Bad Frog

As you are most likely aware, I have some bad habits.

One of them is smoking.

Another is spiraling downward into an uncontrollable panic at the drop of a hat.

I try not to let them get the best of me, really I do.

Unfortunately, these two tend to go hand in hand.

Yesterday, I saw an apartment. A really great apartment. The kind every New Yorker drools over for the simple fact that it is WAY below market value, due to being classified as a low-income apartment. As in, there is a maximum allowed income for the occupant.

Score!

Or so I thought.

So today I rushed over to the broker's office to drop off my application, secure in the fact that, for once, my poverty would prove to be a boon rather than a burden.

He called me a few hours later as I sat in a hairdresser's chair with bleach searing my scalp, and lo and behold, in addition to there being a maximum income requirement, there is also a minimum.

Which is about $2000/year lower than the max.

And about $6000/year more than I can prove that I make.

Fuck.

So I'm scrambling... oh lordy am I scrambling... to try to find a way to make this work.

But somewhere around 9:30pm, after submitting a resume to a job I could totally do (elementary level textbook editor), but am theoretically not at all qualified for, the panic hit... and I found myself sitting in the middle of my diningroom floor, sobbing uncontrollably, while my cat sat next to me, purring contentedly, clearly too senile to comprehend the difference between Happy Mommy and Wigging-The-Fuck-Out Mommy.

Ahhh... pets.

25 minutes later I had relocated to the couch and was attempting to watch South Park, but every 30 seconds or so another sob would break through.

So I did the only thing I could think of that would calm me down.

I went around the corner and bought a pack of fucking cigarettes, and smoked one on my stoop.

Then I came inside and bookmarked a zillion Craigslist ads, which I will apply to tomorrow.

Now I'm going to go smoke another.

This bad habit may make me feel guilty... but a least it keeps me off the floor.