Happy birthday... to me

WELL. It's 1:17 am. I am officially 23 years old.

Birthdays... aren't that important, you know? I used to demand to be treated like royalty on the anniversary of my emergence from mom's cave. Now I'm just like meh. I mean, I like being pampered, and I LOVE any excuse to party (ie St. Paddy's day, Cinco de Mayo, and other not so real holidays during which we Americans like to go get plastered).

Point is I am not as crazy about my birthday as I used to be.

This birthday, in particular, is extra sucky because I will be attending my first grueling day of classes. This whole moving out ordeal has been a pain, mainly because finding a decent place to live in DC is like finding a needle in a haystack. A very freakin expensive needle, I might add.

Let me bitch some more about my apartment hunting. Today I was supposed to finalize the rent agreement with a man whose basement I was going to be living in. It's a nice basement, with a kitchenette and a bathroom and a lot of space. Walking distance from school. Close to market and a laundromat and a bunch of other neat stuff.
His wife called today and left a message saying that the girl who was supposed to leave decided to stay. DAMNIT.

SOOOOO I went and checked out one last apartment with my dad, who has been with me through this whole process (thank God for overprotective dads). Fully furnished, one or two buses away from school (only 3 miles, though), very nice. We got the dude to knock off a hundred smackaroos from the rent. I found out a friend of mine lives really close by, also. BAM, after a morning of disappoinment we had an afternoon of bliss. All our troubles seemed so far away....

...until...

I googled the damn place. WHY did I do it? Just to show a friend a picture of my new awesome apartment. Woo hoo. The third search result was something from a website called "apartmentratings.com" with ratings for my future abode. Holy shit. There were all sorts of complaints, including two about poorly sealed windows and bugs getting in. EEEW! Some other complaints were:

-poor management
-bad insulation on the windows (so you freeze your ass of in the winter)
-the radiator spews fluid
-bad maintenance
-thin walls- you can hear what your neighbor is thinking

and more.

There were some positive reviews but overall the place got a 38%. I don't know, but 38% is not so wonderful.

Then I checked out the rents. The guy is charging me LESS than the rent he is paying. WEIRD. Makes me think there's a reason for that. I'm so scared!

NOW... I'm just gonna stick with it if it is a month to month lease. If not, I'm gonna have to ask some serious questions.

Enough ranting for now. I hope my birthday/first day of school is not crap-o-riffic.

Oh yeah, back to my birthday. I must say, being in a relationship with a great person is really sweet, and when you loose that relationship, it's days like your birthday that make you remember nice times. It's not cause of the presents, it's more because you're sharing a special time with someone you love/who loves you. And the presents are always nice too.

Great, now I'm feeling a bit discombobulated. If you ordered a "Marianatini right now, it would be:
One part loneliness,
two parts frustration,
a splash of I'm-getting-old-what-a-waste-of-life-I-am depression.

Don't forget the olives.

No, no, I'm just being melodramatic. I am not depressed, old, or a waste of life. (just a splash, I said). I know better than to be thinking that way. I am a lucky girl with an ed-u-ma-cation and the potential to do whatever I want. Sometimes my mind gets cloudy and I forget that. yada yada yada...

AND SO, I face tomorrow with a smile on my face and my friends in my heart. I wish they could be here to celebrate my super important special holiday that has somewhat lost its luster but not completely as has been made evident to me through writing this blog and concluding it with that "my birthday is important" feeling. Did that sentence make sense? Maybe I should get to bed.