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.

Jamaican Me Crazy!

I am in the middle of a tumultuous love/hate relationship with my apartment right now. In all relationships, I suppose there are ups and downs. But I fear there is no compromise to be made on this one. The whole situation has become a prolonged agony; a torment between having to make a huge change that involves time, money and stress, or dealing with daily, nerve-wracking irritations that threaten a healthy, happy lifestyle.

Kensington ain't all its cracked up to be.....despite the obvious dinosaur.

I hate apartment hunting.

In the past six years or so, I have moved about....ehh.....I would say 10 times. This is a lot of schlepping, a lot of picking and choosing, a lot of money. And it seems that every time I move I end up spending more than I did last time.

I'm sick of it.

I thought that when I moved to Kensington, I'd be done. A place of my own....and in Brooklyn! (Elmhurst, Queens was not a happening place.) But no; yet again, there are problems...even worse than before, when it was just about space and location. Now it's a matter of sanity.

Let's review the pro's and con's of my Kensington abode....

PRO's (I'm not leaving the best for last, 'cause I'm eager to end loudly on the angry points)

• Proximity to @ Prospect Park - it's only a couple of blocks away to trees, greenery and ducks
• Proximity to Q Train - we all know this is the only reliable, true Express train
• Over 700 sq. ft of room.....for all of our crap; ie, clothes, books, paperwork, somebody's eclectic record/DVD/CD collection, more clothes, more books......
• Sunny - almost too much so, but I need my Vitamin D since I never get to see the light of day during 10+ working hours
  
• Cheapo - $1200 a month is a good price these days for a place that doesn't resemble a dilapidated cardboard box

CON's
Neighborhood - though very mutli-cultural, there is not much to do for a twenty-something (who hardly gets free time in the first place). No one likes to visit "us all the way out here" (by the way: fuck you "no one"), and there are no restaurants that stay open passed 7pm....except for KFC. And we've relented on the fried chicken many times, much to the dismay of our bowels.

Landords - are useless. They smoke pot all day - which, whatever, I don't have a problem with - but if this keeps you from say, doing your job, then I would say it's a problem. Also, still waiting for him to fix the radiator which is emitting massive amounts of heat. We need to keep the window open and the fan on in the middle of winter just to breathe.

Cockroaches - they are in my sink. Their babies are under the coffee maker. They are dead in my toaster and their carcasses are hiding in my cabinets. Disembodied bug legs and antennae are causing us allergies. Cooking? What, so I can have some roach eggs in my soup? I don't think so.

We also had to chase a silverfish before it got to our bed. Do you know how fast those things are? It moves like a fucking cheetah on speed.....only with SIXTEEN LEGS. Yeah, not happy.

Mice - doesn't worry me too much. I think they are coming from the apartment below us, which leads me to my next crucial point....

Noise - this encompasses many things:

• ...the Jamaicans below us playing shitty reggae at all hours of the day AND night, which shakes our walls and floors, and beats repetitively under our pillows
• ...those same Jamaicans throwing things around their apartment as they SCREAM at each other at 7am. (I believe I've heard "No man can stand you!" and "Don't you touch him, he's only 8!", at which point I almost called child services.)
• ...one of their kids actually threatened to kill me while Ryan was home, then proceeded to taunt him through the floor by yelling, banging and BARKING as if in a drug-induced craze.
• ...and finally, the people next door to us playing shitty Gospel music, blaring through our kitchen, thus entrapping us within a bubble of bass-blasting misery.

*DISCLAIMER: the only reason I am calling them Jamaicans is a.) I don't know their surnames, and nothing else with which to identify them, and b.) they are, in fact, Jamaican. So, no I am not racist; I don't care who the hell they are, I just want them to shut the fuck up.

I just want a place that I can come home to after a long day of feeling completely exhausted, angered by commuters and frustrated with society, to just REST. Without having to whip out the Raid.....reel in agony over the digestive effects of take-out.....or stomp angrily on the floor whilst my entire body succumbs to the vibrations of the same goddamn notes of bongo drums EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!

I just want a place to call home.

As you might have already realized, I'm a little worked up about this issue. Finding a place has become both my dream and my secret hell, as all my sanity seems to both depend and hang on its balance.

So I ask, have you any advice?
Any leads? Any neighborhoods that I should grace with my unkosher presence?
(There's also a poll to the right if you want something short and sweet.)