I Sleep Little. I Ramble

Getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night over the course of a week is kind of like taking the G train - it'll do but you're not happy about it. That's actually one lesson I learned pretty quickly when I started the apartment hunting thing - don't get a place that's only by the G train. No offense to you G-trainers, but the damn thing sucks. Any subway that only chills out in the outer boroughs is crappy in my book. Like the S train in Brooklyn. Like did you even know there was an S train in Brooklyn? It's also a "shuttle" like the 42nd St. one and it makes like three stops. I get it, those are an important three stops, but they're not that important. I just want to know why someone felt compelled to throw an S train in the middle there.

Can I tell you about the crap I came across on Sunday when I was doing my apt. hunting? Not "crap" as in bad places, but like a shit situation. This one guy advertised a place for $1680 in Craig's List and said it included all fees. And this place is sick, like completely redone and a private balcony. But I'm thinking "oh, well it's on the edge of Ft. Greene so maybe the location is shitty and either way, $1680 is not that little money." I get there and this nice-ish Italian man lets me in. He's the broker, we chat, he shows me the place, and then we get down to numbers and the rent is - surprise - $2100. I'm like "wtf dude?" He actually whips out the calculator on his Blackberry to show me how he got to $1680. In his warped logic, instead of being like "well, with fees this apt. would be $2450, but we're not charging fees, so you only owe $2100," he subtracted the non-existent fees from the actual rent and used that as a rent figure, which makes absolutely, totally, zero sense. Are you following me?

I take a paper from him, grab a pencil, and do the math on paper. I'm doing long multiplication and long division and I'm kicking his Blackberry's ass, getting all juiced up that this guy is trying to convince me of a mathematical impossibility. I accuse him of scamming people, of leading them all the way to this outlying building and then throwing $400 onto the price he promised.

"I'm an honest man."

"If you're an honest man, then why did you go and compromise your principles?"

He gives me the sob story about being on the job for only a few months and needing to compete with other brokers who do the same thing and having to feed his wife and kids. Tell me - what the hell does it matter to me what the other broker's are doing? Adults have this very childish way of reasoning through crap that they do, which just kind of gives you a clue about why the world is so f'ed up. Basically, no one grows up. She did it, so I can do it. Get a life.

"It's people like you that give brokers a bad name. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm sorry man, you look like a nice guy. I didn't mean to trick anybody."

"But that's exactly what you're doing!"

"Tell you what, I'll give you a ride home."

Yeah, I'm going to get into this guy's car and let him give me a ride home. That's crazy! And somehow a "ride home" is supposed to compensate for getting played like that. Screw that.

So tomorrow is the election and I say it's about f'in time to get this crap behind us. I'm exhausted, both psyschologically, emotionally, and physically, which just goes to show you that I'm so exhausted that I used "both" to refer to three things. You're probably exhausted too and didn't even notice that. It's awesome that I paid to go to this party because my friend told me he was going to sign up too and then didn't and didn't tell me he didn't so I get to go to a party alone. Awesome. Love when that happens. Although I will be taking a notepad with me and ask some questions. I'm thinking I might turn it into an election day article, like what people are thinking throughout the night. I'm kind of bummed that the crowd will likely be very predictable. You just ain't going to find a good 'ol Republican joint in Manhattan-proper.