And so we wandered

I went with a friend on Tuesday night on a trip to the Prison Ship Martyrs' monument in Fort Greene park. It was sort of happenstance because neither of us really had any intention of going to that park to see that monument, we just wandered, which seems a bit apt considering the state of things lately. And so we wandered.

The prison ship martyrs' monument is dedicated to the men and women who were imprisoned by the British, for want of prison facilities in New York, in former Royal Navy ships that have been described as rotting hulls with absolute hell-like conditions. You did not leave these ships, you entered and died and whatever was left of you was cast overboard to be collected and buried in a shallow grave.

They moved what can only be surmised as the long turned to dust remains of those who perished to the monument and buried them in a mass grave cyrpt. Upon the crypt they erected a massive column that nowadays plays hosts to park-goers and fat camp participants engaging in the "required" passive recreation (not my words but those of a sign that the city posted). Apparently what is considered passive recreation is a fat camp run by what can only be described as what a Nazi would look like if they wore athletic shorts and a sweatband.

I digress though, what this post is really about is the past and how we collectively and perhaps in turn, individually memorialize and move on when it comes to the past. Public monuments serve a purpose, obviously. But do they twenty, thirty, a century after the fact hold the same kind of value as they did when they were dedicated. Aside from those that demand that we re-call, remember and defend the memory of those who died in such large numbers, or in such tragic circumstances, or for a cause considered part of the very fabric of the nation, most public monuments are, after a while, simply nice places to sit in summer time. I'm not sure there is anything wrong with that either.

I leave you with an image of the Monument just before sunset.

Month #1

It has been over a month since my last update. I would say that time flies when you're having fun, but I've had to write 35+ pages, perform a song and dance for one class and do a reading lecture in the other, so not so much fun. Well, that's not entirely true either. I think my roommate and I have had a tremendous amount of fun, tempered with three weeks of me sitting on the couch, crying, consuming insane amount of sugar and carbs, typing, typing, typing. Thankfully I managed to get all my papers and work done AND managed to pull straight A's, but it did come at the price of developing a wicked case of bruxism. Really though, who needs teeth?!

Only in the past week or so has our apartment really come together, in fact my room is still only half painted. I tried to finish it before the housewarming party, but a combination of exhaustion and distractions foiled that intention. Even so the party went swimmingly, it sort of cemented things into place, certainly forced us to clear the boxes out of the front room and made sure we assembled the kitchen table. In short, we have become civilized. Also, apparently at my housewarming party, one of my delightful neighbors effectively called dibs on my sister as she was being buzzed in.

This month has also introduced us to the neighbors, who are a colorful bunch. As it's a rent controlled/stabilized, many family have come to occupy multiple apartments and have really started to treat the lobby area as a front room, lounge and sometimes even a screaming room. Thankfully because of how the apartment is constructed we don't really hear any noise unless it's immediately outside our door and even then no further than the front hallway.

I definitely enjoy living here. There's still a lot of work to be done, but slowly things are coming together. In fact, today I managed to 'fix' the faucet, which had become stuck in one awkward position but now can 'freely' (read as:man handled) into actually being useful. Mostly I like living here because I don't have to listen to anyone have sex every single night, that's sort of nice to not have to deal with anymore.

There will be more entries I promise. So far I have Kayaking, Museum trips and general fun planned. This summer will be the best one ever.

About that time I become fluent in Swedish.

I would have never thought when I started making the normal rounds of "Hey who wants to help me move", that Jesus would be game. That's right folks Jesus was here today for the first round of Apartment cleaning/moving/IKEA fun.

Let me explain.

I've been hanging out at our new place for most of the day in order to make sure I was here for the IKEA delivery people. Yeah it was 89 bucks to deliver what could easily fit into the back of my borrowed car, but who really wants to carry all that crap up two flights of stairs. Not me. Anyway, so after everything arrived safe and sound I really wanted to start setting up stuff and the most logical piece of furniture was obviously the sofa bed. So here I am sitting on the new sofa bed and guess who rang the door bell. Jesus! Well, not actually him, but one of his people trying to sell a doomsday newspaper called the Final Call. I assume they were proselytizers and not girl scouts, but that's only because they were middle aged men in suits, but maybe Girl Scouts of America is trying to reach a new demographic and I just refused the opportunity of girl scout cookies.

