This can be tricky when you are no longer even quasiemployed, I am finding. The other day I went to look at a place that was for rent by owner and while I was filling out an application said owner asked me why I was leaving my current apartment. “I know this sounds ridiculous, but it just kind of has bad vibes on it. I moved there last summer and I just … didn’t have the greatest year there,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know!” he said.
I don’t think I’m probably going to be living in that place. Or, possibly, this city. But let me know if you hear of anything! I have a cat.
36 Comments
I’ve been looking for a housemate for four months! But I just found someone yesterday. And I think it is unlikely you’d want live in the ‘burbs of New Jersey. Good luck! Looking for housing and housemates is more of a challenge than looking for a job, I think.
Buenos Aires. They’re lax about the visas and bringing your pets. Plus it’s all New Yorkers anyway.
Move to Seattle! Everywhere takes cats here, and I will be your friend.
You’re smart and talented. You can succeed wherever you decide to go, and however you decide to direct your energies. I would recommend cat-friendly apartments, but I live in our nation’s capital, and I can’t imagine it’s high on your list of places to go.
Are you still thinking about grad school? (You said something about law school awhile ago, but I have no idea whether or not you were serious.) That may be a way to logically transition, to make sense of a move to a new place, and in a new or more specific direction. I have some good friends who studied overseas in an IR program through Johns Hopkins SAIS. Specifically, they studied foreign affairs and econ in Bologna. It sounded like an amazing experience. Maybe getting out of NYC wouldn’t be bad at all. If you do decide to stay in NYC though, don’t let the bastards get you down.
indeed… don’t let the bastards get you down. that is hilarious. what goes around…
JEEEZ
I think that you cook trumps anything negative that’s been said about you.
Funny, smart, and cooks? I’m not sure I believe it.
i mean good luck with everything. really.
Would this be an obnoxious time to ask whether your apartment will be available soon and how much it goes for? I’m a little tired of living in what feels like Dickensian England at the moment.
St. Louis! Seriously, look at this: http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/666938232.html a turn of the century house for $1400 a month, and you can get a beatiful apartment for $500. And everyone is either un- under- or creatively-employed. I’m leaving Our Nations Crapital for hometown STL as soon as I get a job. I wish you good luck from one woman in transition to another.
It’s really starting to sound like a modern version of “Lost Illusions” by Honoré de Balzac.
I just came across your article in the New York Times from May 25 and wanted to say, as a fellow blogger: thank you. You perfectly articulated the reason most people blog (”they like the idea that there’s a place where a record of their existence is kept”). Blogging is such a huge part of our voyeuristic generation, and I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story.
Your blog sucks, Emily.
Why not move to Los Angeles? Who can resist the heavenly weather, sprawling exotic beaches and more affordable cost of living? Plus, when you subtract all of the A-holes who populate New York, you almost have a situation that mirrors paradise. Of course, you would have to watch out for Jimmy Kimmel, but he’s not hard to miss. Southern Californians mistake his drunken romps for earthquakes all the time (just kidding, it’s not funny to mess with Kimmel).
I have a cat too!! I don’t know in the US, but here in Chile is hard to find someone whot wants to rent you a place without a formal job. I work freelance, so had a tough time when trying to prove that I actually earn some money every month.
I’m waiting for your answers as soon as you can, thanx again!
well, you kind of totally fucked yourself with the NYT article, i mean surely you should have known that when you wrote it?
Sage does wonders.
Emily:
I just emailed you, please write back to me as soon as you can!
Wow. Try not to wire any money to Chile.
Keep writing
You should try Australia (where I’m from). It’s basically paradise and you’ll be almost anonymous, because everyone lives off-line. They don’t hate the internet, it’s just that their connection to it is about as robust as a tin can on a piece of string.
Pluses: Weather, natural beauty, cost of living.
Minuses: Everything is lethally poisonous.
Good luck!
Eric
Los Angeles (transplanted)
Speaking from experience, moving always forces growth. If you wanna grow, get outta the city asap. In 05, I had the worst block, it was goin on a year. I left my gf, moved to Vegas for 6 months, and wrote a great script. I came back to LA, it opened a lot of doors for me, and life’s beautiful now. If you’re thinking about leaving, it’s probably the right thing to do. You can always go back.
the right pair of jeans, the right apartment, the right job, and even the right man, what does it have to be this darn difficult?!
