rental ads come in three flavors: the crewcut, the hair band and the mullet. the crew cut is all business. space dimensions, date available, price. just the brass tacks, no personal information to give you any idea what you might be walking into as a potential roomie. these leave me with the feeling that a week-long holiday at dachau might be more hospitable. the hair band is all party. heavy on details about personal proclivities, etc. very little on the "you'll be living in a closet" tip and heaps about beer, hip-hop and chilling. envision your life as a series of outtakes from american pie 2 and you're almost there. lastly, there is the mullet. business up front and party in the back. this is the vibe someone like me is searching for. just enough info about the space and the person to discern whether or not schlepping crosstown for a viewing is really worth it.

i've seen a fair number of spaces, mostly in brooklyn, over the last week or so and was actually offered a share here in park slope late last week. the place was nice enough, the guy was nice enough, the price was nice enough, but given that i'm unemployed, my potential space-mate was obsessively squirrely about cash-flow, intent on proof of financial secuity etc. now, all this is fair enough, but i wasn't quite comfortable with sharing that much about savings account balances, portfolios and such with a complete stranger. i took a pass.

after all of my intense focus on remaining in brooklyn, i headed into manhattan sunday to check out a place on the lower east side. obscenely tiny, with a minimum of common space, it actually felt comfy immediately. an amusing chat ensued revealing my potential roomie as online porn purveyor (as in one who hawks it on the internet, porn that is, not himself, though that may not be outside the realm of possibility), followed by healthy discussions on living together, new york city, gay culture and bjork.

when i got the call monday morning offering me the space, i immediately phoned up each and every person i could think of who might possibly be available to discuss the pros and cons with me. no one picked up. so, i was left to decide for myself. can you believe it? the situation isn't ideal, but of course, i measure ideal against the yardstick of this one. the location is fairly prime as i consider st. marks and ave a the bullseye with regards to living in manhattan and it ain't so far from there. i'll leave the exact location to your imagination but i will say that it is east of a and north of houston. so i took it. i mean, doesn't everyone need their own "i lived in a shoe box" new york story? clearly, this one will be mine. a great starter situation while i get my bearings and oh yeah, a job. this is what they call MOMENTUM.