So I'm in Chicago for a wedding for the weekend. Just abandoned the moving project until Sunday... After one hour of sleep last night I slept most of the way here. I was served a single cracker. A single cracker? Who does that? It's almost more insulting to serve a single cracker than nothing at all.

Ok must to bed.

I was staring at the nails on the empty wall when it struck me that this must be how the expression "getting down to brass tacks" originated. But alas no: According to the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson:

There are no brass tacks, only brass-headed ones, used because they rust less easily. The American expression, which has been traced back only to 1903, though it may have been common before then, has several possible origins. Brass-headed tacks were used in upholstering chairs, especially at the foundations of the chairs, and in taking a chair apart to reupholster it from the bottom up, craftsmen might have said they were getting down to business, to the root of the matter, getting down to the brass tacks. There is no solid evidence for this theory, however, just as there is none for the country-store hypothesis. Merchants in country stores, it's said, hammered brass-headed tacks at intervals into their fabric department counters to indicate lengths of a yard, a half-yard and a quarter-yard. After a customer selected the cloth she wanted, the merchant would say, 'All right, now we'll get down to brass tacks - I'll measure it up for you.' This certainly was a practice in the country stores and a common one at about the same time the expression is first recorded."

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Have been listening to: Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Duke Ellington, Ike Turner, Linda Jones & April March.

Am feeling: feverish and vaguely clammy.

Have been dreaming about: Papaya King on 86th street & the grapefruit gelato on 2nd Street & Ave. A.

I want: to meet: Olivia.

I miss: my wife.

I should be: packing instead of blogging.

Is it crazy to consider a house in Norfolk or New Canaan? We could buy the place outright have loads of space (and money!) left over.

We both have been mulling this over. But it's hard to commit to the idea. Would we go stir crazy out there? Would we ever make it into the city? Things to ponder.

Jenn says this blog is positively maudlin. Rereading it I suppose it might come off that way. Maybe it's because I tend to post when I'm frustrated. For the record, I'm excited by the move, just frustrated by the process. And as sad as I am about leaving this house, the prospect of setting up a new one together should be great fun. I think my main issue right now is that I have a horrible head cold. This is the first one in 2 or 3 years and being sick makes me grim.

I'm always first to dinners.

A friend from Hong Kong who joined the dinner later was complaining about rents in the $17,000/month range.... and I thought I had problems.

Stuff. Stuff. And more stuff.

Jenn looked at a bunch of places today.

The most promising was a converted firehouse. True 1800 square feet with a view of the Statue of Liberty from the roof:

The drawback to this place is that it's right next to a BQE onramp. So it's noisy. Maybe it's not a great idea to have a newborn right next to all those fumes.

Another place that was sort of promising was this one in Carnegie Hill. Fairly normal apartment with a nice big terrace:

The drawback here was that it is small... 1300 square feet. The whole apartment would fit in the downstairs here... and we've always been cramped in this house.

The other places weren't worth mentioning...

Final note does anyone know where to get Indian lamps like these ones (Jenn spotted them on the ceiling of a restaurant in Brooklyn):

As the move has become more real I've started to think about things I will miss about LA.

Here are a few that struck me this morning:

bizarre suburban architecture

headshots of jackasses in random places

scary Christo-like termite tenting

Jenn's thoughts:

I looked through 200 craigslist listings yesterday... probably 120 of them were obvious bait and switch. I called 50 that seemed real/reasonable, of those exactly 2 turned into places worth seeing. This is depressing.

I saw one place on 34th and 10th Avenue. It was a true loft and not a bad space but it only had windows on one side and was way too dark for a baby. I saw a second loft in Tribeca that was being rented "as is" which meant unpainted and dirty (you could barely see out the windows). It would have been ok to clean it up, but it was also too small. Both of these were in the 5000-6000/month range.

The broker today was a nice French guy. He said 2 kinds of brokers handle rentals:

1. Many successful brokers have relationships with buildings or a specific client. They'll put up an ad, show an apartment 20 times, and one of those people will bite. They have no desire to traipse around the city with you and don't actually care about you and what you want... so if you are not interested in that specific apartment your relationship is over. Most brokers who handle rentals work this way and it makes sense that they would.

2. The much rarer breed of broker actually does care about you and will try to find you what you are looking for, but these guys get burned constantly because even if they show someone 20 apartments there is no guarantee that that person won't see an ad somewhere else and the 21st apartment will be handled by someone else.

Brokers who sell have it much easier because they follow you around wherever you go...

The coyotes are so loud tonight... another cat bites the dust.

The somewhat evil Autobar on the corner of Glendale and Lakewood is finally being renovated (just in time for our departure) and turned into something else (I've heard deli, restaurant, bar). As they were tearing down the shutters some cool paintings were revealed.

