I hate being sick.

But I give great thanks for my roommate Emily, who brought me home orange juice and OTC meds.

On the one hand, I find the rampant Anglophilia of those who built up and labeled Kensington and Flatbush (particularly Victorian Flatbush) rather off-putting. Street names such as Westminster, Argyle, and Marlborough make me itch, especially since it's not as though these were colonials settling the neighborhood.

On the other hand, the steadfastly unbadass graffiti of the neighborhood's lone active tagger leaves much to be desired as a system of nomenclature. Witness his rechristening of one street:

I don't really know what to make of this one--was he molested at nine? Why would this be the way he unburdened his soul? Is "molested at nine" instead some kind of motto? Does he perhaps merely mean that the signal was tagged at 9 pm?--but I do know it's not an improvement over the desperation for Britishness marking the earlier era. I mean, set aside how boneheadedly awful his nom de spraypaint is. His lettering isn't even good. That C is ridiculous!

Surely there's a middle ground between naked class envy and the inartistic scrawls of 14-year-old boys?

I'll stop bitching now. It's this constant not-quiteness that has, after all, endeared Kensington to me. It's also what's kept it in my rent range. So keep on, spazzy early teen boy, keep on.