The weekend has been an hilarious romp, gallivanting around Charleston, playing games, watching movies, boating, devouring crustaceans, drinking, and making general fools of ourselves. We went out on Charleston Harbor with Sean and Katie on their sailboat today, yelling nautical terms and even having an instant of daring-do, where rudder control was lost and everyone scrambled to fix things with precision on par with that of Kevin Kostner's character (The Mariner) in Waterworld. We even attempted to raise the jib, which we ended up only completing halfway, but I now believe I would feel confident rigging and sailing any wind-powered vessel known to man. After docking the boat and tying some mind-boggling knots, we went on a crab hunt and returned home with a baker's baker's dozen of Delicious Bottom Feeders. I ended up downing something on the order of six crabs, a bratwurst, multiple beers, hella chips, and a cob of corn. It was amazing and I feel amazing. We watched Mystery Team too, by the brilliant minds behind Derrick Comedy. It was probably the hardest I've laughed in a movie in years.
As for New York news, I finally had time last week (between midnight and 4a.m. one night and brief spurts on following nights) to do a serious Craigslist apartment hunt. The place where I had a chance of staying after meeting people on my trip a month and a half ago to NYC is officially in the Fell Through category. I imagine there's still some kind of a chance, but I'm not counting on it. After the long night of flat hunting and a few short ones, I've come to learn some things about finding places to live in New York City.
1. People post and fill rooms in NYC in an ABSURDLY short period.of time. Every post on Craigslist at the very end of April was for a May 1st move-in, so I decided to wait until May before I did the real hunting. There ended up being a lot of things to take care of in the beginning of May and I didn't end up getting to do the serious hunting until, as I just mentioned, last week. I sent a good load of emails out to places I was interested in and also posted a "looking for room/roommates" post with a summary of myself, infused with the normal amount of hilarity. Most of the posts I saw were posted that day and seemed to fully expect to have filled the rooms within the week. The one person who's actually responded to my emails said that I could come look at the apartment this weekend. I told him I wouldn't be able to make a trip to NYC until the beginning of next week and he informed me that the room would likely already have a tenant by that time. I have year anything back from the other renters I emailed, or get any kind of response to my "ADVENTURE AND HILARITY" posting about myself.
2. People hate email. This is more of a re-affirmation, but people really do not even respond with a courtesy email if they're not interested or the room has been taken. Everyone else in the world seems to hate email too, so, in the end, I really didn't expect this to be any different. Brief one-sentence rant: people hate email so much in everyday life, even in a professional situation, that they don't bother to proofread, edit, or even punctuate their emails; I think it's because people hate having to write, hate to do things in a timely fashion, and, most of all, hate computers - daaang.
3. If you don't like what you see on Craigslist's housing section, WAIT ONE SINGLE DAY and there will be a surge of new posts, each promising new sights, locations, and adventures, with a surprisingly minimal amount of sketchiness.
4. Looking for a place is not nearly as scary as it first seemed. A lot of people are just fine with doing a month-to-month thing, which gives me hope that I could relocate after a few months if I realized the particular part of the city I lived in flat-out sucked or my roommates were Completely Bat Shit Crazy. Fun new stuff springs up every day and Craigslist alone has more places available in the area I want than I need. Things are also really falling in to the area and price price range I'm seeking.
A good buffer in the stresses of the month is that not only have my parents offered to store my stuff in their basement across town, but they let me know that I could stay there in any overlap period I have between moving out of my Charlotte flat and finding a place in NYC. They're the greatest. If I do end up having to do that, I may be around for a couple more weeks than originally planned, but I'll be hitting the listings every day. I'm ready to make this shit happen.
This week I'll be trying to find a balance between the sacred Triforce of packing, working, and trolling Craigslist for more apartment options, and I may even shove a fourth item in: resuming the job hunt. I might as well keep my feelers out there for potential 9-5s and sign up with a couple more temp agencies so I have some good cash-money options rolling my way when I hit the city. I have savings and a few ongoing freelance gigs to support me well into a move, but it's never too early to pepper the city with photocopies of my resume dropped from the space shuttle. I'll update about the apartment hunt as things progress.
Homer: What really burns me up is they didn't give us one word of warning.
Carl: What do you mean? They ran those TV commercials about it, and that big radio campaign.
Lenny: Don't forget the leaflets they dropped from the Space Shuttle, and the two weeks we all spent at area code camp.
Homer:Not a single word of warning.
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