First Few Days…

Tonight is my third night in the new apartment, and so far I’m quite happy. The neighbors have been quiet, and I think I can chalk that up to luck (having met 5 young ladies who spent 10 minutes in the liquor store down the street buying a slew of different liquors, beers and cigar products…I don’t think the latter was intended for the smooth enjoyment of a mass-produced, cheap-ass cigar…who happen to live in the same apartment complex as me) but I’ll take it as long as possible. Once the summer’s over and school’s back in session, I imagine there may be more college-age kids running about. All I can say is if they keep me up all night, they better be feeding me drinks.

I plan to dig into the unpacking tomorrow and I’m still playing with the layout of the apartment in general. I think the room with the stairs-that-go-nowhere will become a reading room/library and potentially my office. I actually picked up a chair from someone advertising on craigslist.com just for that room. It’s a comfy chair that, according to the woman who owned it previously, was custom-built and that she had used it when she was a kid and brought it with her the rest of her life, getting it re-upholstered and having the internal foam re-done. I like that it has this kind of history, seeing that the woman is probably 20-25 years my senior. It’s solid, although it would benefit from another re-upholstering or a slip cover. Regardless, it’s a perfect fit for reading in that weird space.

Somewhat to my surprise, everyone I’ve met has been very friendly, and I’ve made it a point to be friendly as well. Even the girls who took up so much time at the liquor store thanked me for being patient as I was leaving. I’m really enjoying the strangeness of the space (the stairs, the weird den, the 18 foot ceilings in places, etc.) and the overall architecture of old, brick buildings that surrounds me. Even better, as soon as I walked out my front door to walk to the liquor store, I heard live blues music being played nearby. Turns out there’s a series of summer concerts that the city puts on one block over from my building. I stopped by that for a few moments and listened in before heading to pick up some beer. Gotta love that.

The capper is that, as I was walking home, I noticed that the city had erected a park right nearby my apartment complex: Jack Kerouac park. I’m going to check it out in between unpacking and being on-call tomorrow, but the fact that a beat is celebrated right outside my door is just too funky.

I’m sure as the weeks and months pass, I’ll discover annoying things about this place (just like anyplace), and I may end up getting asshole neighbors moving in something in the future; but for now, I’m really enjoying this apartment and the little bit of city I’ve had a chance to explore.

Did I mention there are multiple bars, liquor stores and Dunkin’ Donuts within walking distance? All the necessities…

This entry was posted on Friday, July 07th, 2006 at 11:56pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.