Why not make like everyone from Williamsburg and move to Philly? I’ll buy you a water ice and we can argue about which one of us gets the meanest reader comments.
Mine: http://www.tangomag.com/marriage-without-monogamy
Come to Austin. The music makes up for the lack of baseball.
BTW, the invite is still good- July 29th 7p, Yanks vs. O’s
Red Hook is nice. Could be a bit of a respite, and it has just enough proximity to the city.
Emily, if you are staying in NYC you should invest in your future. Buy a condo in Jersey City. Yes its gross and grimy right now, but hold onto it for a few years and you’ll be set for life!
If you don’t have money for that (get a job already! or write a book!) rent somewhere yucky and blog about what it’s like to live there. Did you read the article about SoHell in the most recent Sunday NYT? And then buy in Jersy City. Since I can’t do it myself, I want everyone else to!
You could also come to New Haven CT. I don’t know what there’d be for you here, but I think you are a very interesting person and I’d be sure treat you to lunch.
The house I am living in now had bad vibes. This horrible man lived here and would not let his wife out of the house. When it was up for sale (she had died, and he was going into a nursing home) I heard from neighbors that it was full of the dolls she kept as a collector…in every room, in handmade clothes she’d make for them. Her children since he would not let her have any. Then the next couple hated each other and the woman ended up leaving him for another woman. And we bought it from that guy. I think we’ve excised all the demons but I’m not sure. But I think it can be done.
My friend came and put amethyst in every room. You might try that in the meantime…
Getting out of the city’s not a bad idea. A small town in Western Mass. Something like that. Is Prague still the SoHo of the 2000’s like it was in the 90’s? That’d be cool, too. Were you at that n+1 panel at the Kitchen last night? Interested to hear your thoughts on it if so.
Bless your space with candles. Space holds energy, good and bad.
I just had a funny thought scrolling down the comments.
This is kind of like the bathroom walls in high school. You scribble a message, and everyone sounds off on it below, except a little more hygenic with a little less cursing.
Good luck. Lived in a lot of places in my day, some good, some not so good. Didn’t marry until my mid-30s. Serious house renting, then house buying, kicked in. Situation (e.g., having kids, marriage appearing stable, etc.) dictates where and how one lives. The culture assumes upgrading changing jobs and relocating, but Bohemians live by a different code. Writers look for experience over what most deem important.
Check out Ed Hamilton’s blog at the Chelsea.
California, says your inner Joni Mitchell spirit animal (me)
We are much less negative here, because we are always stoned on street-legal weed and having barbeques in our lush tropical backyards.
I read your piece in the Times Magazine,. and I’ve never even looked at Emily’s Magazine before today. And I PROMISE I won’t look after today: I your article you use the word, “overshare,” as if it really is really a victim’s term, some psychological way of describing yourself as if you willfully misbehave because you are a victim of your own need for attention. There is a better definition for this word “overshare,” and that is, simply, the term “pathological narcissist.” You need help, because since it’s all bout you, there can be no world except as it reflects your image in a dirty, broken mirror.
What’s interesting about narcissism is that, most often, the narcissist is such a crafty little bitch that they can project their narcissism on just about anyone. Like a blogger, for example. I’m just saying this because the comment above really turns me off. Why comment hateful things to a stranger. It’s why I never read gawker unless provoked by a specific event or why I try to stay away from any celebrity mag that dishes trash on it’s money-making subjects.
I read your article last month and found it memorable enough that I google stalked you again today. You’re honest and quite the crafty writer.
As for all of these people telling you to get out of NYC, I recently did and am not totally enthused. Of course, I wasn’t totally enthused while I was there, either (unless you count being impressed by lookers on the street). While it’s true that Seattle is nice, you won’t like the boys here, I promise. They just sit at bars pretending not to notice you while penning poetry about your pretty face that you’ll likely never see. Not a very aggressive town mentality here… Of course, I came here for to be with my amazing future husband… but seriously, no other boy around compares.
Why am I telling you all of this? I must be bored. I don’t know of any apartments in NYC, and am very happy to not be engaged in that struggle this year.
Best of luck to you, Ms. Gould. I would have enjoyed running into you when I, too, lived in Greenpoint.
hi,im chilean and i would like to know why did you decide to create this blog.
last week i had a test about blogs ,and it was awful because i do not anything about it.
you are a big blogger i like your site.