Apartment Hunting in DC

To add to my job search, I am now in the midst of an apartment search in our fair city.  This basically means that I refresh Craigslist every five minutes, email my future roommates every time something looks even remotely interesting, and visit house after rowhouse after brownstone.  On the plus side, I’m meeting lots of great people and seeing a lot of DC.  (Okay, of NW).  On the minus side, finding an affordable three bedroom in this town is more difficult than we had imagined and it may take us a little longer than we originally thought to move.  But I don’t mind.  Although I am getting more and more anxious by the day to leave The Palace (Isn’t it funny how that works?  This place was perfect until I had to leave and now all I can see are the faults.  The mind is an amazing thing.), I am perfectly happy to wait to find the perfect place.

Meanwhile, between interviewing at legal temp agencies, pretending to get ready for my week in New York next week and refreshing Craigslist, I’ve also been working a lot at Local Department Store (which has gotten mind-numbingly slow after the holidays.  I know, I’m never happy.)  and meeting with and scheduling lots of informational interviews with pretty awesome and helpful people.  I also contracted Ebola last week which knocked me out for days and had me doing nothing but blowing my nose, inhaling cough drops and watching Six Feet Under.  That show is so depressing though, I think it kept me sick for an extra day.

So that’s my life at the moment.  It’s not bad actually.  Hanging with friends, looking for apartments, working, writing, sleeping.  I guess this is what “living” in a place is like?  I wouldn’t know, being new to the real world and all.  The last time I was in the “real world”, it was in a small town in Southern Louisiana and wasn’t actually real at all.  So I have no frame of reference here.

One thing I have discovered is that I really enjoy this whole “freelance” lifestyle of mine.  Well, 80% of the time, which is all I ask.  I like writing and scheduling my work hours so that I still have time to work out, volunteer, and meet with people during the day.  I like having a lot of different sources of income (I think I have like four part time jobs now) so that I’m not totally dependent on just one.  I like the idea of adding more projects and jobs that are short-term but allow me to add to my resume and experience without signing my life away.  I’ve never had a 9-5 office job that hasn’t made me want to kill myself.  Working as a freelancing consulting type girl might be fun.  Of course, I hate the uncertainty of not having a steady, dependable income every month.  And the fact that if one of the jobs falls through I may not be able to survive.  I hate not knowing if I’ll have something to do two weeks from now and, that if I do, it may not pay enough.  And now that I’m moving somewhere where I’ll have to pay rent and bills, I’m not sure this free and easy life will seem as sweet.  I also really hate not having health insurance.  And the fact that my student loans are going to be due pretty soon.  Shudder.  BUT, if I can find a couple of steady projects that pay the bills (like my writing and hopefully this legal temping if it works out), then I can have enough work to know I’ll survive at the very least, and have time to do all of the things that will help me build the kind of experience and career that I want to.  It’s worth thinking about.  Especially since I have yet to find a single job that actually looks interesting.  It’s so weird.  I’ve always been so focused and hard working and goal-oriented.  I’ve always had my shit together.  And now there’s nothing that I want to do with my life.  What happened to me?

Anyways, regardless of my lack of ability to succeed in life, for the moment, things are plodding along.  Oh!  And I went to Busboys and Poets for the first time last week.  I thought I had been there, I hadn’t, it was awesome, I will be going lots more.

Back to refreshing Craigslist!

Have a great rest of the week,

AGinDC