Call social services!

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The Neighbors

I've met some of our neighbors already. The house just north of us is home to A and B. A is English and blond and is always carting her toddler around. Her politeness is typically intense. Sometimes I hear the baby laughing and gurgling through our TV room wall, which is much more acceptable than lame techno beats and Busch-drenched frat boys shouting over fussball. B operates an antique store in Hampden, and we'll likely be shopping there soon for a dining room set. The house just south of us is home to E, who is a hoot. He's got dreads down to his ass, and when he saw me Saturday he put his hands in the air and yelled:

"Oh I have WAITED for this day! I have WAITED for a neighbor for 15 years, that old empty house raggedy for years and I have a NEIGHBOR AT LAST!" (vigorously shaking my hand and patting my shouler) "I'm a snowboarding instructor and I'm orginally from West Baltimore--love your hat, man!--and I am LATE FOR WORK but YOU WILL BE LOVED here, just watch out because somebody will probably slash your tires. They don't mean nothing by it, just kids you know--that is one NICE spoon back chair--man I got to go get PAID but thank you Jesus this City needs a HUG you know and it will HUG YOU BACK. I'm already planning a welcoming neighborhood brunch for y'all, ask anyone they'll tell you old E knows his way 'round in the kitchen, someday I'm going to run a hostel or B&B out of this house you know if I can get my shit TOGETHER. BLESSED BE I am so glad TODAY."

I was moving stuff around in the basement and the back patio two nights ago and wafting over from E's yard was a most intriguing smell, redolent of Dutch coffee houses and 1970's Econoline vans. Mental note: E has access to some primo.

Two houses north of us are L and her son G. She's Puerto Rican from Harlem, and he's half-black. They are extremely nice, and we actually met them the first time we viewed the house. Theirs was rehabbed by the same people, and she invited us in and showed us around so we could see if their work was holding up under habitation. It was.

Across the way I've met J, who told me the neighborhood is safe so long as you stay inside after nine pm, but I think (hope) he was joking. There are three more houses being rehabbed on our block, including both enormous turreted end units at the corner of Whitelock and Madison. Those will likely run more than half a mill when done.

I'll have pictures up as soon as I can get Verizon to turn on the damn phone and internet at home.

WTF?

Mr. Sanchez associates himself with a movement that would lock him away if it could.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

I see that while I was at an office birthday luncheon I missed some big news. Given the rampant criminality of this administration, a mere perjury/obstruction conviction of Cheney's trusted henchman is small consolation.

It feels good, however. And bigger fish may yet fall.

Now the hysterical and breathless condemnation of this verdict by the Beltway punditocracy shall commence. Spinning and likely pardoning will follow. But Patrick Fitzgerald said when he originally announced these charges that he couldn't charge the real crime because of an impenetrable web of dissembling spun by Scooter and Rove and their ilk, so disregard the hot air about this being a non-crime cover-up. You'll hear a lot of that malarky.

Haint that a shame, Part IX

The things are gone. Empty and cold. The things. Look. The door opens, the things are gone. The other door. No things. Gone so quickly. The people. Alone. I’m cold. We are cold. He is here but they are not. The attic window, closed. Another door open, the things are gone. Dark and cold. The wind and dark, no flame. They were here. Gone so quickly. We look. They are gone. We wait. Empty and cold. Alone. He moves along the stair. He is here. We are. He moves behind. The doors close. Empty and cold.


[Photo courtesy of Poptart.]

The First Supper

We've been in the new house since Thursday. It's funny how everything takes on an odd tone akin to nostalgia, as though we're borrowing perspective from the future and using it up now. Every 'first' is remarked, discussed, and associated with warm feelings. Awww, we're having our first meal in the new kitchen, or I just watched my first DVD in the new house*, or This insurance bill is our first piece of mail here, or Awwww, I just pinched my first loaf on Madison Ave. Such bullshit! The first meal in our new kitchen was great, I loved it, and it felt special to sit down with my wife and talk and eat and look around. But shouldn't every meal be like that? Does mere novelty explain that heightened emotional valuation? I don't know the answer, but I even had one of these awwww moments when I saw my first rat scamper across the parking pad.

What the fuck difference does it make if it's the first time we do something in the new house? The Buddhists are onto something with that 'living in the moment' stuff. Taking a bath in the whirlpool tub the first time is nice, but it should always be nice. I know for a fact however that in two years it'll be ho-hum, another bath in the whirlpool tub, whooopedy-do.

I suppose I can blame the exhausting moving process in part for making things feel so special right now. We've been living in chaos for months, and it's going to take another month to get settled in. Yesterday we bought some curtains and hung them for the first time in our new house(awww). Our first expedition to Ikea** to furnish the new place(awww). But the moved-in chaos is much better than the pre-move chaos as it doesn't have the actual moving chaos ahead of it.

I'm sore as hell after five straight days of heavy lifting. I took my first two Tylenol at the house Thursday, and have achieved my first 10 since. My hips, knees, and feet ache like a rotted tooth.

*It was David Cronenberg's ExistenZ. My own disassociation with reality following several days of heavy lifting and weeks of unsurety made this selection appropriate. That and the fact it was the DVD on top of the box I opened after setting up the TV room.

**I loathe the local Ikea. The customers there are the rudest, most hateful bunch of schmucks anywhere on the planet, with absolutely minimal regard for other human beings. If a meteor crashed into the damn building on a Sunday afternoon the planet Earth would benefit dramatically.***

***I would include my own loss as a Sunday Ikea shopper as also beneficial to Earth.****

****My boss/editor always corrects me when I put the definite article in front of Earth, as in "The Earth." She says "Earth is the planet, the earth is dirt." I argued that Earth often takes the definite article, and she said I was looney. The curriculum we were arguing over was written by me***** for a book called Voyage to the Center of THE EARTH, however, so I won the argument.

*****She also hates the passive voice, but then again the passive voice is also hated by me.

Striving for normalcy

We owe a big debt to those poor unfortunates stuck with helping us move last week. The Thursday crew did the heavy lifting--BroJ and Big Al and our parents put in a full day and Teeny Weeny lent a hand briefly.

Friday and Saturday we had a great deal of help with the de-junkifying of our old place, including again our folks and also Leesha who very kindly drove down from Manhattan and helped with such delightful tasks as cleaning out the attic. Earthdragon and Poptart RULE--they gave us much of their weekend, and enough beer doesn't exist to repay them. Sandstress even provided photography services before we left the old place, and had a final run-in with the restless door-opening entity there. K'wali and Klezma showed late Saturday and helped haul boxes up and down the steps as well. Our moms are the best: mine provided her much-needed Jeep pickup for trips to the dump and house and put in four solid days of labor, and Cha's kept us all fed, did a lot of cleaning and box pushing, and minimized our trips to the Goodwill by reclaiming half the stuff we were dumping. We can't forget my niece Danie either. In between packing and cleaning she entertained us with pink tennis ball juggling. Awesome.

Thanks also to those Evite respondees who were scheduled to come but who were cancelled because of the quick and efficient work of the other volunteers. You guys also rock.

Now I'm back at the job with a pile of editing to do, but I feel I can relax. Today was my first automotive commute to work in something like 13 years.