"At any given moment I'm only about 30 seconds away from losing my shit."

In the week since my last blog entry I have:

* Gotten further buried in an avalanche of work and freelance
* Found out that my new roommate had to back out the day she was to sign the lease
* Nearly had a nervous breakdown
* Scurried to find another roommate
* Nearly had another nervous breakdown
* Smoked 1.5 cigarettes bummed off a friend
* Drank 2 bottles of wine and other various beverages
* Spent $7 on a tiny but tasty amount of French blue cheese, which was like a moldy, tangy, creamy slice of heaven

What is it about finding a stranger to live in your home that is so fucking stressful? Perhaps stranger is the operative word here. Yes, I will find someone. Yes, it's only a week till the end of the month. Yes, my current roommate, although her stuff is now packed and on its way to California, said she's pay for April if I don't find anyone. But it's the uncertainty that I cannot stand.

And so to deal with my stress, I have fallen upon all my bad habits. Red wine, dark chocolate, food, and cigarettes. Mind you the cigarette and a half I smoked was a Marlboro Ultra Lite, which is really like smoking nicotine spiked air, but I'm really mad at myself for smoking again period. Actually what I really need is some weed. Yeah, some weed. Oh what I would give to be back in Amsterdam again . . .

"I'm not interested in living this far out."

I woke up to the unmistakable sound of gunshots last night. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. All in quick succession. Suddenly awake and my heart beating, my cheap alarm clock showed the black numbers of 2:30 am against fluorescent blue light. My cats, either awake from the gunshots or from my sudden stirring, had perked their heads up and were watching my movements intently from the foot of the bed. This had not been the first time I've heard gunshots, but they've usually been off in the distance and presumably from the dodgier sections north and east of me. These shots were nearby -- perhaps a block away. Laying back down against my pillows, I contemplated what I should do? Call the cops? My cell phone was only an arms length away. But I then found myself sinking further into my pillows and consoling myself with the assumption that there must be more actively engaged citizens who have probably already called 911. Ah yes, the false assumption that allows us to close our eyes and assume that someone else is taking care of it, the same assumption that allows to turn a blind eye to subway assholes heckling innocent people. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was that girl. I went back to sleep.

The irony is that I have been extolling the virtues of my neighborhood to prospective roommates. Ah yes, move to the other side of the Prospect Park where the living is cheap and you can enjoy the brownstone life. Dear readers, this is not cynicism. I actually enjoy living in my neighborhood. The gunshots are just an anomaly. Seriously. Oh wait. Forgot about that notorious murder last May.

So the roommate search is over. I went with the very qualified first and only person to see the apartment. The other people either flaked out on me or failed to respond to my email. One woman whom I had lined up to see the place last night at 7 pm called me at 7:50 pm to tell me that she "was not interested in living this far out." This far out? Christ, Coney Island is far out. Brownsville is far out. Pennsylvania is far out. Lady, you apparently live a couple blocks away from me so color me confused. After she proffered a couple more excuses for wasting my time, I said goodbye and hung up on her. The whole conversation restoked the flames of my stress and caused me to gulp deeply from my nearby glass of red wine.

When I later called the woman who is to be my new roommate and told her the place was hers, she started to cry.

Huh? "Hopefully those are tears of joy," I joked cautiously.

"Yes, yes," she insisted. "You don't know how many awful places I've seen."

Actually I could. I had my own joyous experiences back in October of 2005.

"I told everyone how awesome you were and how amazing your place was and hoping that I would get it."

"Well it's yours if you want it!"

"Yes!"

I won't tell her about the gunshots then.

"The city's falling down again."

In trying to construct a blog entry over the last few days, the best I could come up with was "SHIT! FUCK! GODDAMNIT! SO MUCH TO DO!" But since a string of expletives, though able to convey the level of stress I'm under, does not do much to explain the exact nature of the stress. Basically it boils down to work and freelance, which is like work but takes place during some mythical stretch called Free Time. And then my roommate, bless her heart, has chosen the worst possible time to move out.

I was surprised by the lack of responses I got to my two Craigslist ads. It could be that I don't exactly live in a fashionable neighborhood and I probably four responses each, but when you weed out the dudes (sorry, not ready to live with a man) and those who don't seem to tell me a lot about themselves, I'm not left with a whole lot of candidates. A very nice woman, and possibly whom I will choose, came on Saturday to look at the place. I'm new to this whole interviewing strangers to live with thing, so after she left I spent a series of phone calls talking to friends who were old hat at finding roommates. On one hand the woman was nice, on the other she was the first person to see the place. One friend suggested I hold an open house, but with all the freelance I have to do the thought of having people come by on Sunday was enough to edge me towards a panic attack. Indeed I've been nursing a stress headache for the last FIVE days. Someone else is supposed to see the place tonight, so I guess I'll be making an decision soon because I really don't have time to see anymore people.

