FLASH_____ FRIDAY: Moving On, Perhaps?

It has been a week without a post, and in my punitive mind this is not acceptable.

But I'm going to tell the punitive part of my mind to shut the fuck up so I can focus on the things that are making me feel good instead. Take THAT punitivity! You've been punitively powned.

I was planning on writing a long post about how this apartment search was making me go bonkers, but today I finally found a place that I will hopefully be able to call home.

I'm superstitious, so I'm not going to say anything more than that until I fork over the money and finalize the deed. Until my feet are planted firmly in Greenpoint and not in the hell-hole I call home right now.

Maybe I'm exaggerating. There was a time I was hopeful about my new apartment. Kensington was everything I thought I needed: space. nature. beautiful homes. closet space. the Q train.

But you know what Kensington is to me right now?

REGGAE.

The Boom Boomboomboom Boom vibrating through the chair, straight through my seated bum, making my heart pump spasmodically to the same beat. Blood pressure rising. Urge to thrust fist through floor and grab the nearest pothead I can find and scream so loud that my spit shoots down their throat. The woman with lopsided breasts, teeth missing, her face so shockingly busted that my eyes almost bulged out of my head the first time I saw her.

Don't lecture me. I'm allowed to be mean when I spend $1200 on a place that broods such aggression. Where you reach to grab your toothbrush and a cockroach says hello. Where hot water isn't hot. Even unexplained specters, fueled by the negative energy of our heated anger, have plagued us.

I will miss the antique Victorian homes....lazy afternoon brunches at Connie's....The walks in Prospect Park. Rocky's Pizza....The reliable Chinese place that gave us an extra soda for delivery....That store called "Tis Da Season Too."...The sign over the paternity test clinic that asks "Does he really have his father's eyes?"...The way the light comes through our windows during the day....the predominantly Jewish car wash....

Dear Kensington, you are not all to blame. In the beginning...it was good. But it's time for a change. Ive found a place with friendly neighbors and a landlord that might as well be my third grandmother. Where the neighborhood has hardly changed since 1920. The streets are vibrant and cozy, sharing the bustle of the city life and the charm of a main street suburb. Polish groceries on every corner. Friends that live only a subway ride away.

There's even a dishwasher.

So, I apologize for any disappointment in this Friday's post; it's not so much of a flashback, as much as it's a flashforward. Hopefully, into a better future.

And no more fucking reggae.