Honestly, I have a good life. I really do. Let’s forget for the moment that I am currently paying way too much to sublet a converted crawl space that leaks when it rains from a character whose name I am not really so sure about. I do have a good life. I travel. I have a good looking, smart, Spanish husband whom I love. I have good friends. I am pretty smart. I live in a fun part of the city. I am not disfigured. No major complaints, really. Yet, the ability to find a decent apartment in my neighborhood is beyond my reach. Knowing that there are people who manage to find enormous, sun filled lofts in the middle of Williamsburg and well, people like our neighbors who manage to find not just one nice apartment, but two is a thorn in my side.

It’s not luck. No, I don’t think so. Luck is finding a five dollar bill on the subway platform. Luck is getting hit by a car in Amsterdam while riding a bike and not wearing a helmet, flying through the air and landing on the pavement twenty feet from where you had been and standing up and brushing yourself off and feeling just a little shaken, but otherwise fine. Luck is when you wake up one morning, after a particularly restful night’s sleep and upon looking out the window, to see if it’s a nice day or not, see instead your neighbors in their bathrobes and pajamas kicking their charred and soggy belongings around with slippered feet and weeping and realize with a sudden, horrible jolt that two of the three buildings in your apartment complex have burned, pretty much to the ground while you were sleeping. This is luck. It is simple, inexplicable, stupid and unfair. For this reason, it should not be pushed, pressed, tried, questioned or relied on in any way.

No. I am pretty sure it is not luck at all, but skill and this is what makes me so mad. I lack the skills needed to find the perfect apartment.

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