We’ve been planning for months, slowly boxing things up and making lists of things to do, but it’s hard to believe we’re moving out in just ten days. It’s not that I’m not excited to get out of here and go to our new place, it just seams surreal right now. As much as I just LOVE riding the sardine can that is the F line to and fro every day, I think what I’ll miss most about this neighborhood is the school up the street. Probably not for any reason you’re thinking, innocent or perverted. It’s one of those old, brick schools that could probably shrug off a direct hit from a few tons of explosives.
In my paranoid nightmare fantasies (no thanks to Max Brooks and Dave Wellington) I always imagine how I’d turn it into a fortress during the zombie apocalypse. Since they put up scaffolding to not do the emergency work they were supposed to do, oh, six months ago, it’s even better. Now the fortress has ramparts. Of course, it would only ever really work after most of the populace had fled or turned. God knows there’d be a large group of your huddled masses at the doors of any public building in case anything like that ever happened. With our new place I think it’d be easier to knock the wood stairs out, but we’re so close to other buildings that they’d either come in via the roof or the whole block would go up in flames. Oh well, new house, new escape plans for the apocalypse I guess.
Hopefully this move will also be a good turning point for Quin. Our plans of utilizing our dining room table never really happened here. I’m hoping he’ll start sitting at the table to eat, if only to save myself from having to sweep up yet more food crumbs from amongst his toys. We’re also going to try to kick him out of our bed… I mean, get him to sleep in his own bed. I don’t think it’s going to be too much trouble, really. I’m sure he’ll either come running to our bed or sit up screaming for a bit, but once he gets used to it he’ll be good. Tonight he fell asleep on top of the cushions for our couch that were stacked in front of the closet door. He was a bit fussy and overtired and so didn’t want to cuddle on the couch as per usual. If he can fall asleep there, I think we’ll have no problem with his own bed.
Kelly and Quin went up to her mom’s last week for Halloween. It was nice having the whole bed to myself, but it took some time to adjust. I didn’t sleep all that well without them in bed with me, even in my sleep I knew something was missing. Of course, I think I did get used to it by the last day, because when they got back I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t have any room… It was cold that night and Quin decided to curl up in a fetal position in my chest, and Nuit was nice and snuggled up to my back, leaving my approximately six inches to hold my breath in and god forbid I try to turn over…
Oh, so many things to say goodbye to here. Goodbye cockroaches, goodbye neighbors birds cheeping at 6am, goodbye neighbors playing loud Indian or Spanish music until three in the morning all summer long, goodbye unresponsive police department, goodbye strange homeless Indian man who changes his socks on my front stoop, goodbye drunk Mexican man who lays looking dead in the middle of the sidewalk, goodbye hoodlum school children (well, these specific hoodlum school children at least), goodbye non-air conditioned F train packed to the gills with po’ folk like me, goodbye train station who’s up escalators never work, goodbye police helicopter who so often shines a little light on me, goodbye flashing beacon from JFK that makes Kelly say “there’s lightning” every time it goes off, goodbye bulging ceiling and leaky radiators, goodbye peeling paint and rusting pipes, goodbye boiling water coming from my tap, goodbye neighbors who only understand english when you owe them money but especially not when they owe you money, goodbye neighbor who’s allergies are so bad that he has a dog, goodbye neighbors whose gate looks like the headboard to a very tacky bed, goodbye to the front door that always sticks, goodbye neighbor who locks the door behind you as soon as you step out but leaves all the ground floor windows wide open, goodbye wiring that causes bulbs to pop randomly long before they should, goodbye to the two-pronged electrical system that makes our lives so hazardous, goodbye to the sweaty two-pronged refrigerator that is well beyond its prime, goodbye to the cracks in the walls that show through twelve layers of white paint, goodbye Queens. and good night.
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