the apartment i was supposed to see on wednesday? it was under a bakery (hello rats!) and two doors down from a "go-go bar" (hello scary old drunk men!). when lani and i figured out where it was, we just kept right on driving. went to the tick tock diner and i ordered a veggie burger. when i turned it over to put ketchup on (yes, i put ketchup on the bottom of my burger. because the bun sticks to the cheese on the top), the bun was moldy. ew ew ew. i sent it back and ordered a grilled cheese instead.

we drove around looking for "for rent" signs, then bought newspapers and started calling the numbers from classified ads. i talked to a woman with a third floor studio apartment in bloomfield, and a man with a basement studio apartment in montclair, and an assorted number of realtors and househunters who wanted to charge me extra to find me a place to live. and honestly, if i had the money, i would have hired them just to spare myself the aggravation. the guy with the basement studio told me to come the next day at 2:00 but to call and confirm in the morning. i called, and he told me he'd call back later to confirm. we waited. and waited. 3:30. 4:00. i called him back and he said 6:00. we spent two hours in the six brothers diner drinking sodas and reading the classifieds. and then got lost on the way to the apartment. where there was nobody waiting for us when we got there. so i took a chance and called the owner of the 3rd floor studio and asked her if i could come by, since i was in the neighborhood. and she said yes.

and that apartment was like coming home. big and airy and full of light and windows, cute sloping ceilings in the living/bedroom and a little pantry closet in the enormous kitchen and just--gorgeous. and the owner said she'd hold it for me until september on $700 until i get my student aid check. which i promptly borrowed from my awesomely wonderful big sister. and then i didn't hear from her. and didn't hear from her. i called every day, at least once a day. i went by on saturday to see if she was there.

in the meantime, suddenly my student account was charged for a dorm room. i was on the waiting list since may, but back at the end of july i gave it up as hopeless. i called them and told them i wanted to get off the waiting list, and to please call me back if there was something more i needed to do for that. never heard back, so i assumed (silly me) that things were taken care of. until they charged me $3820 to live in a single room, in an apartment shared by three other girls. yes, $955 a month to share an apartment with three college girls. and their friends, of course. and probably their friends' friends. with less than a thousand dollars with which to buy food and books for the rest of the semester. so 8:30 friday morning found me calling the residence life office, getting no answer and being told that the voice mailbox was full. apparently there are no friday hours for campus offices during the summer. because they're stupid mean lazy asshats.

so tonight the good apartment lady finally called me back, and she's running a credit check on me tomorrow morning (i warned her that my credit sucks), and i'm supposed to go tomorrow night to work out the lease and give her the money. but first i have to call the housing office, to make them give me my money back. then i need to call the bursar, to find out when exactly i'll be getting said money, so i can tell the nice apartment lady at the meeting tomorrow...

there's a huge storm outside, so you'll just have to wait to hear about how i nailed my job interview on wednesday.

hopefully not homeless,
beatpoetgrrl

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