iCU

My iBook is on life-support and I'm not taking it well. She's been acting weird the last few days and I hate to report that last night she just, well, crashed. She froze up and wouldn't turn off without my force. Then she wouldn't turn on. She made a sound like a bad cough and seemed to hate me. This morning when she finally turned on her black screen had goobly all over it and in it was a message that said I needed to restart her, and at the very bottom of the screen she told me: Panic: we're hanging here.

PANIC!!!!!!! HANGING!!!!!!!!! My heart dropped, I threw on a sweater, dirty jeans and sneakers and rushed her to the nearest MacHospital: The Apple Store.

At the genius bar I sat, wringing my hands while the genius took her apart, hooked her up to other machines and told me, ooo, it doesn't look good. Her hard drive has died.

My iBook is a shell, a body, now a soulless entity that's in iCU for the next 7-10 business days.

***

The best thing about owning an Apple computer is that you feel like it becomes a part of you. PC users yell at their machines. I've literally spooned my iBook. Twice.

Apple owners are a special breed - usually artistic, a little nutty, a little quirky, a little hipster and a little stupid for paying that extra money for a machine you only type on. But Apple owners know the love.

And with Apple's marketing department, you can't help but fall in love. What's with making everything start with i? iBook. iLife, for goodness sake. iPod. iSkin. iSock. iTrip. It's you. You, you, you and your Apple product. This is very personal.

So when you own an Apple product for an extended period of time you become slightly obsessed. Your entire life changes. It becomes you, your mom, your dad, your brother, your dog and your iBook.

And when you open your iBook one morning and it tells you "Panic: we're hanging here" you can't help but panic yourself.

I don't even care that I never backed up data (shut up, I know, but I never thought it would happen to me!), I just want my baby back safe in time for Christmas.

Platinum Protection

In order to sign a lease on an apartment in New York City you must make at least 30-45 times the monthly rent. For a three bedroom apartment that is just *perfect* and happens to be in that nice part of Harlem and happens costs $2,400 a month, because of various city laws you must make at least $72,000 a year in order to rent the aforementioned apartment. But when three people try to rent the apartment - two of whom are 24, the third of which is an actor - it makes things a little more difficult.

Because I am 24 and do not have a job and am not married and do not make anywhere close to $72,000, or really even a third of that (which would be $24,000 a year), I am having a hard time leasing this apartment with my two comrades.

You see, it's been a hell of a year for me and it's looking like it's not going to cap off easily, it's going to... more like, bust the cap off and leave me thinking about how I'm 24 and have no money and no real job and no marriage, no assets or savings bonds or trust fund or anything - all of which seem to be requirements to move to New York City, which has been a dream of mine for about the last eight or nine years.

Because, you see, I'm ready. I'm ready to move, to move on, to have a job with a salary and end the year with just one W-2 that shows I made one chunk of change in one city in one state - a place I can call my home. For good.

But see, in New York City, if you cannot make 30-45 times the monthly rent you have to have guarantors - which everyone who is 24 has - and your guarantors must make 75-80 times the monthly rent, which means in order to rent that New York City apartment they must make at least $180,000 a year. Now, if you make $180,000 a year why would you want an apartment in Harlem...? Even if it is the nice part...

But you see all this red tape is so stressful because it's all back to money - it is - it's all about how much combined income you all make and your parents make and whether or not you'll have that one W-2 one job when you move to the city, but why would you get that one W-2 one job before you move when you have no place to live, but you cant get a place to live without having a job and it's just a case of what comes first the chicken or the egg, but we're not dealing with regular poultry here folks, it's more like a golden egg and possibly a platinum chicken.

Leave it to New York City to require you to have a platinum chicken.

But here we are, you see, December 1st 2005 and there are 30 days left to this year, this chapter I just want to be over. I do not want to be broke, I do not want to live in the house where I grew or up or in Los Angeles. I do not want to date stupid people and make bad choices. I want to begin. For real. But there are gobs and gobs and gobs of red tape in the way and I just want to scream out that you need to trust me, that I will pay my rent - just $800/mo it is, not 180K - I will make it work because I want it more than anything in the world right now.

Sadly, that is not enough.

I just want it to be over, you know? Over so it can really begin.