I'll no doubt have more to say about the new apartment. We're having folks over on Friday night to help paint and get toasted on Kosher Wine (don't judge, it's cheap and tastes like grape juice, what's not to love?!) so I will try to document the fun with photography!

Until then, take care.

An end to an Adventure

I'm thrilled to be able to announce the end of an adventure for this Brooklynite. Ladies and Gentlemen, I found the place to live, not just a place, but the place to live.

Although we did much journeying through most of Brooklyn, using criaglist et al. as our unwitting travel guides, my roommate and I, after wandering through Clinton Hill on the Saturday before Easter, decided that we really enjoyed living here and wanted to stay. The periphery is a nice combination of yuppie, hipster and ghetto, most importantly though, it's cheap and close to the subway, which means Manhattan is easily reached.

After what turned out to be a draining week filled with fake adverts and shady landlords, my roommate, with her blessed OCD found an advert that was posted 40 minutes before she logged on. To be honest, it sounded too good to be true, 1,200 for a two bedroom apartment, 3rd floor (2nd floor for you English) walk-up, with HUGE rooms, an eat-in kitchen, full living room and a bathroom, with a sink! (I neglected to mention the charming apartment we found in south, south park slope that I kid you not, had no sink in the bathroom). Either way, I scheduled an appointment right after work and discovered that it was actually legit, and gorgeous. We're talking Pre-war, solid construction, best of all, Rent Controlled. The Holy Grail of Apartments. I obviously jumped at the chance and had my roommate come right after work.

We put a deposit on it today and sunday I sign the lease. These types of apartments don't come on the market everyday, usually people move in and then the only way they leave is on a stretcher. To make the deal even sweeter, because I'm a poor student we qualify to enroll in the low-income housing program which was started by former mayor Guiliani in order to re-claim tenant occupied, but owner abandoned buildings, while also keeping low-income housing, so I'm only paying 1,015. I'm so thrilled.

I ventured from Brooklyn, but it was for Jesus, honest.

I write this having just returned from attending "the great Easter Vigil" at St. Thomas in midtown. Yes, I will take the hisses and boos from you dyed in the wool Brooklynites (if there are even any among you) who denounce such a besmirchment of my Brooklyn blog with tales of a foray into the whore to those whom will pony up the cash to buy her. But anyway. Yes folks we're gonna talk about god, go get your drink now, I'll wait.

My relationship with god (forgive me from quite literally yet unintentionally yoinking the phrase from some hick town preacher's pulpit and plopping it here, but I lack a better phrase) is a bit like a friend whom you call when you realize you've run out of plans and don't want to spend a night in, baking Easter eggs cookies (mightve happened just sayin'). Now granted if were to take the angry, I shall smite you heathen! approach of God, I should fully expect and deserve to have a ceiling that leaks, a roommate that squeaks and well you get the point, but I don't, I prefer to think of my luck as crap and my God as some similarly minded friend who calls me when he/she/it is bored, but otherwise leaves me to my devices (again, which might lead to baking, icing and packaging 3 dozen Easter cookies).

So that's that, it was an Anglican service which is mostly because I was tagging along with a friend, far more godly than I (hard to convince someone else to come to another sect's church, if you haven't actually been to services in 10 years). It was though quite nice and the choir and building was quite definitely worth the effort. Would I start attending again out of some god fearing/appreciation/respect/buddy-buddy feeling? Probably not, but I wouldn't mind going to another Anglican service if not for the choir then for the forced 2 1/2 hour contemplation time. It was quite nice to find some silence in a city (even in Brooklyn and don't you hipster naysayers claim otherwise) where peace is so rare.

We're leaving you, because we don't love you.

Last night was the talk. Now for anyone else, the "Hey we're moving out" talk would be casual, or at least not be nerve wrecking enough that anyone stumbling into my room last night would not find a small Asian girl and myself knocking back shots of polish vodka from the bottle to give us liquid courage. Instead exactly what you think happened happened. Both of us were literally shaking with nerves. It's a bit like how Margaret Cho explains long term, live-in break ups. It's very much like a game of trying to join an already started game of double dutch, at least for our other roommate apparently. It went from Oh, is that your margarine to OMFG WE HATE LIVING HERE AND WANT TO LEAVE, NOT SEPARATELY OF COURSE, BUT TOGETHER, BECAUSE WE LIKE EACH OTHER.

