Hi there. So, my company, following the rule of "the higher up you go, the less you have to pay for things," has alotted me a relocation budget for my summer living expenses. And here I am in NYC, looking for a short-term furnished sublet apartment. It is just as difficult to find as you might think. I walked about 235 miles (approximate) in Manhattan today, looking at places. All were your typical shoebox-sized places, but that's okay for four months (most of my belongings are staying elsewhere).

If you visited a 10-story building and were looking for apartment #23, what floor do you think that would be on? Two? That's what I thought. I walked into the elevator-less building and looked at the apartment numbers on the doors of the first floor and noted they were single-digit - 1, 2, 3, and 4. Huh. On the second floor, after finding 5, 6, 7, 8, it hit me that the building's numbering system was much simpler than I had imagined. Yep, it turns out, 23 is on the seventh floor. The bedroom is the size of a full bed plus an 18-inch border of floor around two sides of it. And the window looks out onto the roof, which would be fine, but means the machinery pumping air through the building is two feet from your bed. The living room is an okay size (about two parking spaces-big), and it's in the Village, and the furnishings aren't terrible. And at $1800, it's a bargain. I am serious. See how I am already thinking like a local?

The other place I saw today that didn't give me visions of myself composing suicide notes inside of them was a very, very small (I mean really, really small) sixth-floor place with nice, funky furnishings, windows with nothing but views of other close-by building walls, that happens to be on the magical Gramercy Park block where only that block's tenants get keys to access the pretty and well-manicured park in the middle. That one is $2400, with a one month's broker's fee - so $3000 a month, really. But the location! And the key to the park! And the elevator!!

Real estate is fun and everything, but having to make the decision between the lesser of two evils is my least favorite kind of decision. And I get anxious deciding whether puppies or kittens are cuter, so you know this is hard for me. I'm going to see some places tomorrow morning, hopefully, and might have to come back this weekend to see some more. Unless I just pick one of these two.