Dating is obviously not a priority right now as you can tell. Lawyer Girl and I are still "friends" if friends means talking every day on the phone and hanging out one or twice a week. She made a cryptic remark on Friday when we were stuck in the snowstorm -- something to the effect that she likes what we are doing and if it leads to something she won't mind. Okay, whatever. You still want to start a family and settle down and leave the city and I am still very much not ready to have kids and love New York with all my heart and am never leaving. Yeah we'll see where this one goes. All I know is that I'm single and that, you know, might not be such a bad thing.

"I'm partial to brownstones."

It's a sort of fin de siècle here in Rougeland. While I am panicking a little because my roommate for all of four months has gotten a job in LA and will be moving pronto, I realize that I am no longer -- what -- young? No, that's not right. I no longer embody the characteristics of your average 20 something.

It took a Craigslist ad for me to realize this -- my Craiglist ad, my shot into cyberspace looking for a stranger to share my apartment. I think dating never seemed this fraught with the possibility of disaster. How do I describe that I don't want someone who's psychotic? As I attempted to do so I realized that there was heretofore unrealized sobriety (no, not that kind of sobriety) to the qualities I was looking for in a roommate.

Quiet.

Clean.

Dull.

Like me!

Upon editing the ad with more specifics about myself, I began to type the word "young" before the word professional as in "gay female young professional." Wait. At 28 years old was I a young professional? A young professional is 24, has a certain devil may care attitude, has a boyfriend in a band, and spends way too much disposable income on liquor. Then again, so do I. But 28 seems more mature, mid level career, and goal oriented. The realization weirded me out that I was spiritually moving into the ranks of the 30 year olds. In fact my ad has mostly attracted the attention of the 28-35 year old range.

Translation? I'm getting old(er). And what do I have to show for it? Two cats and roommate.

"However I am not looking for anything right now."

Modern dating (or not in this case) as conducted via texting. Backstory is that Lawyer Girl kissed me and asked me to go home with her as I put her into a cab outside of Ginger's on Saturday night. I politely declined as had a feeling that the end result would be bad. The conversation below happened on Sunday afternoon.

Me: So this whole kissing thing. What's going on? Are you just being friendly by asking me to go home with your or . . . ?

Lawyer Girl: This whole kissing thing. I do love to kiss. Home sorry about that. Guess that alcohol kicked in. Hope I wasn't rude if I was please accept my apology.

Me: You weren't rude and under different circumstances I would have loved to accept but it's not clear what you want -- if you're interested or only a friend.

Me: It's cool whatever you want. I like you and you are a beautiful woman but I need clarification :)

Lawyer Girl: Thank you. U r sweet! However I am not looking for anything right now. I am still finding me. I lost me for a little while.

Me: That's totally fine. Finding is good. Then let's keep it friends :)

Lawyer Girl: Sounds Perfect.

What's a girl to do?

"Be Scene!"

Much to my dismay, or at least my minor mistrust of social networking sites that cater to a sometimes marginalized subgroup, or could it be my mistrust of a social networking site so shamelessly shilled for on a cable show, I signed up for Our Chart. Let's see -- I have a MySpace page, a Friendster page, Flickr, LinkedIn, and God knows else in addition to this blog. Also I've met a couple of my blog readers in person, so the veil of anonymity is as thin as a bulimic model during fashion week. New York Magazine even wrote about this phenomena in a recent feature, but for some reason Our Chart seems like a leap into the deep unknown.

Quick sidenote for the straights and non-lesbians at home. Our Chart is a site that's billed as a MySpace for lesbians because apparently MySpace wasn't enough to contain us. Oh no. And that would be the end of its description had it not had its genesis on the L Word, a fictional cable show about the "real" lives of six or so Los Angeles based lesbians.

Hence the trepidation.

Actually here's the irrational rationalization of my fears. My stalker exgirlfriend finds me on Our Chart and commences with further stalking. She's already, presumably, found me on MySpace through another friend. So why have a MySpace page et al you ask if I'm afraid of stalkers and severing the last threads of anonymity? Well because I am an internet addict and slightly curious about this whole Our Chart thing.

