BrockLi Soup

Power outages are fun for about half an hour, and then I lose interest in standing on the balcony and playing flashlight Morse code with the folks in the South tower. It went out Monday night around 9 or 9:30, and didn’t come back till about 5 this morning. It came back for about 30 seconds last night - just long enough for me to do a jig and Fotios to flick the lights on and off to taunt the South tower, which was still dark.

Thankfully, I only had to climb back up the nine flights of stairs once - that part sucked.

Our place has been a flophouse lately. Matt stayed here for a few days when he broke his car (again), and then for a couple days after. Sharon has been here since Sunday, and since Jym was off most of the week, they hung out and went to art galleries and such. BP showed up last night, and Rhubarb is here for the night. Toss in the other four people that were here this evening, and it gets kinda crowded.

It’s like living in the dorms again, except with more room and we don’t have to hide our beer.

(re: Bush’s Big Hug)

Me: Just look at the big grin on Bush’s face - this is the happiest day of his week.

J: Yeah, but he’s always grinning like that…except when he’s Decidering.

I don’t know if they’re actually airing it anywhere, but this seems to be a real Folger’s commercial, and it’s goddamn hilarious. It’s been a rough week, so I’ve been watching it a lot.

It’s official - we moved on the hottest day since I’ve been down here.

I’m surprised how much I’ve already gotten used to being in a warmer area (well, SLIGHTLY warmer - we’re not talking Aruba). A few weeks ago, Jym and I were going out to get boxes for the move. We both got halfway out the door before deciding a hoodie was in order. When we got in his car it told us the outdoor temperature: 68F. That’s beach weather in Rochester.

I can remember checking the weather on days when it got above 85F last summer and thinking, “damn, it’s hot.” Now, that’s just sort of a warm afternoon. On the other hand, we haven’t gotten the humidity here yet, so my tune may soon change.

Why does Superman need a belt for his underpants?

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This wasn’t a big one, because I was never really concerned for my safety at my last place. I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to live in fear of anything - life’s too short for that shit - so it didn’t bother me if I had to park a few blocks away late at night, when no one else seemed to be around except for the cops that walked around the neighborhood after dark (THAT was reassuring). Granted, I’m not likely to be mistaken for a helpless little lass, or even a person with more than $5 in my pocket, but the possibility of theft was not lost on me.

Living on the ground floor sounded great, at first - it was easy to move in and I had my own front door. But after a week or two, I realized that I didn’t like people glancing in when I had the curtains open, and that the lock on my door wasn’t great, and that there were tall bushes around my corner of the building that could easily hide anyone trying to get in through a window. I had some expensive (or expensive-looking) electronic equipment in there, and since I knew it wouldn’t be hard to break in, I usually kept my blinds shut to avoid advertising it to the neighborhood.

Here, the only people that wander by are nine stories down, and the only people looking through my blinds are the girls across the way (that story in a minute). I like having the blinds open, so the sun can come in, and I don’t feel quite to voyeuristic (or voyeuristicized?) here.

It seems I never related this story here. On the day we moved in, I was taking a quick shower while our impromptu moving crew was relaxing out on the balcony after getting everything inside. Somebody noticed a girl across the courtyard, on a balcony of the opposing building (the south tower of our building, actually), and she was watching them with binoculars. Schmitty found himself a marker, wrote his cell number on my whiteboard, and held it up for her to see. When she called, he invited her and her roommate over, and they spent an hour or two just shooting the shit on our balcony. This is how we came to know Autumn and Jasmyn, who we’re seen a few times since then. The other day, after Jym and I went grocery shopping, we were standing at the elevator with big armloads of groceries, waiting to go up. A young couple got in before us, and when they realized they were on the same floor, they offered to help us carry our stuff. Turns out, they’re across the hall and one apartment down from us, and promised not to be shy about letting us know if we ever get too loud.

People say good morning in the elevator. They offer one another a helping hand when someone is trying to get up a few stairs with a stroller. People smile at each other. It’s the little things that make this place so much warmer and friendlier, something I never saw in my old neighborhood.

And it’s totally sweet. I know we’ve been extolling the pool-view virtues of the thing for a while now, but it’s so much more than that. I woke up yesterday to a beautiful sunny morning in the mid-70’s, so I dragged our little kitchen table out there and did some writing in the sun.

We’re in the perfect spot. I can Metro home drunk and get back without paying for a cab. I can wander over to a few different bars (and a liquor store).

Divide rent three ways and it gets real cheap.

For serious.

I was going to do this at the end of June, but I suppose now is as good a time as any to revisit New Year’s resolutions. Let’s review, shall we?

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So far - a bit of a flop. I haven’t been in the District in weeks, and really, I’ve only been up there to hang out a few times now - our Cherry Blossom Fest picnic and St. Patrick’s Day are the only memorable days up there. Perhaps I’ll be more inclined to head up now that I’m so close to the Metro, but I’ve never been the type to just head into the city looking for something to do, so that seems unlikely. I’ll have to work on that.

So far, I’ve watched 60 movies this year, and read probably a dozen books, so I’d say this one is going well. Even so, I’d like to be doing more of both; I’ve had five Netflix discs sitting around for about a month, and finally watched one last night and another this afternoon. With people around all the time, I haven’t really had a chance to watch them. The same goes for books - I was reading more at the old place, but I haven’t as much since moving.

Hasn’t really happened, but I’ve been doing some web work for a friend of a friend. My interest in techie-exploits has been waning, and honestly, I’m just not sure I was meant to be a geek. As for the writing bit: I would like to be doing more of it, but it just isn’t happening. Once in a while, I’ll sit down to write and just draw a blank. Other times, I have something to write, but not the inclination or time to do it. I think both of these have fallen by the wayside because I’ve become more socially involved down here since the beginning of the year; at that point, I hadn’t really gotten settled, but now, I’m always hanging out with people and don’t need to find other ways to keep myself busy.

I’m not sure if this was a resolution that I just didn’t announce publicly, or if it came later, but it’s not been going as well as I’d like. I’ve been hanging out with some of the guys from work once in a while, and met some people through friends that were already here, but I’m still spending most of my time with RIT friends. And as much as I love them, there aren’t a lot of them, and I like meeting new people anyway.

Ummm…yeah.

Can anyone explain why I’ve had Monster Mash stuck in my head?

Now that we’ve been in the new place for almost a week, I’m finally settled in enough to post about it.

The long and short is that it’s totally bitchin.

This place is orders of magnitude above my last place. The living room and bedrooms are huge, the balcony is great, and the location really couldn’t be better. There are still a few lingering boxes of crap lying around, but aside from that, we’ve got all our stuff put away, and we almost need to buy a bigger entertainment center for our combined collection of electronics.

It’s been a busy week, but people have been here visiting a lot and a bunch of us went and played paintball all day yesterday. This week should quiet down, and we’ll start falling into our groove. FN met us at the paintball place yesterday to pick up my car (with, as it turned out, Fotios’ wallet in it), so I’m car-less again.

This is going to be good. We’ve already got plans for a poker game and some house guests. The couch isn’t on the balcony anymore, but we’re talking about replacing it. It will be a good summer.