Never again!

EPIC SHOUT OUT to Gui's brother JP, who gave up his entire MLK day off (and last day of law school winter break) to run around to a ton of stores with us, then came to our apartment, lugged around all of the things that were much too heavy for me to move alone with Gui, and then stayed and put the stuff together. The kid is a saint. There is not enough beer and pizza in the world to issue a proper thanks.

PS The Bob-o-pedic is hotter than sleeping on the surface of the sun but very, very comfortable. Not as stanky as expected.

PPS We got a giant smiling monkey face for our bathmat and a matching monkey wastebasket. I love it.

Measure twice, future mod once

I am sad to report that our much beloved and 100% future modded (and of course not yet purchased) Bolero bed does not fit into our bedroom by 3/4 of an inch. We could theoretically throw it in the middle of the room and not put any other furniture up there at all.

Or we could stuff it into the 64 1/4 inch alcove that perfectly fits a queen bed but not a queen bed with an epic hydraulic system. If we can get the bed stuffed in there, we can fit a middle school marching band in the rest of the bedroom. More specifically, we can have a separate work space for Gui's beautiful table, a wardrobe, something to stuff our clothing into, and enough room to move around.

Or we can have the Bolero bed and nothing else. So we're going in a different, less epic, non-hydraulic direction.

Lesson learned. I apologize for my hubris regarding my secret adult race car bed and the fact that you don't have one. Now I don't either.

In better news, we got our keys tonight and had a lot of fun measuring the apartment, airing out the feet smell that pervades the fridge, and picking out furniture that actually fits into our place. Turns out the bedroom is smaller and more weirdly laid out than we recalled, but the living room is bigger and squarer, so we're investing our hydraulic bed money into a bigger and more comfortable couch.

Also, thanks to everyone who wrote to talk about the Bob-o-pedic! I read about the stank online and evidently a lot of you have fought the beast as well. I will Fabreeze the bejeezus out of it tomorrow if we are able to physically get it into the apartment.

Tomorrow: clean out the three years' of stuff that has turned my civic into a one seater and pack it up with other stuff, meet gui, pack up some more stuff, hit up the Door Store, Ikea, Fourtunoff and Bob's to pick up the mattress, find out how much a Bob-o-pedic actually weighs (Gui estimated 200 pounds, which is probably spot on, accounting for my lack of upper body strength), clean some stuff, head out to a birthday party (and maybe my co-worker's band's show, to which I would really like to make it), and then, drum roll please:

Not take the LIRR home in the middle of the night with all of the hurling fighting flirting 18 year olds. We just going to take the 6 train "home." It's awesome and scary and kind of hardcore all at once.

Gui and I were having the worst time with our conflicting work schedules and my insane commute and my getting sick all the time and us never seeing each other. Lord knows this is going to be a hell of an adjustment but we literally haven't been together for something that wasn't a family event or major holiday in months. Just hanging out in a barren apartment tonight measuring things and being the fools we are for 90 minutes was terrific.

Note to other people who are moving into a place gradually: garbage can, toilet paper, tissues, cereal, tooth brush, plastic cups, cleaning supplies. Bring these things with you the second you walk in. Otherwise you're going to be stuffy, skeeved, hungry, and using the neighborhood Starbucks bathroom until you get yourself together. Trust me on this one.

Gui, I love you. You rock so hard. You won't believe how much fun we're going to have, how many cookies we're going to eat, how illegal it's going to be when we grill on our so-called balcony, how great our bed will be when the stank airs out, how fun it's going to be to cook grilled cheese sandwiches in the giant wok once we learn how to use the stove, how comfortable our couch will be, and how I am going to completely change as a person and suddenly learn to love being clean and tidy.

We are unspeakably, unreasonably, undeservedly lucky.

PS we're keeping the rest of the apartment pretty understated and classic, but I'm desperately drawn to the Pottery Barn Kids Star Wars bedding set. I love it. My mom (who loves Star Wars nearly as much as she loves Lord of the Rings) found them and they are worth getting excited over.

PPS my parents bought us a Tassimo and a bunch of cleaning products and important apartment stuff, a good deal of which relates to cleaning. My parents are awesome. Gui, my mom bought us three different kinds of bleach based abrasive cleanser, a swiffer, and a ton of other things that make other things sparkle . Welcome to the family. You love cleaning.

PPSS my parents were caught by surprise by the speed of the move. Join the club. Moving into this apartment has been like getting hit by lightening.

PPPSS sleeplessness has returned. Advil PM is a joke.

