Sublease...

I'm going to sublet my place. I've done a lot of thinking about this over the past week and it makes the most sense out of any other plan I've come up with. The reason is that this place I'm living in has become too expensive for me to afford with any amount of uncertainty about my hours at work. I stand to save about $400 a month by doing this and that alone has been enough to assuage any apprehensions I have about moving again, leaving this place, going through the hassle of finding a subletter and a new apartment in the same month and any other random concerns that have come up with regards to this process.

To me, it's as good a plan as any and that it's a plan with a definite set of consequences, the bulk of which are good for me, makes me feel a million times better than sitting around worrying and trying to find extra side gigs and begging my bosses to hire me full time. That all can wait. In the meantime, the name of the game is to make a gigantic stride towards being able to effectively spend less than I make for once. I've reached my limit with all of my other expenses. I literally can't cut back anymore short of not eating or drinking a few nights a week and unplugging even my fridge when I leave the house and never using my A/C ever.

Survival instinct has kicked in. This is what it has come to. I had an epiphany that my lifestyle right now is essentially what is expensive and that I needed to consider doing this one big thing to change my lifestyle, i.e. roommates instead of living by myself, in order to not be so stressed out about it. That's one of the root causes of panic, when you feel like you have no other options. So I just needed to add some options to the table. At least one other, that is.

And now, I just have to go and put the plan into effect. I cannot decide if I should take care of finding a new place first or if I should sublet this one first. Let me explain. I've read on the NYC Rent Guidelines Board website that in order to sublet I have to give written notice to my landlord 30 days before and in this letter I must include the name of the sub lessor and my address during the sublease. ??? How the eff am I supposed to do that? So then, I get thinking. They don't need to know when exactly the sublet starts. I could make like it's starting in August, thereby giving them thirty days, but I could go ahead and get the sub lessor in here now and myself out. Or at least fudge the days a little. This way when I write them the letter of intent to sublet I can at least have a name of who is subletting and where I will live. But then, if they turn down my request? This is what confuses me. If there's the potentiality that they will turn down my request to sublet, why am I going to ahead and find a place that I could end up having to turn down? Maybe I could just give my parents address.

Not to bore you all with the details of it all. Half of this is just me writing it out so I can read it back to myself and, by that, perhaps make more sense out of it all. I think I'll just write them a letter of intent to sublet and keep it at that. Turn it in tomorrow morning and wait.

I hate that it's come to this. In some ways. In other ways, I'm looking forward to the potential to get out of this neighborhood sooner rather than later (March 1st next year). Also, I think it would solve a lot of my problems with socializing in this city if I can find roommates around my age that have been here for a while and have a network in place and if I can move to a neighborhood where there are sundries and hangouts nearby and I can feel like I don't live in suburbia. Incidentally, this is one of those random reasons I moved to the city. To be closer to people. It seems a bit ironic, sometimes I complain about the noise in my neighborhood or I come across as a bit of a curmudgeon but honestly, I'd love to be around people my age. That's the qualifier: my age. Not around families and high school kids. I feel like an outsider here (and not just because it's mostly Hispanic and Chinese and Indian families here who keep to themselves).

I was hanging out in Park Slope the other night with some people from my UNCG days, people that studied film there and that I could be found hanging out with just about any day of the week back then. I'm looking around the bar and seeing all these twenty and thirty somethings doing what I'm trying to do. Live a life in New York City. I've had apartment jealousy, I've had neighborhood jealousy. Now I'm having life jealousy. I know how absurd that is, by the way, to look at someone and, effectively making a snap judgment by the way they appear to me, wish I had what they had. Especially since I know nothing about their lives. It may suck to them. But at any rate, it looks shiny and attractive to me, and though I'm wary of wanting, I still want it or something like it. Comfort and stability are one thing but at least to be able to pay my bills and live near people my age would make my content. After all, there's nothing wrong with goals is there? Just getting attached to results. I'm certain that I will want something else as soon as I move to that brownstone apartment in Park Slope.

Anyway, I've got a formal letter to write. If anyone has any advice or information on how to go about subletting if you've ever done it before, please let me know what you know, I'm all ears. I'm off. Have some pictures from my romps last week:

J Scott's Visit

And here's some from poker night last night:

poker Night