To be brief the phrase, "it's us, not you came up". She cried, said she really liked us, and we said "Oh well Brooklyn is a small place, I'm sure we'll see each other all the time". We were a hair away from giving the roommate version of break up sex. I assume of course such things exist. Either way it was awkward and we felt like we had actually broken up with her and then started making out in front of her, while she cried and self-harmed. It was not fun.

Of course, I would happily continue to bear this cross, if not for the fact that I just found my room advertised on craigslist for $50 less. Yep. Sorry, don't really feel like carrying the cross today Jesus, you're on your own.

So the apartment hunt is on. In New York I've discovered it's a bit of a marathon to the finish, (the finish of course does not involve a ribbon and water bottles, but instead homelessness) and so we're off!
Wish me luck on apartment hunting part deux. This time *should* be less awful than the first.

Oh, Hello Spring.

Brooklyn is absolutely gorgeous.
On walking to my cafe today (yes I did say my cafe. That's not to imply I own, control or in anyway have proper right to refer to it as my cafe, but it's as much mine as something can be and not actually peeing on it.) Anyway, while walking to my cafe I realized two things, first that it had been AGES since I updated my Blog. I'm afraid I don't have a good excuse for not updating sooner (unless of course you count having to go to IKEA, Recover from a Korean brought on hangover and new apartment hunting as worthy reasons). The second thing that I realized is that there's really no proper way to convey to you the weather right now.
There's a nice breeze out today that exists only in thought, not in actual form and it's just warm enough that if you walk in the shade you're delightfully lukewarm. Lukewarm as you should know, if you're to continue reading this is my favorite temperature. As a child, before discovering the concept of thermodynamic, I used to spend a good deal of time adjusting the taps in the bathroom to achieve that perfect water temperature and then line up cups to contain this wonderful water that felt like nothing, to save it for another day. Really though, I've done a crap job at describing to you how wonderful the temperature is outside, just take my word for it that if you're not here sitting next to me, you're missing out.

This gets me on another topic that I've been meaning to mention. The weather in Brooklyn>The weather in Manhattan. Whenever I leave my apartment I'm usually comfortable. However, no matter how prepared I am, the moment I step out of the subway and onto the street, whether to go to Hunter or just for my occasional forays into the concrete jungle, the weather is suddenly ramped up on steroids. Blistery cold, Horribly windy, Jungle hot. It never makes any sense. Manhattan clearly is a menopausal woman in desperate need of some plant estrogen.

Now obviously at this point you're begging me to stop rambling about menopause and the weather and how much of a dim, yet adorable child I was and get to the topic that you're all desperate to know more about: the news that I'm moving, again.

I'm afraid to say, even with access to a potentially wonderful backyard garden (stress the potential part), my cafe literally being 2 blocks down the street, the same cafe right near my laundromat, which means I can partake in Sangria Sundays while doing a load of wash, and even the wonderful smell of fried chicken wafting through the air, I am indeed still planning on moving.

You see my dear readers. I (and another girl, Claire), sublet from someone, when we originally came to visit and see the place we both were told that while this someone's boyfriend frequently was over, he had his own place in Flatbush, and was decidedly NOT a resident of the apartment. Quel Surprise, a month and a half later he hasn't slept at "his" place a single night. More so, we're now paying Manhattan Prices, for Manhattan-sized Space (the space divided by 4, not three) and basically going along for the traumatic ride of feeling like we're awkward groupies to a honeymoon. I, of course won't mention the fact that they're rediculously loud, I hear them every, single night, my ceiling and wall leaks like a bubbling waterfall in the rain and that I have to share a bathroom and shower with two people who regularly like to have group showers together, no I won't mention any of that, that would be petty.
Having come to one of those grand moments of OMG YOU TOO?! with Claire we have both decided to give notice on the 1st of April that we're moving out and we're currently searching for a 2 Bedroom place. So far our quest has produced some gorgeous albeit impractical results. Picture Pre-war apartment with bedrooms the size of a small house, for $1325. However the second bedroom had awkward glass doors, which made it more of a study off of the living room and less of an actual bedroom. Alas, there'll be more.

Suffice to say if you have two arms and legs and live within walking distance of a car, subway station or my old or future apartment, don't plan anything for the end of April, there's going to be beer and pizza and wonderfully light furniture to carry. I'm a big fan of blow up furniture, and so everything I own is light, ridiculously light and not heavy at all. I promise. You should probably bring a car if you have one, no reason in particular, just because I like cars, big spacious cars, with fold down backseats and strong people inside them, they're my favorite.