Yep. Dumb dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb

Pulled the trigger on the queen size Bob-o-pedic. Our choices were to have it delivered next Saturday or pick it up tomorrow and move the thing ourselves. In our infinite wisdom and rush to move, we have elected to pick it up, throw it into Gui's Bronco, find somewhere to park the Bronco, walk the mattress God knows where on 88th street, and carry it up five flights of stairs.

We totally win at life. Anyone know how much these things weigh? Or the number of a chiropractor who hasn't been repeatedly sued?

Also, the exhaustion is starting to show. When I was getting off the phone with the sales rep from Bob's I accidentally told her I loved her.

We are about to do something dumb

We're buying a new mattress. Gui has a lovely pillow top queen mattress but from the box springs underneath it has developed something known as the Taco Effect. You start off sleeping on your own side of the bed, but as the night goes on, some incredible gravitational force in the center of the mattress pulls you into the middle whether you like it or not, and whether or not someone else is already occupying the space. The alternative is sleeping on your side right at the edge of the mattress with an arm or a leg thrown over to anchor you in place. This results in numb shoulders, back pain, and an overall sense of anxiety because even while asleep you still have the sense that you're clinging untethered to the side of a mountain.

So we need a mattress to go on the hydraulic Transformer bed of ass kickingness (side note, I LOVE that bed. It's like a secret race car bed for adults. Does your bed have a hydraulic system? I did not think so). We're toying with the idea of buying the much stigmatized Bob-O-Pedic sight unseen based entirely on online reviews. You will be surprised to hear that we cannot afford the $6000 Dux Bed (at least not yet, bitches). I am again adopting the "how bad could it be?" attitude that has been the hallmark of every nearly catastrophic decision we've made during our Hey We're Adults Let's Live Together In Sin apartment journey. I'm talking about You, evil hungarian apartment with toilet peep show skylight.

We'll see. Bob's is apparently good with returns and lately I have been so exhausted that I feel like I have mono again, so at this point I could probably sleep in a meat suit on a bed of pirhanas and be ok.

Would anyone smarter than me (that's, I guess, everyone) like to weigh in on this issue? No comment will go unconsidered.

Old Lady Lamps

Now that we ostensibly have keys Guido is comfortable enough to mentally decorate and keeps sending me pictures of black apartments that look like Kraftwerk's tourbus. I'm okay with this but all I want are two fake tiffany torchiere lamps that I LOVE. I'm all about uplighting.

We're going to move in a little this weekend. This is what I have to contribute:

Plates, bowls, crystal glasses, fake copies of my crystal glasses, kitchenaid mixer, matching hand blender, new featherbed, new down comforter, new sheets, my tivo (cannot live without it), one new set of towels, lots of soaps from Lush and Philosophy, a hand steamer, gorgeous demitas cups, all sorts of Calphalon Contemporary pots and pans, a couple of frying pans, a giant, giant wok (thanks, baby!), more plates, some serving stuff, a trampoline, a rowing machine.... I think that's it.

Also, when did couches get so expensive? Good heavens my hiney is not worth this.

From Albany with F-This-Place

I'm in Albany for a work training conference thing. Albany is horrible. It's cold, wet, and the showers spew cold water. I have a head cold. I am being forced to catch an earlier train home so I can change into a suit and go to work for what I am told will be a "very late night." It's 6pm and my dinner is Gatorade, a PowerBar, and NyQuil.

Albany: 
Come for the CLE.
Stay because you committed suicide once you got here.

*but*

I am very psyched about the apartment. I wish I could move in right away. Sue and I have been going through some furniture choices and move-in strategy.

I am most psyched for the BOLERO BED, which will be our largest gadget since it is MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE which means that it is a TRANSFORMER.

One does not simply walk into 88th and Lex

I went to the bank and got two cashier's checks for all of the money we have ever had. Then, we signed the lease on the apartment on 88th and lex and I gave all of that money to a stranger and signed some boilerplate contracts. Then we had family dinner with all of the young adult cousins in Gui's extended hilarious family.

Then I came home and slept for SIXTEEN STRAIGHT HOURS after a week of not even kidding sleep deprivation. I woke up at 6:30 Saturday night without the slightest idea what was going on and all I had taken the night before was Melatonin.

Trying for another 16 tonight.

Talking about moving into no-longer-conceptual apartment during MLK weekend.

All sorts of reality happening all at once.

Come on get your lease on, get your lease on

Looks like we're signing the lease at 7PM tonight.

I think this is our actual apartment, only with someone else's stuff in it.

This is a similar unit that shows the sort of lay out. There in the corner is our broker, Mr. Sergio Lucky.

I can even shower with it!

