Lord, pull me down.
Last night was my first full night in the new apartment. Today, I completed the move, bringing the last of my stuff and making what will likely (hopefully) be the last circuit. It will be nice to no longer live right by a hospital.
Some time during my final week there, I heard a massive, ear-splitting crash out back. I forget what I was doing, but it fell right in the middle of a soundless interlude between music sessions. I took some time to finish what I was doing before curiosity propelled me out onto the balcony. A neighbor came out in her pink/purple robe, elderly woman named Nadine, and over the course of however long we were out there, she regaled me with stories of her family and the NSFW conversations she would have with her grandsons and nephews and whatnot about the perils of unprotected sex and the deviousness of pretend partners. The intersection of Howe and N. Frontage is particularly treacherous with lanes vanishing suddenly, the type of intersection that courts the impulse toward adventure within less-than-prudent drivers. Nadine had rushed outside "wearing almost nothing" because her grandson was working a late shift and this was around the time when he would usually get in touch with her and so, with failing eyesight, she squinted at the silver car that had made its way onto the sidewalk, smoke issuing from its hood. Across the intersection, a black car had spun around, the damage to its smoking front end left to our imagination. To Nadine's palpable relief, the silver car whose face faced us carried all white boys, no one resembling her grandson. Throughout the night, I gave her a play-by-play, noting the white kids issuing from the car, how one of them had brought himself to the ground, back against the gate, to rest what we would later discover was a leg injury. His mother's eventual arrival and his limping journey to the back of an ambulance confirmed our suspicions. I talked Nadine through the choreography of the night, the arrival of the ambulance trucks, the fire truck, the eventual arrival of the police, then the tow trucks and their drivers as they brought brooms out and danced the detritus up against the curbs. She talked to me "like one of her kids" because that's how I must have seemed to her at the time. (Earlier today, a YMCA front desk worker in my new building tried to get me to sign up by telling me about their graduating scale that pegged price to income and that a cut off for one rate was 26. Didn't have the heart to discourage her.)
The fire in my lats has subsided slightly, enough to make the prospect of sleep immensely attractive. Last night, I had my first Domino's pizza here (cashing in on that free one I'd earned) and started watching The Leftovers, which I most definitely expect to write about. I'd joked with a friend months back about writing about the show through the lens of the Gospel of Luke. I suspect further episodes may reveal just how appropriate the idea seems. The show is replete with religious imagery and false messiahs and every character is a sort of Job, almost as though each reality of Job in the multiverse were interacting with the other. When met with catastrophic, inexplicable loss, what do we do next? The pilot felt very much like a pilot, the show finding its feet and smacking me quite insistently over the head with explication of its thematic concerns.
What previously discouraged me from watching was how much people talked about what an emotionally devastating show it was, almost from the jump. Every episode seemed to be an advertisement for Prozac. But I've found those worries very much quieted. Maybe enough has happened to me personally that this has been rendered child's play; maybe I've seen enough other TV to make this palatable. Maybe those worries were outsized to begin with.
Today passed slowly. Not in an interminable fashion where I'm aching for it to end. Rather, the day expanded enough to accommodate the running of the day's errands, even some time outside enjoying the courtyard and a maybe-brief perambulation through the Yale Bookstore to redeem a gift card, gifted to me as a result of my dutiful spending. I live closer to the library now than I do the bookstore, so perhaps this will finally curb the habit. Lately, when attacked by uncertainty or momentous tasks or when stressors proliferate, I binge. Now that the worst is over, I can perhaps curb the habit a bit.
Speaking of expansive, the bathroom here, I joked to Mom earlier today, is big enough to get lost in. Both she and the youngest have already remarked on how I seem to have finally become an adult. Leveling up further will inevitably involve the cookbook A had gifted me on the occasion of a birthday.
I've seen only families here; or, mostly families. Some couples. Very rarely, the single adult. But those so far in the few days I've spent here most taking advantage of the capacious courtyard seem to do so in pairs or triples. Or, if we're counting pets, quadruples.
The quiet is so welcome here. I'm reminded of how I thought the same upon moving to my previous address. The ever-present sirens put an end to that, reminding me that I had indeed chosen to set up shop near to a hospital. But now, even though I live on a much-trafficked street with no shortage of heavy-volume restaurants beneath me, I think my level of quiet has nonetheless been upgraded. I see no students here yet. In the building or outside of it.
