Pre-War

I met some of my neighbors tonight! It's pretty exciting. As I may or may not have mentioned, my building is largely occupied by one enormous extended family...relatives of the landlord. The landlord is actually the nephew of some uber-landlord, and somehow acquired this building from Uncle Ownesman-Hattan. So he lives on the second floor with his wife and daughter, and some other large portion of the family lives on the fourth floor (they're above me, so it's a little harder to tell who's where). We're on the third floor, in the smaller apartment, and Gertrude lives in the larger apartment. I've never met Gertrude, but Amy has. She seemed nice, I believe. As far as I knew, the fifth floor was totally unoccupied and currently under renovation. Not so!

I was coming home from transferring the laundry from washer to dryer when I see two men around 60 standing outside searching through their keys. I opened the door for them, and one asked me, "Did you just move in?" "Oh, a couple of months ago," I said. "You?" "We've been living here for 35 years." So a while, then. Actually, I believe my cousin Larry's done the same thing...stayed in the same Hell's Kitchen apartment since he first came to New York with the dream of acting. And the often rent-stabilized neighborhood changed around him, just as it changed around these guys. They've been here since 12 years before my landlord was born. Hardcore. Very hardcore.

But also incredibly endearing. To have that kind of immediate stability—same space, same person—for 35 years has an enormous appeal to it. It's almost like living a quiet country life in the heart of the nation's biggest city. I guess that's just what marriage is...the ability to have home, to have intimacy, to have a comforting anchor besides yourself in the most otherwise worldly of circumstances. I look at these guys, and I look at the couple from Thailand who runs the laundromat (I was teaching them some English words last week) and, even though they work together and live together, seem so happy in each other's presence and so comfortable in their banter, and I realize that I really, really do want to get married someday. And not just to any good guy, but someone I feel a real comfort and intimacy with. It's not about the structure for me...the picket fence (ew), the kids' soccer games (the hideous memories!), the community organizations. It's about finding someone who feels like home. I think that's a reasonable goal for the next 20 years or so...

Never Say Die

So, it's been a month. That's a little over the top on the blogging neglect, but I haven't been feeling the urge much lately. Still, as the post title advises, I never say die.

Amy's heading to Italy for a month, so I'll be somewhat lonelier and therefore somewhat more likely to blog. This will be good for anyone who's still reading, even with the break. I will, however, be getting a temporary roommate, this dude Brook who used to date my friend Lara and ran into Amy as they were both traveling the world. I saw his documentary about his trip, and he seems reasonably cool, so I'm not fearing for my life or anything. It'll be an interesting experience to suddenly be rooming with someone I've never met. We shall see how that goes.

This weekend's been lovely and low key but not dull. Friday night I saw Festen with mom, a play I wouldn't recommend, but if you have to go, no need to weasel your way out of it. It was pretty trite and some of the acting was heinous (cough)Ali McGraw(/cough), but I wasn't sleeping through it, which is more than I can say for anything written by Eugene O'Neill. Right.

Yesterday I went to the gym (the guns are shaping up!) and had went with Ethan to Joe: The Art of Coffee (a coffee shop, not a movie). Nice place...I think I prefer Esperanto and the Hungarian Pastry Shop, but I'll put it in third place, still above The Coffee Pot. That's just in Manhattan, of course. Slave to the Grind still reigns supreme as the unsurpassed paragon of coffee shop greatness. If anybody knows any other awesome ones in Manhattan, recommendations are always appreciated. After time with Ethan, I hung around for a while, doing crosswords. I'd kept the evening free so I could buy Mike alcohol after the (NINE HOUR!) MCAT if he didn't feel like mush. He felt like mush. So around 10 PM, I took the train down to see Cat's beautiful (albeit messy) new apartment in the East Village, and then we met Evan for a bite at Yaffa. Good stuff, fun conversation.

This morning I met V for brunch, which was lovely as always. We went to the eatery (it would be a capital e if its logo weren't a large lower-case e) and I got a great poached eggs dish. It was delicious, as were some of the other customers. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, chatted and parted ways. I was somewhat impressed that Vaughan just drove in this morning despite the downpour, no questions. I think I have a lot of friends who would just call to say they didn't want to face the rain (or get out of bed) and cancel on me with hardly an apology. Props to V for not canceling. Afterwards I got coffee with Greg, and we went over the outline for his next game. I'm really excited for it...the game sounds like tons of fun, infused, as always, with his great wit and knack for creating amusing, tough-but-doable puzzles. It's going to be much longer than the first game, with better art. And he's got a new concept for the music, which should make for a more fluid and subtly diverse score. And he's got a marketing scheme up his sleeve that may work wonders. I'm going to help develop that aspect.

Now I'm just hanging around. I did the Sunday puzzle and chatted with Natalia, and I'll heat up some soup for dinner pretty soon. Good times, great oldies. Sadly, Kool 96.7 seems to be gone with the wind. It's upsetting to lose something from my formative years.

Goal for this week: Be as not tired and therefore productive at work as I was last week. I've had quite a few weeks of total exhaustion and slow research. I finally picked up the pace last week and got a bunch done for an upcoming article. Rock out.