I like the apartment. It's got a lot of great features that the last place lacked, not the least of which is a bathroom that does not appear to be transplanted from a gas station. I also think that the new apartment, with its features, is as good a deal as the last one (despite the lack of space) considering all the work we'd have do to make the last one really livable. I like the multi-floor setup. I think it gives us a lot of flexibility that we would not otherwise have.

I'm not going to say anything more, lest our FMS flare up again.

blargh

Last night after the Hungarian apartment fiasco I was up until 5AM attacking Craigslist and the NY Times rental listings. Then I got back up at 6 to go to work. Now it's 1:30AM and I can't sleep again.

Things will calm down when this gets settled. We put a deposit down on a triplex at 88th and Lex that we saw with a seven foot tall Russian guy with a fake name and consuming love of his iphone. I'm not going to editorialize about it until I've slept and I'm trying not to burden our spectacularly limited readership with my manic facebook status updates.

I would like to hear more about how Gui feels about the new place.

Our other broker who I just broke up with emailed me back and was incredibly cordial, gentle and friendly. My relationship with the NYC broker pool is getting all I Am Legend.

If we don't get approved for this current apartment I need a brief break from our tour of Manhattan's most expensive closets. I'm a bit worn out. After a little siesta and some solid billable hours, we'll head back to Julio Lee (you rock!) and Fun Beardy Guy (so do you!).

In an early effort to stave off lawyer discrimination, I may have mentioned to tonight's broker (with a big smile and lots of giggles) that I heard people don't like to rent to lawyers. He denied it. At least Julio owned it.

Chelsea Lately

Ran like hell through two Chelsea apartments at lunch with yet another broker who I thought was soooooooooooo awesome but will probably also take my dreams and beat them mercilessly into Manhattan Real Estate Market Submission. I still hate everything but what's up, Julio, you're pretty cool.

For now.

The good thing about Julio is that the moment I sat at his desk to discuss the apartments we were going to see, he told me the first one would be (IIRC) "grody." He was totally right. I think at one point it was white but now it's Helena Bonham Carter grey. The floors were some kind of dark .... something that was not wood. And was not in good condition. It was a fifth floor walk up and the windows looked out onto a brick wall and twisted, rusting metal work. I saw it in the driving rain but no amount of sunshine would have saved this. It was on 18th and 8th and just isn't going to happen.

Also, Julio, do not question my newfound power of internal square foot calculation by sight. That puppy was not 700 square feet, nor was it a "monster" one bedroom, at least in the sense you advertised. I'd give it 450 on a good day.

I found Julio on craigslist but we both conveniently forgot about this during our long talk about how finding apartments on craigslist sucks.

The second apartment on our run was at 17th and Irving and was beautiful. All new appliances, perfect hardwood floors (that will not last), cart blanche to paint it weird colors. But it was a bit small. It's on the high end of our price range but we can't live there anyway because it's around the corner from the Union Square Lush, which would be like housing an inveterate gambler at the Bellagio. My hair would look fabulous and I would always smell like flowers and fresh cut grass, but we would not be able to afford food. Ever.

For the record, my office is 14x9. It is substantially larger than most bedrooms in NY.

I'm going out tonight to see places on the UES with a guy who says his last name is "Lucky." I call shenanigans. If he ends up killing me in an alley and this is my last post (50/5o shot), much love to our three readers, Gweebles and my parents. Snorgles and cuddles to my cat.

I didn't even write back to the guy whose email name turned out to be "Mister Renter."

Tomorrow at lunch I am going to see a lux 1br in the Fidi only because it is a two minute walk from my office. They also claim 700 square feet, which seems to be the official measurement of Dudes Who Lie About Space.

PS Julio told me landlords hate renting to lawyers and reject them on false pretenses all the time. I should have been less surprised by this. Again, moron.

FMS. It's real, and it's more common than you think.

We planned on making a major purchase.
We started shopping for accessories (furniture) before it was purchased.
And it fell through.

There is no cure for FMS; but symptoms may be treatable with CheezyFriesicor. Ask your doctor if CheezyFriesicor is right for you.

Side note, I have to give props to SEF for continuing the search today. I'm getting over some virus, and it's been days since I've eaten anything, so I'm not sure if I'm hungry or nauseous. Whee. DS stopped by with the pep talk though, which is helpful. We are noobs.

Boo. Hiss.

