I’m so addled that I just bought three pairs of shoes in one afternoon. Granted, there were sales involved, and running shoes that are necessary because my current pair has destroyed one of my toes and I’ve been ignoring that hoping something will change for six months. But primarily I did it because I’m feeling low on impulse control right now and would like pretty things.

Of course, the real pretty things I would like are well-situated, spacious apartments with amenities. Brokers and I differ on what “amenities” are: they believe “oxygen,” “floorboards,” and “non-lead paint,” count as amenities, and expect you to pay top dollar for them. Consider this apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It is a boring, boxy 2 BR condo in a boring, boxy new tower built without any regard for neighborhood architecture; it is, furthermore, under 1000 square feet; and it is selling for nearly $1M. To which I say, “How? Does it come with leprechauns? Do the air vents release the musk of the great god Pan, making you sexually irresistible to anyone you fancy?”

Because otherwise that is a fucking waste of money. It drives me round the bend. Everywhere in north and south Brooklyn, people are willing–in direct contravention of the laws of god and man–to SETTLE, to get so little for so much. That makes it much more difficult for reasonable people like me to say, “How about I give you half a million dollars* and you give me light, space, safety, comfort, workable appliances, and even perhaps a tiny slice of the great outdoors?”

*Still, by the way, a HUGE amount of money!

It is not to be. Or, anyway, not yet. I will soldier on, boats against the current, until I find what I want: a reasonably-sized place for Ben and me to sit and ponder whether buying an apartment has finally made us adults. (Appropriately I’m currently reading this book: Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House.) “You act all twenty-something,” a friend told me recently, “but secretly you’re all thirty-something.” She’s sort of right: secretly I’m 45, and also 14. I want everything to be all settled and stable and yet I am also totally immature and unready for real life. I just want someone wiser to take care of me and make the important decisions on my behalf while I, well, buy shoes on the Internet.