Apartment hunting

Spent yesterday looking for apartments online in and around Padadena. Is it worth $1300 for a 1 or tiny 2 bedroom apartment with antiquated fixtures in an old building and no central AC? I say no. Karla and I sat on my bed and sifted through the options, sending out the odd email, writing down phone numbers. This as much as anything else may have hastened our departure from Los Angeles. We recently went on a loft tour downtown, where studios go for $300000 and 1 bedrooms start at $350000, For comparison sake we took a look on craigslist Providence, where that could get us a three or four bedroom house, spacious and colorful. For a quiet writing soul such as my own, this sounds just about perfect right now. Of course, who knows what our jobs and financial situations would look like if we moved, but, hm, might be worth the risk at this point. What would be sacrificed in a departure from LA? Two or three friendships, the weather, a secure job, the small comfort of a "sense of place," the cosmopolitan sais quoi that every metropolis has. Another question arises, would we be following a call, or just leaving our dissatisfaction with LA? Yet another question, how tired am I of discussing postmodernism? Even in the second year of seminary, listening to other students evangelize postmodernism began to wear thin.
Speaking of which, I just heard from an old friend, Ben Snedeker, who is winding down his MFA in creative writing at Emerson College. We were together in a small writing class in college and I can't help but feel a little jealous, like this wouldn;t be financially feasible anymore, but is what I should have done instead of going to Fuller. In seminary, i was constantly looking for creative, thoughtful outlet, but never found something approaching the college writing workshop experience, and didn't foster that side of my art very much. Feel like I missed my window a little bit, but then again, I'm only 28. On the other hand, do I really want to keep racking up degrees and incur more and more debt? Why do I feel like I need the structure of a program to grow and be productive instead of just writing? No matter what decisions I make it seems, I'm weighed down by a sense of regret or lost opportunity. What would I regret if I got an MFA?
My friend Jonas called from Boston, with plans to potentially make a pitch for his uncle's multi-million dollar company. Going to the Northeast would bring me closer to this old friend. Maybe this budding businessman and soon-to-be groomsman in my wedding should sponsor my future MFA. =)