that was october

Halloween came and went here in Brooklyn. Meg was awesome enough to buy us pumpkins even though she doesn't really like scooping the goop. I love carving pumpkins, and that was my favorite moment during the month of October.
Thanks Meg :).

Liam was a creepy clown, and scared the crap out of me. I wore my vampire teeth to work, and discovered pumpkin spice lattes have the power to stain them.

The rest of the month is kind of a blur. I work. I sleep. I try to do dishes. I try to remember to take out the trash. I work. I run out of underwear and force myself to hit the laundry mat twice in one week so that I can procrastinate for another couple weeks.

So you see, somethings never change.

I fell in love with the express bus.

That's right. I indulge myself. Life's little pleasures? Lattes from Starbucks and sleeping on the express bus. I'm really good at it. First I spend sometime on my phone looking at facebook, then I slip into slumber, waking up just a few blocks from my stop an hour later. But I do not like the 5:30am bus.

Most of the time, I compare riding the express bus with flying business class, but it is actually closer to riding business class on the train because there aren't TVs or jacks for your laptop. There are however, neat rows of high-backed seats, with lots of room to spread out. The temperature is comfortable, and everyone is quiet - they are either sleeping like me, or reading.

The 5:30 bus is nothing like this. First of all, it comes at 5:25am, NOT 5:30am. Second of all, it reminds me of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter.

It rolls up in the dark, old and rickety. The heat does not work. The seats are uncomfortable, and it is filled with the weirdest cast of characters.

There is the tall skinny man, dressed in black from head to toe. Including dark sunglasses, and a black felt weekender hat. He does not talk. Across the isle from him is an old woman in a dirty brown 3/4 length winter coat. She does talk. She talks to the bus driver, to the fat smelly guy in the very front seat. She greets a few of the other men who get on the bus. She wants to talk about the Yankees, but she knows less about baseball than I do. Then there are the two middle-aged black women with the crazy hair. I don't mean crazy styles, I mean crazy, as in NO style, as in sticking up in the back and if I am unlucky enough to have them sit down in front of me I can smell them. At the back of the bus you will find the Coffee Slurper, the Snorer, and the Sniffler. I don't know what they look like because I have never turned around. I admit, I am afraid to.

Needless to say, I sit shivering and grinding my teeth all the way to work.

The Packing Continues

Today was a good day. Don't get me wrong, it didn't go as planned - not that Meghan and I ever really have much of a plan, but today we were supposed to be up and out the door to get coffee by 10am. I think we left my apartment a little after noon.

Mornings typically go like this: the alarm clock goes off, I hit snooze; the phone alarm goes off, I hit dismiss; the clock goes off again, I hit snooze, and Meghan rolls over. The alarm clock is NOT next to the bed. The alarm clock is all the way across the room on top of my dresser. I get out of the bed, walk to the clock, fumble with the buttons, and dive back into bed. My neighbors must hate me.

This morning was much of the same, with Meg actually getting up to smash the alarm clock a few times. I am usually the one who ends the cycle, as I was today. The only reason I did was to check my bank account balance as I have done obsessively for the last two weeks. I don't know why I do this, I'm not sure if I am expecting the money to disappear or for thousands of dollars to suddenly show up there. Neither of these things has happened; I still have the same pitiful amount of cash. It is a good thing I am a wiz with lentils.

Yet we did get out of the apartment, grumble at one another until we reached Starbucks, and then magically, with iced caramel soy lattes in hand, everything was full of sparkles. Maybe I exaggerate, maybe the day of packing was still looming over our heads. We did get a lot accomplished. We probably only have about 3-4 hours of work left in each apartment, and pretty much it is just packing up the clothes.

The day ended splendidly. Our friend Steve came over to take part in the packing madness, and then we headed over to the Zicari's house. A few of the awesome folks from our neighborhood joined us, and we sat in the "cabana" drinking wine and beer, eating bugles, and wondering if it was ok that water was streaming down the christmas lights (it was raining, and there are a couple leaks in the cabana). I looked around at Shaun and Eric, Mark and Sarah, the Zicari clan, and felt blessed to know them. I admit, I am a little sad to leave B-lo behind, but I know that those folks, along with some of the many other fantastic people I have come to know will come visit.

I mean, doesn't everyone love NYC?