It's really too bad we can't stay and eat the $55 rent increase our landlady would be imposing. A goddamn shame.
I am going to miss this neighborhood, though. The house is not home, but the area is. I've lived here for about 10 years, and so have a lot of my friends. It's nice. I like the mix of perfectly restored bungalows (anyone got $399,900? because you could have one, too!) and sagging duplexes ($750 a month, fix your own damn toilet). I like the snippy art yuppies and the indolent hippies and sweet old ladies and everyone else in between.
I like that tonight we walked to the beer store and then a potluck full of people we've known for what is turning out to be years, a decade even. I like that we passed another friend drinking beer in his driveway on the way home, and he called out to us and we stood around in the dark cracking each other up for fifteen minutes before we reluctantly moved on.
Well, there's really no point being a big nostalgic baby about it. The new neighborhood will be fine. Anyway, aside from the fantastically short distance to work, I don't even take advantage of living here that much anymore. Some weekends it seems like it would take an electrical fire to get me out of the house. Still, it seems a little sad to be leaving all the paths and shortcuts I've carved out over the past 10 years.
At least there'll be a library nearby where we're going. Two libraries, in fact. For all its vaunted restaurants and postwar architecture, this neighborhood doesn't have shit for libraries.