These pretzels are making me thirsty

No, seriously---I'm eating pretzels, and they're making me thirsty.

But I am also having trouble organizing this post, and thus I decided to lead with a non-sequitur. I am by no means an experienced blogger, so I have not yet mastered the art of the pointed post.

Anyway, since returning from Thailand three weeks ago, my mind has been buzzing with activity and unfinished business. I had hoped to ease into the chaos that I knew would come in May and June and allow myself some time for reflection and reintegration from the disorientation and bizarre-ness of Southeast Asia. No such luck.

Much of my energy has been focused on finding an apartment, which, finally, we did, and we are signing our lease this week. Both Sarah and I had romanticized what we thought the search would be like; in the end, it was pretty degrading. At times, it even made me hate New York. One day, when I was tired of craigslist and fake apartment listings online, I started going door-to-door, asking doormen about vacancies and management companies. I wandered into the lobby of a building once occupied by an old friend of Sarah's, and approached the doorman confidently.

"Excuse me," I said, "Do you know if there are any vacancies in the building?"

"Coop,gottabuy," he mumbled quickly and almost incoherently, without looking up from his newspaper. Just then a 17-year-old, disheveled kid and his tattooed, heavily pierced girlfriend wandered through the lobby. The doorman immediately stood at attention, and greeted them enthusiastically.

"Good afternoon, sir!" he remarked, before returning to his seat and continuing to ignore me.

That experience neatly sums up what most of this apartment search has been like: I constantly feel as if I am not wealthy enough, not entitled enough, not worthy of being part of the Manhattan in-crowd. It's an ugly side of the reality of New York City life.

BUT, thanks to our lovely, charming and down-to-earth broker, Jay (I wouldn't believe such a person existed, either, if I hadn't met him myself), we found a place that we are quite happy with. A place that, overall, is a good compromise, and has helped me come to terms with the fact that adult life rarely lives up to the fantasies we have for it when we are children.

Yet in so many ways, it dramatically exceeds those fantasies.

Standing in the empty apartment with Sarah, I dreamt of endless possibility: what our apartment will look like, what our friends will think, what our lives will be like together. Some of these thoughts fill me with excitement, others provoke anxiety. The reality of moving in with someone truly sets in when you stand in a bare apartment together and plan the layout of your furniture as someone hands you a scary-looking document and requests your signatures. It isn't romantic, it isn't a fantasy---it's hard work, it's scary, and it can be incredibly stressful. I think I knew to expect this going in, but managed to deny it as the search began. But the process also filled me with an emotion that I didn't anticipate: pride.

Looking at Sarah, looking at our empty apartment full of possibility, knowing that I am starting my first real job, and knowing that we are working for all of this together really makes me proud.

And like I should probably stop eating these pretzels.