After some technical difficulties, I signed up and started to fill out my personal-ish info. One of the boxes asked if I'd like to have "aggressive notification of new messages"? What the fuck does that mean? Will Our Chart will be stalking me in true lesbian fashion. Um okay, I guess. Way to keep it real, ladies.

So my review of Our Chart? Well it's not so much a MySpace as an actualization of a concept developed by a fictional television character. The fuctionality of the site is pretty basic -- no music to upload, testimonials, and other MySpace-esqe features. But what it does feature is The Chart, a digital version of the flow chart once drawn on bar napkins to illustrate how my exgirlfriend's exgirlfriend went to college with me and was friends with . . . you get the point. Yes the lesbian pond is small and here's a way to frighteningly realize that we're all connected and we've all slept with each others exes.

Awesome.

"What are your goals?"

Like most little girls with a fondness for sparkles and playing dress up, I wanted to be a princess.* As I got older and more aware that I was neither of royal birth nor princess a viable career goal, I set my sights elsewhere. By fifth grade I wanted to be a writer, urged on by a teacher who could see that I had an above average ability to string words together in an artful manner. Then I wanted to be a meteorologist followed by an astronomer. My parents, probably pleasantly surprised that I was naturally steering towards the sciences, bought me various gifts that other nine year olds would have turned their noses up at -- a microscope, a toy that created a planetarium in my darkened bedroom, and an Audubon field guide to the night sky.

Unfortunately for my nascent career goals, my father gently reminded me that I would need to learn physics in order to become an astronomer. Physics?! Though I was a smart girl, I had struggled with math since third grade when the concept of long division had utterly failed to compute. I even had to take Algebra II twice since Mr. Wolfe gave me a D in seventh grade math. And twenty years later (and having long since mastered long division though fuzzy on the concepts of algebra), I am still bitter about being tossed from smart kids math to the remedial level. It was a serious blow to my confidence. If only my teachers had realized that I needed to learn abstract concepts in a non traditional way and I might have been a scientist!

Let us pause while I shake my fist at the ceiling.

After jettisoning my astronomy plans, I fell back into earth sciences, meteorology, and later writing. I even went to college for writing, but when my aspirations were eviscerated by mean grad students, I came back to art -- my first love. I taught myself graphic design, even used my scientific curiosity to learn computers and HTML.

My point is that life changes, goals change, people change, we adapt to new outlooks. When I was out with Lawyer Girl and another friend of mine on Saturday for dinner, she asked us, "So does anyone have goals?"

Sure, we all have goals. Who doesn't?

She then went on to list all the very specific things she would like to achieve in her lifetime. Become a judge, live in suburbia, raise kids, live on the water, etc. "What are your goals?" she asked me.

I thought back to all the goals I had had during my life, from princess to astronomer. "If I've learned one thing in life," I answered, "is that everytime I think I have my path planned out, something comes out of nowhere to change it. I've learned to go with the flow as I would have never have guessed that I would have ended up in New York. I love the city, so my goal is to be here right now."

By answering Lawyer Girl and noting her very specific goals and her preference for suburbia, I somehow felt that I had answered myself out of the running. I thought Lawyer Girl couldn't possibly be interested in me when she learned that I had no qualms about raising children in the city -- if I wanted children, that is.

"You'd let your kids take the subway?! Wouldn't you worry something would happen to them?!"

"Sure, if I trusted them," I said passionately. "I don't want to isolate my children at the end of a cul-de-sac."

Lawyer Girl looked at me incredulously. It seemed like we both had very different goals. Then again goals change and so do people. Can Lawyer Girl and I bridge our differences? Hang on, am I even dating her in the first place?? My new goal is to find out what is going on between us.


* I suddenly realize that had I started out life as a little boy with a fondness for sparkles and playing dress up, I would have ended up a drag queen. Yet as a girl I still ended up gay. Those are the mysteries of life, my friends.

"Hey cutie in the sexy new glasses."

I don't really have much to say other than I think I am getting bored of my own love life. I don't really have much to report anyway other than an increase in texting between Lawyer Girl and I -- not exactly a plot advancement. And I didn't even hear from Cute Girl, not that I expected to.

So in the interest in keeping you all, my gentle readers, from getting bored, I present you with this random assortment of things.

* My new glasses.

* The second pair I purchased as a back up in case I'm an idiot again and leave them at the bar.

* The first issue in the new Buffy comic comes out March 14, but you can download it for free here. The storyline picks up right where the television show left off. Awesome.

* Switzerland accidentally invaded Liechtenstein. Ooops!

* Finally, praise for the overly large female backside. If only all lesbians were so badonkadonk lovin'.