Like most people who work at desks for a living, my husband is slightly suspicious of my new freelance lifestyle. He called me the other day – a day when I was supposed to be looking at houses – and he heard the TV on in the background. "What are you doing, hon?" he asked.

"I'm watching 'Flip This House,'" I replied. "It's research."

Perhaps a result of the 72 straight hours of kidding I had to endure about that, I thought I'd do some nose-to-the-grindstone work: I put down the remote and picked up the telephone.  more...

Week 5: I'm still in start-up mode, waiting for the contracts with my partners to go through. I look forward to cruising around looking at houses, but for now I spend my time researching cars, since it's not clear to me whether I'll be better off leasing or getting a Zipcar. And, of course, I have to learn to drive.

If you live anywhere but New York City, you may wonder how a person could possibly hit the age of 38 without driving. The answer is a sad memory: when I was 15, my dad contracted a rare paralytic disease (imagine a fast-acting multiple sclerosis).  more...

After four weeks of real estate class, graduation! On Thursday I passed the state exam, which means I now have a New Jersey salesperson's license. And, Gentle Reader, I can't resist giving you the benefit of my whole four weeks of experience. If you're getting your license anywhere, read on:

• LEARN HALF THE MATH. The math-phobic in our class have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about the eight or so word problems they're going to face – only about 10 percent of the test!  more...

As I write this, I'm eating dinner at my desk. A pretty common occurrence for many of you, but then, my desk is also my coffee table, and my Aeron-chair-equivalent is the living room sofa. I think you can learn a lot about a person from the kind of office that they work in. My office looks pretty homey – but of course it's in my home. I am my own plant service, and, I must say, the begonias look crappy.  more...

I had forgotten about linoleum.

I don't mean the stuff you may have in your kitchen; that's underfoot, you clean it every now and then, and probably don't think about it. I mean good ol' classroom linoleum, where you count the squares, and scrutinize the edges to make sure they're lined up straight, and squint at the pattern of the black marks to find the face of Jesus.  more...