Sittin' Up In My Room

MY room.

Paid for with MY hard-earned money.

THAT'S what I'm talking about!!

I neglected to mention that this room came with cable, a television, a huge computer desk, internet, both wireless and plug in, a set of dressers, a deep wardrobe (ala The Lion, The Witch, and The...), and air conditioner that works, and MY TWO WINDOWS LOOK OUT OVER BROADWAY!!!!!! But again, I'm across from Isham Park, so I'm looking into nothing but green leaves.

The sound of traffic below is about to put me to sleep at this laptop, let me tell you. It's the city's lullaby to me.

Roommate #1 has left the country and Roommate #2 left me a nice note and explained where I may put my things in the bathroom and kitchen, and that he won't be back until tomorrow.

The hallways in my (MY!!) building are long and high, reaching back into the depths of the block. They are bright blue, lined with apartment doors. The thick coats of paint speak with an ancient voice, but the one I hear the loudest is the one that speaks like my First Apartment on Riverside Drive. I swear. I've never felt like this before, in all the apartment houses I've visited. But while moving in, every time I came up to this floor I felt like my child-self looking down my First Hallway, 35 years ago. Therefore, it must be bigger than the First Hallway was, because I'm bigger now.

In every way.

I went downtown after I brought all my clothes into the apartment and I haven't unpacked them yet. I just needed to get on the train with the knowledge that when I was done with my site-seeing, I was not getting in my car and driving to Jersey. I apologize if you were riding the A train between Dyckman and 42nd St, or you were on 40th St where Midtown Comics is, or on the M6 Bus heading north up 6th Ave., or in the Barnes & Nobles at Lincoln Center, and you were made uncomfortable by a rakishly handsome, broad-shouldered fireplug of a black man with a salt-and-pepper goatee who was grinning like a loon.

Because that was me, and I meant no harm. :D

Stay tuned as I get back into the swing of my city and tell you how a woman with a perpetual scowl chased an elderly couple away from her on the M6 by habitually digging her index finger up her nostril and slowly rotating it to affect one of the most disgusting excavations I may ever have witnessed in all my 42 years. Or how a couple at the 168th A/C train station kissed on each other as though they had just discovered they were about to be the parents of a child neither one of them was old enough to raise, and how their joyless faces evoked more compassion from me than envy. Or, stay tuned as I let you know if I again see the dreadlocked, earthy woman of color who looked to be in her thirties, reading voraciously after she got on in Inwood and rode the train with me until I disembarked at 42nd St. Will Alan approach her next time? Will he get his face slapped? Or will he find true love in a pair of eyes that furtively peek over the rim of a paperback?

Time will tell! And so will I!

(Edited for spelling errors. 'Shows to go ya' how excited and tired I was last night! :p)