I owe you, dear readers, a week of On my way to Trust Markets. I have been diligently and dutifully taking these pictures, but until today I had no internets over here, which has caused quite a delay. But a nice gentleman from Comcast came to my house between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. today (read: 11:35 am) and I'm all hooked up. Internet withdrawal - begone!
There are some really awesome things about my new apartment, the most important of which is that it is all mine. No roommate/s! In all my years I've never had my own place and I think it is going to be really good. From my bathroom I can hear some traffic noise and my neighbors but in every other room in the apartment it's whisper quiet. Since in theory I'm supposed to be writing a book and a dissertation and a few talks right now, this is the greatest thing ever.
Here is something else wonderful:
Look, it's taken with my laptop iSight camera, and it's a weird picture, to be sure. BUT CHECK OUT THE TREES! From every window in my living room, bedroom, and kitchen I see a whole lot of trees. It's amazing. I know that in the winter all the leaves will be gone and I'll just see a bunch of backyards. But it's sunny and green and pretty to look at now, and the cat is super stoked to finally be able to bird watch again after four years of apartments with crappy views.
The slumlorded place I just left looks like something out of a Jacob Riis photograph. Since one of my dissertation chapters is on Riis, I didn't mind this so much. The front of the building was a looming, imposing Victorian townhouse, but the back - where my apartment was located - was a maze of fire escapes and brick, and you could probably reach into your neighbor's window from your own if you tried. Back in the air shaft - as my housemate called it - every sound reverberated and you couldn't always tell if it was sunny or overcast. You always knew if it was raining, though, because the sound of it pounding down on the metal fire escape maze was deafening.
Before that I lived in a graduate student apartment in another town. It was a ground floor apartment that happened to be right next to the bus stop for the campus shuttle. So there was always a smattering of stressed out graduate students mulling over math problems or whatever and staring into space outside, except staring into space usually meant they were staring into my bedroom and living room. Also, the path of least resistance to a cluster of other apartment buildings entailed walking between the bus stop and my window, so there was always a lot of foot traffic about a half meter from my bed. That combined with the contraband cat in a no pets apartment complex meant that the blinds were always down. It was dark and sad in there - fitting for graduate school, but not good for me or for the cat.
The new place is not perfect - it is small, and it is really going to break the bank for me. It's on one of the Grand Boulevards of Philadelphia which is much less desirable than the cute one-way street the air shaft apartment was on. But I don't even care. I'm glad to be here, and without any further ado I shall resume listening to old episodes of This American Life and unpacking.