We broke up with our current broker. She was a lovely person but I suspect she lied to us about a couple of things, she outright told us she was lying to the owners about other things, and those freaking Hungarian sisters were making us crazy. We weren't allowed to talk to them about how the doorknobs didn't work (you know, the ones that we would use to get out of the apartment in the event of a fire), or whether we could cover the skylight that lead to the roof deck that just happened to be situated directly over the toilet (!), or whether they could bang around the painted-closed heater knobs so we could have working climate control during the winter.

The Mom of the Hungarians looked at my paystubs and said they "don't add up" to the salary I put on our application. This would be a valid argument except for the fact that they totally add up to the penny. Gross and net: two separate things. I am privy to this knowledge because I am the child of an accountant. This is ancient wisdom that was passed down through the generations. I can't expect everyone to know our arcane secrets of finance.

My cell is at my house and I am a huge wuss so I broke up with her over email. Commence tomato throwing. I don't feel good about it either.

And, as he will post later, Gui could not have been more right. I future modded the hell out of this apartment. I furnished and painted the whole thing in my head. I imagined living there for years and years in quirky tilty giant apartment bliss. I became more physically fit than Lance Armstrong from running up and down those stairs.

I am a moron.

Elevator. Dishwasher. Cleanliness. Windows. No Hungarian Overlords. Less obfuscation. No more future mods.

Mourn. :(

All of a sudden I am so cranky and loathe this apartment and its stupid autopsy sink

See above.

Glitch

Annoying things are afoot. Unreasonable requests for unreasonable paperwork are being made among what are clear and obvious lies to everyone involved. Gui and I are going to lawyer the hell out of this to protect ourselves and then bail at the first suggestion things aren't kosher with the owners.

Someone else will take our cash and let us paint their apartment navy.

Baby Steps

So our lovely broker just emailed to say the managing agent has approved our application and she expects the owners to do so tonight. I'm psyched.

The Waiting

Everything's in. Approval or denial expected by this evening. If approved, the lease will be signed tomorrow night and we will start painting things odd high-gloss goth colors on January 17.

Present Mod Syndrome hereby issues a loving shout out and sincere apology to our co-editor Guido who has been recently afflicted with the Stomach Virus That Makes You Appreciate Life More Because Of Your Near Miss With Your Own Mortality. My biscuit. Didn't mean to make you sick.

Neither of us would have made it up or down four flights of stairs in yesterday's condition. This is why it's good I found a guy on the UES who makes house calls.

Yo Momma

My mother was initially a vociferous opponent of this apartment plan. She still thinks we are making the mistake of a lifetime but has gone the coiled-like-a-cobra taciturn route for now. I invited her to be a contributing blogger here to voice her concerns and objections, but she declined.

I think this is worth pursuing and will keep up with it.

What I'm Looking For

This is what's going on in my head: I'm focusing on what I think are realistic expectations, since I don't have the experience to have real-world expectations.

I want to have enough room to live comfortably.
I don't need things to be new, but I want them to be clean and comfortable - or at least in such a state that they can be made clean and comfortable without making me hate my life.
I don't want to have to spend so much on repairs and maintenance that the monthly cost of the apartment is functionally raised to the point where it's a bad deal.
I want to buy *good* furniture that matches - or at least 

This apartment is big, the location is great (close to the subway, considering it's UES), the walkup isn't bad, and Sue loves it. All these are huge positives.


(I wonder if we could put the fridge over by the stove and put counter space next to the sink.)

Advice Roundup Part 1

Since this is my first apartment purchase, naturally I'm a little nervous. I'm wondering if we should accept an apartment with an old fridge that needs work because it is...old. I'm also wondering what we can realistically bargain for. Sue and I have been asking for advice from anyone that will listen...

JK asked about whether the super lives in the building and whether there was a washing machine in-house. Yes and no, respectively. Other than that, JK didn't mind the place.

JR didn't seem worried by the 5th-floor walkup. DMG (and others) expressed concern about it.

DS said that he thinks it's a great apartment, and told us we should try to get the owners to paint it for us. He said we should demand that the bathtub be re-grouted and cleaned, and try to fix our surprising lack of countertops (did they not need counter space in the 40's?). He also said we should try for a new fridge.

Future Mods

At Sue's request, I'll explain the whole "future mod / present mod" thing.

While this phenomenon certainly stretches far beyond the Internet - it is certainly older - the "future mod" syndrome seems have to become far more widespread since message boards have made competition between fanboys so much easier and direct.

A "future mod" is an upgrade or other acquisition which one talks about and plans in great detail while he or she is saving up for it, but never actually buys. This person may go so far as to purchase accessories for said item that will "mod the mod," but those will sit in that person's garage until they ultimately give up or lose interest and place them on Craigslist.

