Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend

Sackett? I hardly knew it.

Today I looked at an apartment on Sackett Street and first I was thinking that Sackett sounds like something you do to someone or something, like Phuket, and then I was thinking that if I took it I could have ample opportunity for dumb puns like “Sackett to me!” and the more refined “It’s Sackett, to me.”

Thank God I didn’t take it when you really think about it.

Something I learned about apartments/real estate

The term pied-a-terre has nothing to do with gardens, apples, potatoes or feet! (It has to do with rich people!)

More Easy Pickles

Yesterday I wrote about how I misread a shop sign and thought it said “Easy Pickles” which I then imagined making frequent reference to when discussing running errands however just now I realized a couple more uses for Easy Pickles.

1) As a response to “cool beans.”

Person number one: I just bought these new Guatemalan pants
Person number two: right on
Person number one: cool beans
Person number two: easy pickles

Now, perhaps that’s not quite fair because in the above example both person number two and number one are of near equal levels of irritating as evidenced by the immediate use of “right on.” Here’s another, perhaps more realistic scenario:

Person number one: I’m going to check my mail
Person number two: cool beans
Person number one: easy pickles

2) As a passive-aggressive way to make someone feel vaguely self-conscious, along the lines of “easy, tiger!” but less playful, more insidious

Person number one: I’m going to eat some Cheetos!
Person number two: Easy, pickles!

Person number one’s inner monologue: “What? Did he just called me Pickles? I don’t get it. Should I get it? That’s weird. Do I eat too many Cheetos? What does that have to do with pickles? Do I smell like dill?”

For maximum mindfuckery I’d recommend tossing a THERE into it like this:

Person number one: I’m going to play xbox
Person number two: Easy there, pickles!

Today I was that a-hole with the camera

I wandered around Astoria today trying to see if would want to live there. Here are some photos from my journey.

In this first one I thought, “A pet store!!”

But then as I got closer I realized it’s totally not a pet store

And then here’s a cute street

And another

Here’s where you eat before you die:

Another cute street!

Some adorable whatever-they-ares:

And then back in Manhattan I discovered that Duane Reade is readying itself for bikini season

Easy Pickles

Today in Queens I passed a store called “Easy Pickins” but at first I thought it said “Easy Pickles” and I was imagining living near this store and how before long it would just become part of conversation and not even sound weird or funny to me when I talked about picking up my groceries at Easy Pickles or dropping off my clothes at Easy Pickles or getting my imaginary dog groomed at Easy Pickles. As is perhaps clear, I wasn’t sure what kind of establishment Easy Pickles would be, but I’m pretty sure I’d frequent it.

Then I had dinner with an ex in Brooklyn who casually let slip that to this day he remains a defender of my writing. Or maybe he said that he finds himself defending my writing. Whichever it is it just lodged in my brain like a grain of sand in an oyster, causing periodic discomfort and unleashing the full power of my ability to think the fuck out of something (defend my writing? what? who’s attacking it? no really, what did they say? huh? and the casual way you just tossed that off, as if I should know that people are openly disparaging my writing, as if perhaps I’m too sensitive for making an issue of this? I mean I guess that’s the price you pay for putting your words out there and as a writer I can’t expect that everyone is going to agree with me but it’s not like I’ve been courting controversy. Oh my God, do I really need approval this much? I don’t mean to make this all about me but can we back up and talk about that some more. No really, what?) and by the end of dinner I had a full-on brain pearl. I’m thinking of having it made into a tasteful brooch.

A dog, shoes, and the promenade

I was moving photos off my camera and onto my computer and found a few I thought I’d post. The first is Brooklyn Heights taken from the promenade yesterday when I was wandering around apartment hunting:

The second is a view of some trash in a trash can with the promenade in the back:

And then here’s Tobey from when my parents were here:

And here, too, is Tobey. Also? Some shoes.

I should get back to vlogging. I will do that soon, promise!

Dear Broker

Oh goody! Time for another “Dear Broker”!

Dear Broker,

I’m sorry that when I asked the square footage and you said, “I like to approach it a different way, what are you trying to accomplish?” I sort of ignored your question and just asked my question again using different words (“Do you know the dimensions?”) It’s just that I didn’t quite understand what you were getting at—what cruel irony that I didn’t know what YOU were trying to accomplish—but now that I do, I can say with confidence that I’m trying to “accomplish” finding out the square footage or dimensions of the apartment.

Nothing “cozy” please.

Alison

the way apartment hunting takes over your life and invades your thoughts

I was in the other room and the TV was on and I heard “A new study says New Yorkers are number one in the country when it comes to being evicted by email.” I thought: “Evicted by email?? Is that even legal?”

But then I realized they said “addicted to” email.

Incidentally, even though I saw two shoeboxes yesterday I was feeling pretty excited about the prospect of creating a new home for me and my imaginary dog but today I’m feeling pretty pessimistic about it. You know, in case you were wondering.