Neat things afoot!

Guess what, chickens?

Tomorrow, barring any unlikely mishaps, I'm signing the lease on a one-bedroom apartment! Because it would be a shame to sully tradition after seven years, I am continuing to operate linearly by refusing to budge from East 2nd street--the new house (second story apartment of a family home this time--no more basements!) is on the same side of the street and everything. This time I am moving one block further away from the main drag, but I'm hoping the two minutes tacked onto my walk to the subway each morning won't prove to be too burdensome. The second best part about the move, to fit my particular circumstances anyway, is that the move-in date isn't until November 1st. This means no schlepping boxes in the dead of summer and no interference with my trip home for my ten-year reunion next weekend nor my trip to visit Annemarie in San Francisco the end of September. It also gives my current landlord plenty of heads-up and means I don't have to scramble like a madwoman to pack up my things. 

Oh! Oh! Guess what else?? There are things the new apartment has that this apartment does not have!! (indulge me here the way you would a slow child, okay?) 

--the new apartment has at least FOUR WINDOWS, maybe even more. At least two in the living room, two in the bedroom, maybe  even one in the kitchen!

--the new apartment has a clearly delineated boundaries  (read: WALLS and DOORS!) between each room, even the kitchen. I can be in my bedroom, and it will actually be DIFFERENT from being in the living room, and that will be DIFFERENT from being in the kitchen! 

--the new apartment has a  kitchen with counter space! Not much counter space, but space nonetheless (should I buy a toaster? A toaster oven? We'll have to see, I don't want to get too chi-chi)

--the new apartment has a recently re-surfaced BATHTUB and VANITY with a SINK!! 

--the new apartment has more than one closet! 

--the new house is child-free, and my securing the upstairs apartment was practically contingent on my quietness as a tenant and the assurance that I am not going to be playing Bocce on the hardwood floors at 2:00 AM, which sounds like a  cuckoo thing to do, yes, but I'm tempted to believe this is what goes on upstairs in my current residence a couple hundred times a month--so I totally catch what the new owners are throwin', though they might not have said it exactly in those terms.

My stars,  I could carry on, but I think my excitement is apparent. The lease isn't signed yet, and I obviously hope I'm not jinxing myself here by gushing, but I am still kind of shocked how easy the whole thing's been. Came home from trip upstate Sunday; farted around Craigslist later that night while I watched Mad Men and at one point said "oh what the hell," and punched 'Windsor Terrace' into the search engine,  not expecting to find a solitary place within my price range since even Kensington hasn't had a lot of options fitting my requirements, as the going rate for a non-luxed out one bedroom a few streets over seems to be between 1250-1400--forget WT, the going rate for my tiny neighborhood is practically on par with Park Slope now; suddenly spotted an innocuous ad for the one bedroom with very little description and no pictures, then saw it was my own street and freaked out--of course I emailed to set up a viewing Tuesday evening. Even if it proved to be a total crack house, how lazy would I have to be to not investigate steps from my front door? It was just luck that I was the first to respond and view the place, especially considering the ad was a few days old. However, my credit score and references KICK ASS, so it would be hard to find a better tenant on that front, if I may toot my own horn a bit. Toot! Luckily, the new landlord agreed. Found out I got the place Thursday night and have been celebrating ever since with Curly. Well, Curly is acting like her usual literal party pooping self, but she just doesn't realize how lucky she is to once again only have to be carted a block away as opposed to across town. So spoiled, that one! 

Yay! I'm finally going to live like an adult! Or something closer to one! Actually, no promises.

Tally-Ho!

We're off to upstate New York for the remainder of the week. Thursday I'll be going to the Six Flags at Darien Lake for the first time in probably a decade, followed by my very first Phish show at the next door amphitheater. I'm a decade behind the times on that front too, not by accident. Cor was smart to promise roller coasters as incentive to attend this show, because aside from a slight curiosity about what it's like to attend a Phish concert purely from a sociological, "fly on the wall" perspective, I can't stand Phish's music. Hell to the NO would I otherwise be stuck there faux jamming and getting a contact high in hippieville (maybe that's the real problem--a lot of people have told me that you kind of have to be high to love a Phish show, but unlike my commendable alcohol tolerance, my threshold for The Pot has always been nonexistent. I get really paranoid and introspective and ultimately jut find a corner to fall asleep in; not a great scenario for a concert, especially one where endless anti cathartic jam music is featured.) But roller coasters! Roller coasters make everything better!

The second half of the trip is what I'm most looking forward to. We will be guests at our friend Kert's wedding at a winery near beautiful Geneva, NY. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous. See you next week.

Another APW Beastie Boys tribute

I'm giving this year's All Points West a lackluster "meh." Realistically, though, even if we had went on Saturday when the weather was cooperative, there was no two hour rain delay, and presumably before the ground was a soggy, muddy mess, it still would have been a letdown for me: how does anything hold a candle to Radiohead? Also saw Andrew Bird for the first time at last years' festival, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

This year: everything rushed due to the delay, so Todd Barry, Christian Finnegan and Janeane Garafalo were only granted 10 minute sets. Cor and I got to the comedy tent in time to catch Christian and Janeane. Poor Janeane--some douchebag in the audience, not two minutes into her act, called out "when are you gonna tell some jokes?" and it COMPLETELY frazzled her.
From there we went to watch Akron/Family, We are Scientists, a little bit of Mogwai (snooooze) and Cory's favorite of the day's lineup, The Black Keys (admittedly rockin).

We caught a few minutes of Coldplay, but by the time they went on stage, I was exhausted and just wanted to go home and wash my mud-caked feet, so we caught an early ferry back to Battery City. Everybody was a-buzz about Friday night and Jay-Z's rendition of "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," but apparently Chris Martin had something up his sleeve as well. Sorry I missed this, but glad it was caught on camera. Neat!

Too Sexy for Ourselves!

We finally took a team picture! Hurrah! Seeing us warms my heart like so much cheap, sticky bourbon. What an attractive bunch of adults! And believe it or not, we are first in the standings right now. Go, Pornies!