It always seems to happen this way, just as I vacate a neighborhood, good things start to happen. Silverlake finally got a Vietnamese restaurant two weeks ago (no nearby Vietnamese was a longstanding gripe) and I expect the "anti-terrorism" fence around the reservoir will come down just as my moving vans head into the sunset.

No luck on the apartment hunt yet. Jenn asks "What's the deal with New Yorkers and green carpet?"

Jenn and I are both feeling down about the move today. After you've been away from the city for awhile, all the gotchas seem so petty and ridiculous. Also NY Times stories about possible terrorist activity for the convention don't make me feel all warm and fuzzy... sigh.

At least I've made it out of the garage to the kitchen.

Is it just me or having a party in a Glendale storage facility kind of creepy? The klezmer music they were playing added to the x-files vibe.

Jenn has been relentlessly searching for rental apartments in the city. I've been trying to help her online from here in LA. I haven't found a truly great site for rentals yet (if you know of one, please leave the name in the comments), but I'm looking. This is what I've found so far:

The big brokers: (Corcoran, Citi Habitats, etc):
Many if not most of the listings on these sites are fake or expired. They seem to put up nice reasonable looking apartments (but actually unavailable) to draw you in. Many of the brokers we've dealt with have been lazy, rude, or incompetent... All this joy for 12-15%... I know, I know, welcome to New York. After 10 years away you forget what a nightmare house hunting can be. For reference, here in LA a few years ago myself and 4 friends rented a 1920's mansion from record producer Rick Rubin with a handshake and one month deposit. The rent was around $5000/month. In NY that same rent gets you.... but why go down that road. Must accept new reality. Ok. Next.

The MLS
This is a site for buyers but can be useful to get building info if there happens to be an apartment for sale in a building you are considering.

Rent Direct
This company has lots of listings for big horrible buildings. The site is hard to navigate and search. Also there are many bait and switch listings.

Craigslist
I've been disappointed by craigslist new york. In LA and San Francisco craigslist is probably the best way to find an apartment, but in NY it's full of bad broker listings and quacks. Disappointing.

Edit a few weeks later: If you are diligent you will eventually learn how to weed out the bad seeds. Craigslist is still the best site to find a no fee apartment in New York.

Loot
We didn't discover this site until too late, but it's a good source for by owner listings. Especially down in the East Villiage.

MLX.com
This is by far the best site I've found, but it's not free... 4 nice features: full addresses are shown, the listings are good, detailed building info, and email updates. It's not perfect though--the user interface is busy, you can't sort in detail view, and there are still too many expired listings. After one day on the service Jenn finally saw some places she liked. The one she REALLY liked was out of our price range (6500/month and it already had 2 offers) but then again it was a 4 story brownstone:

Edit a few weeks later: In the end MLX wasn't that useful for us. Most of the apartment listings were for big high rise buildings.

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Jenn says Olivia has been kicking much higher than last week. I wonder if that means anything. Maybe she gets tired of all the traipsing around in the heat...

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ps I should note that on the buying/selling side we have had some great experiences with NY brokers. Louise Devin of Brown Harris worked tirelessly to sell a family apartment on 63rd Street and in Brooklyn Heather McMaster of Corcoran has done a fantastic job of letting us know the lay of the land...

When packing up a house, there is always a point in which you think you have lost your mind. I am at that point. Why are we leaving this beautiful place? What madness inspired this rash decision? It's beautiful day, clear, sunny and I just had a nice afternoon swim. Will I ever experience this kind of domestic bliss again?

I'm on day four of packing and haven't even finished the garage yet.
On my feet. LL Bean Blucher moccasins circa 1985. I found them in an box of old Princeton stuff.

Everything feels bittersweet.

So I have 14 days to pack up the house and get myself to New York.
I'm not sure I'm ready. Jenn left last night and is already in the mix of looking for a apartment (I can't have Jenn who is 5 months pregnant lifting heavy boxes). This snapshot was taken as she walked out the door for the last time:

Haven't done a damn thing about packing the house, but that seems like a minor issue right now. More importantly we went to the OB and found out the baby is a girl. Her first name will be Olivia after my grandmother. The middle name is still undetermined. This was a perfect birthday present for Jenn (in addition to the letterpress I am giving her).

In the evening we went out to the Buffalo Club to celebrate and enjoy what was left of her final day here.

I never thought I would rent again, but with the baby due in November and the short time we have, it seems like the most practical choice at least for this year. We don't want to be rushed into buying something and with a 60-90 day close we would be moving in just as Jenn is going into labor. So rent we must. There is no economic way to justify renting. It's money out the door. I hate it.