“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.”

I’ve been silent for the past several days. Essentially my left brain is sulking about the current state of my life, while the right side just wants to ignore the world and overdose on DVD replays of TV shows. I’ve been procrastinating about finding a new apartment and it’s coming down to the wire when my landlord would like me to leave. He’s a nice guy and we’ve become friends over the years, so I don’t begrudge him wanting to sell the place, but the timing has not been ideal for me.

I didn’t think much of this place when I moved in back in 2001 and I never really did anything to fix it up. What was meant to be temporary, turned into a seven year stay. Now I’ve come to enjoy this neighbourhood. Close to supermarket, baker, doctor, pharmacy, yet quiet residential, with plenty of greenery, and some nice running routes. So staying in the area would be nice and I thought I would luck out when I was told about an apartment on the 4th floor for rent, little smaller and same rent. Unfortunately, the French are rather anal when it comes to renting to people. My official status as a “micro enterprise” (think self-employed), despite making slightly better income than when I had a regular salary, have been at it officially for two years, and made my French tax declarations without issue isn’t good enough apparently.

So I’m stressing out big time. Had some skin irritation on my arm for about a month and a half, before the itching drove me to the doctor’s to do something about it. He thought it might have been stress related or that it didn’t go away because of stress. Oh hum. Next.

Even now, writing this blog, is just yet another distraction from what must be done. My worry of course is that no one will rent to a self-employed software developer, especially those that are managed by real estate & property management agencies, since they have more anal requirements. France can be a nice place to live, other times I wonder why I stay.