apartment hunting

Laura and I have been apartment hunting. We have driven to New York four times in the past 12 days. I'm afraid we are leaving a terrible footprint, like one left by huge galoshes in mud, with all this driving. Generally I drive about 12 miles a week, to and from Whole Foods on Sunday. Maybe twice that if we run out of kale mid-week. Now we are just burning gasoline like crazy.

We are getting the opportunity to watch the progress of various construction projects along Route 84. We also have learned where the hawks generally hang out, and have clocked distances between any number of towns. We've begun to notice things off the exits that we've never noticed before. "That toilet was decent. What exit number was that?"or "Hey, I just saw a hardware store right off that exit. That'll be handy."

On the first trip, we looked at 8 apartments; among them was a two-bedroom co-op that we fell in love with. The owner accepted our offer and three days later we drove back to have it inspected. This was less than a week after Laura had gotten the job; we were moving quickly.

It wasn't until we got the disappointing news that we don't qualify for a mortgage (of ANY size!) that we began to see that we were moving TOO quickly. Maybe we were about to make a big emotional purchase anyway. Maybe we shouldn't get a place that big, if just Laura is going to be there most of the time and is coming home for weekends. Maybe getting excited about that place was a way of coping with the separation anxiety. Maybe we were too excited about Laura's having gotten the job. She'll be getting paychecks again! Woo hoo! Let's get sushi and buy an apartment!

Turns out the bank is attached to paychecks, too. Actually, they are mostly attached to the "two most recent paystubs." Which we don't have, since Laura is taking the year off and I work on my own. So no mortgage. They weren't even impressed by the nice contract letter signed by the nice Head of School on nice school letterhead.

So we have to figure out a way to buy an apartment OUTRIGHT. That's a bit of a game changer. For some reason, we are no longer stumbling upon apartments we love.

Looking for an apartment is a weird process no matter how you slice it. One place, for example, was completely empty except for a case of beer in the fridge and two large closets filled with dozens of identical black suits. It would have to be an otherwise perfect place for me to get past that. I dunno.

You end up making choices based on things you'd rather not admit to; like the apartment we said "nahhh" to because the welcome mat for the place next to it said, "WELCOME TO MY CRIB" and three doors down, the not-so-welcome mat said, "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS." I don't know; I feel bad about it, but it didn't feel like home to me.

We've made another offer on another apartment, about half the size of the one we loved. It needs lots of work. And if you go outside and walk about 30 steps, this apartment has the same view that other one did. Except with that first apartment, you could have the view while you were inside, which was a nice feature. But Laura and I are learning a lot about letting go.

More soon. Laura is away for a few days, and I'm thinking too much about being apart next year. If I hadn't had the blog tonight, I'm afraid I would have gone out for a drive.