Oh, give me a home . . .

(But forget about the buffalo-roaming thing.)

Yes, it's that time again. Time for Shorty to try to find a permanent (semi-permanent?), affordable, secure, convenient home in New York City. As you can see from the picture, I've already started my search. (I can't figure out if that is a cat or a very big tenement rat at my feet, but never mind.)

Currently, I'm in a high-priced, cute little studio apartment on the wonderful Upper East Side. It's a sublet (and truth be told, I don't know how up-and-up it is) - the couple I'm renting from own it but live in a larger place a few blocks away. They came to my rescue when I was unable to find something on my apartment-hunting expedition in April (and thanks, craigslist), but now I'm ready to move my stuff up from Atlanta and have a place of my own.

Another impetus (don't you love that word?) for moving now is that I've been presented with enormous utility bills (electricity, telephone, internet, cable TV) - more than twice what I was told they would be - and I just can't afford it. And no, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary electricity-wise to drive up the cost. Don't know if my landlord didn't have a grasp of the utility costs or if he just wanted me to rent so badly that he fudged it. But really - outrageous! Yikes!

So between wanting more space for my own furniture and the high maintenance costs of the studio apartment, I have no choice but to hit the road sooner than I was planning to do. Fortunately, I'm not as squeezed for time as I was in April - I can stay where I am as long as I want, until I find something else. But now I've got the bug and am ready to start searching.

So if you hear of anything near transportation that dumps off into Grand Central Station . . .