My landlady hates me because I'm moving...

... but it's ALL HER FAULT.

As if The Miami Herald, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, every other news outlet on the planet, and the many nearly empty new towers in the great area of Brickell weren't indicative enough that rental prices were down, I told her that she needed to re-think my rent.

She said no. Mrs. MBA thought that since her mortgage went up and I am apparently personally responsible for the state of the economy, that it was necessary that I paid more- even if I had better choices.

I said no. But I am such a nice person that just in case she thought I was kidding, I sent her some MLS listings of apartments in the area of comparable or better quality, and asked her to reconsider.

She said that under no circumstance would she lower my rent but that she would consider renewing my lease as it was. Then I went to London.

When I came back from London I was so tired that the thought of moving was too much for me to handle so I called her up and told her to send me a new lease AS LONG AS the terms remained the same.

She said okay. One month later I had nothing. Not a lease, not a confirmation e-mail-NOTHING.

Yesterday I found a great apartment. Beautiful. Perfect. New. On a 52nd floor so you can only imagine the view. It was outisde of my budget but somehow I managed to negotiate it down to less than what I am paying right now. I signed an application and got a lease.

Today my landlady is not happy. Quite frankly, she hates me.

But we are in a recession. I need to look after my own interests.
Plus it's not my fault she slacked off. And this place is so great!!!!

I am moving in 3 weeks.

"I wish you were here to make me a sandwich..."

The hard drive of my computer crashed a couple of days ago and while the fine people of Compaq are taking care of business (the laptop is still under warranty) I have been going nuts. I never realized how dependant of computers I am and how much time I spend around them.

This morning, for example, I woke up 10 minutes late and I did everything I usually do in the morning except for turning on my computer, checking my mail and reading my celebrity gossip and even so I managed to get to work 20 minutes early. How does that happen?

Onto other news, I am moving next week so in an effort to get everything ready, I have been looking at some furniture in the hopes that I'll find just the perfect things. I HATE SHOPPING FOR FURNITURE! and it's not even that I hate shopping for furniture per se, but I feel immensely pressured and it shouldn't be like that.

In my mind, furniture shopping should be enjoyable...but it's not. I keep worrying about what my apartment will look like if I don't have the couch, the loveseat, the ottoman, the coffee table, the dining table, the barstools, the bedframe, the night tables, the chest, the chair, the TV, the DVD player and the TV stand... and yet the only thing that I have found that I'm confident enough to buy, though it's probably what I need the least, is the TV. No matter how ugly the TV, it's still a TV...I wish I could say the same thing about the couch...

So yeah...Yvette was trying to comfort me yesterday by telling me that I don't HAVE to buy everything right away, but I obsess and I'm still obsessing. And I worry about what people will think if they come visit and I don't have a table, and I should be worried about other things, but right now...that's that.

My mother's mini-me

I am finally moving to my own place on March 1. Despite the fact that I've thoroughly enjoyed my stay chez Kat's, it's time for me to move on and get settled into what will hopefully be my place for a long time to come.

Because I have nothing, I've been buying stuff randomly on a need to use basis. I'll use it every once in a while and then pack it again and put it in the closet along with the rest of my stuff. Now that the sales have started I have been really taking advantage. I am weird in that way. I hate to spend money on stuff I don't need, and yet even though I know that I need kitchenware, I don't want to spend money buying it.

Anyway, upon stumbling across a Macy's catalogue today in the mail, I decided to get my sick ass out of bed and go buy some pots and pans. So I did. The sales guy must have thought there was something wrong with me because one by one I would stack up boxes on the counter in a very mechanical fashion without any help and without even saying a word.

In my time I've had my share of apartments to furnish and each time I have purchased certain items more out of familiarity than out of actual preference (ie- that's what my mom had when I was growing up), which is somewhat strange cosidering that I've always done a fine job of giving my mother heart attacks when it comes to my interior decorating. But even so, I know that I should always buy cutlery like so, flatware like so, glassware like so, and dinnerware like so. The pots and pans have to be a certain brand and I need lots of baking stuff because there is no life without Pyrex. Basically my mother's mini-me is in the Matha Stewart part of my subconscious.

So I get to the plates and I find this shelf with a really fun selection. This time around I thought I'd go pick colorful plates to go with my new colorful life. So I saw a nice display and went straight for it. It looked something like this.

But as I got closer I noticed the squared shaped plates. Next to the standard round plates. And I was like "whoa". I was completely taken aback by the fact that there were cool colorful squared plates next to the cool colorful round plates...those that my mother would certainly pick out. You know, the conservative ones. The ones that don't look like sushi plates.

I spent the next 20 minutes obsessing, all the while the sales guy was about to have a nervous breakdown thinking that I was going to drop one of them from hadling them so much (or maybe that I would infect them with my terrible cold by merely standing by them longer than necessary). Round. Squared. Round. Squared. Round. Squared.

My head started to hurt so I picked 8 settings of round plates. Halfway to the register though I was more like "no...the squared ones". Then the guy is putting them back and I was like "no. the round ones are the ones I need". The guy was getting annoyed but he obliged.

We are at the register, I am just about ready to pay and in one of those rare moments of clarity I was like "I like the squared plates. I want the squared plates".

I love my mother.

But I am not my mother and I am not about to turn into her just yet.