Take, for example, Cardomain.com. Since the mid 90's, this has been a site where people post pictures of their cars and all the various updgrades they have done to them. All too common is the member page of a used car with various cheapo Pep Boys cosmetic changes (a new shifter, blue turn signal laps, tint, a new stereo head unit) listed as "current mods," followed by a list of "future mods." These "future mods" will contain things like turbos, 18'' rims, street slick tires, cat-back exhaust, and some obscene 4x15'' hidden-wire 2000W stereo system with capacitors and video screens in the floorboards. Though well planned, these mods will never come, and the owner will probably settle for something that does little more than lower the resale value of his car.

My favorite real-life example: I once worked with a guy who drove a '98 2-door civic. He bragged to me about how he was "going to install, soon" a quad-turbo setup ("One for each cylinder, yo!") in his Civic. Bear in mind, the only car I've ever seen with a quad-turbo is the million-dollar Bugatti Veyron 16-4. Needless to say, he never got the turbos, and instead just drilled holes in his exhaust to make it louder.


This apartment, finally, is not a future mod.

So it begins

After (literally) years of talking about it, G3 the boyfriend and I all of a sudden decided to get an apartment right now this second.

When this process began in earnest in August 2008 (then immediately fizzled under our respective workloads, a bout of pneumonia and a total lack of cash), I intended to live in a luxury doorman building in the FiDi so I could walk to work. The lovely people at D-bag Realty said we were "priced out of the city" if we couldn't go up to $2500 a month to live in a closet with concierge service.

Five months and 4 hours a day of commuting later, the economy has imploded, the world is ending, and G3 and I have a joint bank account and a mission. We went from "we should get on that apartment thing eventually" to "what color should we paint the second living room?" in about 72 hours.

This is how it's been going and why there are pictures.

We saw a handful of tiny no-fee places on the UES and met some very kind and personable brokers who seemed to offer sincere and helpful advice. We found an epic loft in Spanish Harlem but were concerned we wouldn't live long enough and probably couldn't run fast enough to enjoy it. We saw apartments with living rooms so small I did not know we were standing in them until someone else pointed it out. I saw an apartment with a palatial living room and a bedroom so tiny a full-size mattress would probably have to be stuffed in there diagonally. I saw a building that reeked of gas in the most BackDraft way imaginable, but when I brought it up to the super and the otherwise awesome woman showing me the apartment, they both said "I don't smell anything." We saw a duplex with a spiral staircase so violently steep and narrow that I could not fit my average size hips and purse up the stairs at the same time. We saw an apartment that advertised "massive king size bedrooms" into which Gui and I could barely squeeze shoulder to shoulder, Gravatron style.

Then we found something.

Right in the middle of the UES we found a fifth-floor walk-up: railroad four, eat in kitchen, two living rooms, enormous master bedroom. The building is owned by five Hungarian sisters from whom we currently await final approval.

Our current plan, should we be approved, is as follows (yes, painting rider in the lease): we're painting the master bedroom high gloss black and keeping the molding and all trim white. We're painting the office dark silver (Ralph freaking Lauren makes silver interior paint) and the furniture will be dark wood and a dark brown futon. We're painting the living room charcoal and have no idea what we're doing with the furniture. We're painting the kitchen navy, covering the Harvest Gold fridge from the 70's with patterned contact paper, and replacing the existing shelves with something sturdier and not covered in twelve tenants' worth of paint. We're only using the harsh overhead light fixtures in their ceiling fan capacity - everything else will be about gentle ambient directional lighting. We're talking about making our own art (just "art," not "ahhhht." This is not Two A-Holes Do Reprehensible Things to a Gigantic Pre-War Apartment. Ok it kind of is. Whatever. I want to go to Hogwarts).

Fun facts about this apartment:

• It has one bathroom, spread over two rooms. One contains only a toilet and an uncovered lightbulb. No sink. The other contains a shower and a sink. By themselves. Half an apartment away.
• Epic parque floors.
  
• It is OLD. Pre-Civil War old. Pre-Xenu old.
  
• No dishwasher but it has one of those double sinks you see every so often in "Dexter" after something very, very bad has happened.
• My parents, who are well aware of the limitations of my physical prowess, are convinced the fifth-floor walk up situation is going to lead quickly to my demise. I think it's going to lead quickly to me developing an ass like Beyonce.
• I had that Harvest Gold fridge when I was a kid. When we replaced it with a white one, the difference was shocking.
  

I can't figure out how to post pictures in Blogger at this late hour but here's a link to G3's Flickr set of the apartment in its current charming state.

So say a prayer we're approved. For better or worse, the apartment will be unrecognizable when we're done.