Much of the immediate future will likely be spent assembling furniture and doing cartwheels in this living room.
But for now, I've an essay to prep for submission.
Some time during my final week there, I heard a massive, ear-splitting crash out back. I forget what I was doing, but it fell right in the middle of a soundless interlude between music sessions. I took some time to finish what I was doing before curiosity propelled me out onto the balcony. A neighbor came out in her pink/purple robe, elderly woman named Nadine, and over the course of however long we were out there, she regaled me with stories of her family and the NSFW conversations she would have with her grandsons and nephews and whatnot about the perils of unprotected sex and the deviousness of pretend partners. The intersection of Howe and N. Frontage is particularly treacherous with lanes vanishing suddenly, the type of intersection that courts the impulse toward adventure within less-than-prudent drivers. Nadine had rushed outside "wearing almost nothing" because her grandson was working a late shift and this was around the time when he would usually get in touch with her and so, with failing eyesight, she squinted at the silver car that had made its way onto the sidewalk, smoke issuing from its hood. Across the intersection, a black car had spun around, the damage to its smoking front end left to our imagination. To Nadine's palpable relief, the silver car whose face faced us carried all white boys, no one resembling her grandson. Throughout the night, I gave her a play-by-play, noting the white kids issuing from the car, how one of them had brought himself to the ground, back against the gate, to rest what we would later discover was a leg injury. His mother's eventual arrival and his limping journey to the back of an ambulance confirmed our suspicions. I talked Nadine through the choreography of the night, the arrival of the ambulance trucks, the fire truck, the eventual arrival of the police, then the tow trucks and their drivers as they brought brooms out and danced the detritus up against the curbs. She talked to me "like one of her kids" because that's how I must have seemed to her at the time. (Earlier today, a YMCA front desk worker in my new building tried to get me to sign up by telling me about their graduating scale that pegged price to income and that a cut off for one rate was 26. Didn't have the heart to discourage her.)
The fire in my lats has subsided slightly, enough to make the prospect of sleep immensely attractive. Last night, I had my first Domino's pizza here (cashing in on that free one I'd earned) and started watching The Leftovers, which I most definitely expect to write about. I'd joked with a friend months back about writing about the show through the lens of the Gospel of Luke. I suspect further episodes may reveal just how appropriate the idea seems. The show is replete with religious imagery and false messiahs and every character is a sort of Job, almost as though each reality of Job in the multiverse were interacting with the other. When met with catastrophic, inexplicable loss, what do we do next? The pilot felt very much like a pilot, the show finding its feet and smacking me quite insistently over the head with explication of its thematic concerns.
What previously discouraged me from watching was how much people talked about what an emotionally devastating show it was, almost from the jump. Every episode seemed to be an advertisement for Prozac. But I've found those worries very much quieted. Maybe enough has happened to me personally that this has been rendered child's play; maybe I've seen enough other TV to make this palatable. Maybe those worries were outsized to begin with.
Today passed slowly. Not in an interminable fashion where I'm aching for it to end. Rather, the day expanded enough to accommodate the running of the day's errands, even some time outside enjoying the courtyard and a maybe-brief perambulation through the Yale Bookstore to redeem a gift card, gifted to me as a result of my dutiful spending. I live closer to the library now than I do the bookstore, so perhaps this will finally curb the habit. Lately, when attacked by uncertainty or momentous tasks or when stressors proliferate, I binge. Now that the worst is over, I can perhaps curb the habit a bit.
Speaking of expansive, the bathroom here, I joked to Mom earlier today, is big enough to get lost in. Both she and the youngest have already remarked on how I seem to have finally become an adult. Leveling up further will inevitably involve the cookbook A had gifted me on the occasion of a birthday.
I've seen only families here; or, mostly families. Some couples. Very rarely, the single adult. But those so far in the few days I've spent here most taking advantage of the capacious courtyard seem to do so in pairs or triples. Or, if we're counting pets, quadruples.
The quiet is so welcome here. I'm reminded of how I thought the same upon moving to my previous address. The ever-present sirens put an end to that, reminding me that I had indeed chosen to set up shop near to a hospital. But now, even though I live on a much-trafficked street with no shortage of heavy-volume restaurants beneath me, I think my level of quiet has nonetheless been upgraded. I see no students here yet. In the building or outside of it.
Much of the immediate future will likely be spent assembling furniture and doing cartwheels in this living room.
But for now, I've an essay to prep for submission.