I have got to stop thinking about real estate

Thinking doesn't help. And yet I do it all the time. Troll the Web for new listings of apartments I can't afford and go to open houses of same. The essential problem is that we can't afford to live where we want to live and we don't want to live where we can afford to live. It seems a hopeless situation. Perhaps by writing about it I can come to some sort of control over my obsession. But I doubt it.

If this were a dating situation, I would be like a 47-year-old short, unattractive man with no money who keeps falling in love with supermodels and wonders why things never work out. And refuses to "settle."

We don't want to live somewhere where we fear for our lives arriving home at 2 a.m. or walking the dog at midnight. Next to Superfund brownfield site. In a four-story walkup where we must carry the dog up and down the stairs every time he wants to pee. In a 250-square-foot studio. In Weeahawken (though I am told it is nice). In an apartment that doesn't have an actual kitchen.

We want to live in civilization, someplace with street life and shops nearby, and not spend hours commuting daily. Near at least two subway lines so one can still get home on nights and weekends when there is track work (which there always is; the subway is 100 years old). With more than one closet. A kitchen with a window would be nice. Am I asking too much? Obviously, yes.

Somehow I have come to feel like I am waiting for my life to start; that it will only really start when I am living in a place I can call my own. This is a dangerous illusion, pernicious, actually.