You know, there's real-time and there's blog-time... and rarely are they the same. You see, in blog-time, it was only 3 days ago that I told you about my decision to (attempt to) matriculate to CUNY this Fall. But in real-time, I made the choice more than 3 weeks ago.

Well, here's a quick real-time update... I dunno, I may not be going to CUNY after all. 😐

I don't want to turn this into a huge post, as I'm actually taking the time to write this as a quick break from searching for a place. But here's a very brief update of what I'm seeing and where things are sitting. So brief, we're gonna do it in bullet-point format:

• CUNY offers campus housing which includes a single, tiny studio apartment that was within my budget. This was the plan.
• After accepting the grad school offer, I applied for their housing.
  • A few days later I was told they're full, and I've been wait-listed.
  • I've since learned, it's quite likely I'll never get off the wait list. 😢
• I've been looking at normal housing (apartments and whatnot).
• The top end of my budget overlaps with the bottom-end of the rental market IF I'm far enough away from Manhattan (where CUNY Grad. Center exists). This is Queens and beyond if I go East, and New Jersey if I go West.
• Apparently, in NYC (and Jersey City in NJ), most ( like 98%? ) of the rentals are offered through real estate brokers who list the units on very normal websites (apartments.com, zillow, etc.) yet require a brokerage fee which starts at 1 month's rent and goes up. This isn't a rental deposit, first month's rent or anything like that. It's just a fee, poof, gone.
• Parking... don't get me started. It's a nightmare. Even long term storage. It's so hard to see how I wouldn't have to get rid of my car.
  • Part of the interest of moving to NYC for 2 years included traveling up and down the New England area and beyond in search of the next attempt at finding "home".
  • Clearly this isn't the primary or even secondary point of choosing CUNY. But, still, this was a sincere perk of getting back to the east coast.
• On top of all of this: these fucking assholes aren't even responding! I don't know if it's my West coast phone number or what, but I've left 3 voicemails for 3 different listings. I've also pinged like 5 or 6 via padmapper.com's "check for availability" functionality. So far, I haven't gotten a single response. Looking at online reviews, this a common problem.
• So I don't know. I'm sitting here in a coffee shop, again. The day is coming to and end, again. I'm still not sure how I can make this work, again.

So, that's where we're at. Maybe I'm not going to CUNY after all.

Like I said a few days ago, time is running out. I need to choose. Find a place. Pack. Move. Enroll. Get going.

It's not critical yet, but it's getting there.

NY is getting further away every day. I can either pack up my shit, get the fuck over there, and find a place in person (there are a fair enough of units if someone would fucking reply)... hoping to get it all ironed out in time. And if I want to do that, then I need to move ASAP.

OR... fuck it. Michigan has the best program and cost-of-living. Just give in, and take the path of least resistance. It's not the greatest, but not bad either you know? If this about 2 years of life experience that's one thing, but if this is about spending 2 years to get one last degree and get back to normal life... well, then not living in NYC really, truly isn't the critical decision point.

Anyway... it's June 17th @ 2pm as I write this, and shortly after as I post it. This is where I'm at... right now, real-time.

I'm going to publish this post, and then get back to looking at places online. Admittedly though, CUNY and two years in NYC, is feeling like it's drifting away.

And... for what it's worth... the amount of my money I've spent doing very little these past 3 years is very much on my mind. Ooof. 😐 I've definitely been fucking things up...