Friday, March 16, 2007

Back to 8th Street


I've been dreading going back to the US next month, because I've just started to enjoy Cairo (yesterday's pervert aside) and I had nowhere to live back home. Would I sleep on Roberta's sofa? (No, because she doesn't have a sofa.) On Michael Kraiger's kid's bed? (Then where would I sleep every other weekend?) Find another sublet in the East Village? (That's one fast way to go through my salary.)

Then, a few days ago, I got an email from one of my best pals, Yancey.

Boo! My tenant is moving out in April.

Yancey lives in San Francisco right now, but his condo is on 8th Street, the same street I lived on in Jersey City. It's not on my wacky block; it's directly on Hamilton Park. That's an 1800s residential square, surrounded by Victorians and brownstones.

His place is similar to my old place, except that it's in a brownstone and on the 4th floor. It's one room larger, has a Corian countertop that I went with him to purchase, and has the same model appliances that I had. The hot water heater is three years old, there is insulation stuffed up the non-working chimney, and all of the windows are less than four years old. Heating is electric, while the stove and hot water heater are fired by natural gas. I know the apartment almost as well as I knew my own.

And now it is my own. Yancey has a new tenant and I have a home.

3 comments:

Marie Javins said...

And I just talked to Verizon and managed to get my old phone number back. How about that?

Matt Hollingsworth said...

Cool. I like having things sorted. Sorry to hear you have to head back so soon, though! Still, congrats on reducing worry!

Marie Javins said...

Truly, when compared to wandering around 4,000 year old temples along the Nile, it is not so interesting day-to-day to live in Jersey City and take the PATH to work. But on the bright side, the sooner I go home, the sooner I can save up the money to head off on my next book-fodder adventure!