At least once a week, I will walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge from at least the City Hall stop (I don't think I can make myself go past Canal Street and remain sane). Sure, the photos I take will be shaky, since I haven't mastered setting the shutter speed on my (recently acquired) digital camera, there are cars rumbling beneath, and, for now at least, it's fucking freezing without gloves. But it's one of the few places to be thoroughly in the city without a full-blown crowd around, and with proper timing, I'm there as the sky changes colors. Even on rather crappy weather days, as below, it's beautiful and keeps the psychosis at bay.

Though my previous entry is dated the 13th, the photos were taken walking home on the 11th. Thus my walking over the bridge today constitutes adherence to my recently announced policy; I'm good until at least next Friday. Considering the sad fate of other resolutions I have made--I will only read books that challenge me! I will be a better correspondent! I will not plot coups!--this is remarkable progress indeed.

Fewer photos, though, and only one worth posting. It was cold, dammit.

Pardon the ripped-off Adrienne Kennedy quotation. Especially since its only applicability is that all of the photos I took on today's Brooklyn Bridge walk were black and white compositions.

We've got yer basic moon through the cables shot:

And yer folks walking over the bridge with Brooklyn behind them and the Manhattan Bridge to the north:

Aaaaand we've got the first album cover for The Adairdevils. (Album forthcoming once musical talent attained.)

Ah, the moon over Brooklyn. It is like the moon over any other place--beautiful--only you can't get a photo of it without cars wrecking the shot. It continues to surprise me how much I edit out of my perception when I'm looking without a camera; I know the cars are there, of course, but I see the brownstones, trees, and moon. Put a lens on it and BAM! It's crapass Corollas for miles.

Anyway, following DeGraw from Fourth to Fifth Aves. on my way home Friday, I made a valiant, traffic-defying attempt to capture the lovely evening.

Mixed results.

. . . of ways to take photos of the same place without taking the same photo. Good thing I hit this week's walk around sunset instead of when it was already dark.

This had the added benefit of getting me home in time to see the contestants on America's Next Top Model lose their shit after erroneously assuming that one woman's rash was--what else?--flesh-eating, pneumonia-causing bacteria. That was some great TV. Thank you, Tyra Banks. May you go from strength to strength.

Anyway, before I settled down to bask in ANTM's awesomeness, I did my weekly walk home over the bridge. Stay tuned for next week, when my increasingly desperate bids for photo variation will probably have me taking photos of angry, oncoming cyclists in the bike lane.

My personal assignment to see the same thing in different ways continues. (So I am ignoring the suggestion that Monkey Pants, aka my sister, made in comment to my previous entry. But not out of spite.) Bless Daylight Savings for making it easier.

Also, Veronica Mars was awesome last night.

I never did edit the photos for last week's walk, and may never get around to it now. But dammit, I went! And then the next day I went to the Bronx Zoo and photographed penguins and primates . . . and I haven't edited those either. Someday.

In the meantime, I did get back on track a bit by doing the bridge walk yesterday. A lovely evening, a full moon, and only one cyclist running into me in the pedestrian lane. It only hurts a little, but was not the best mood leavener; were it not for him, I probably would not have found myself yelling, "You have a red, douchebag!" later that evening at a motorist who failed to respect my crosswalk rights.

Anyway. I like my photos this week. I'm even making one of 'em BIG.

Haven't blogged in a long time, mostly 'cause when it takes about three hours a day to summon the will to live, there just isn't any time left over for self-absorbed Internet rambling.

But I did some real rambling in the snow today, and it was fun. Click the dog for more:

1. Walking past the Wyckoff Gardens Houses the other evening, I encountered things expected from previous walks, albeit still unwelcome: a blast of 50 Cent's "Candy Shop", which has to be the most stilted and uninfectious song ever to climb the charts, and somebody tossing a tin take-out tray from a high window. What I did not anticipate, and what filled me with joy at people's ability to defy demographic expectations of personal taste, was a 60- or 70-year-old man blasting "Careless Whisper". Brooklyn, I love you.

2. Once you notice how much Robert Patrick looks like Don Henley, Terminator 2 is fucking ruined forever.

(For the record, I don't plan on having all posts be two-item lists, but hey, it's a thought.)

I am not usually huffy about lines. They are understandable, they are unavoidable, and they are supremely democratic. But my wait to express mail my POS phone back to the hellpit whence it came was an exception for several unimpeachable reasons:

1. I was only on the line because the self-service machine told me on step 9 of 10 that it could not perform its function. All line time was in excess of what ought to have been.

2. There is an unwritten code of conduct for DMVs, subways, and post offices, and it is predicated on the idea that nobody wants to be there and that if we all do our parts each of us can pretend we aren't. This requires that we do not take up more space than we need, we do not yap loudly on cellphones (especially when no one else in the room is talking at all) and we most emphatically do NOT sing along with any ambient music. ParTICularly a butchering of the wonderful "Got to Get You off My Mind". The woman in front of me on line was in flagrant violation of this code.

3. It was raining, and the gathering of wet people created an even more dank atmosphere than usual. This, while unpleasant, was not a problem. What WAS a problem, though, was that some bastard a few people ahead of me in line passed gas. Badly. And with the humidity in the room, the smell just hung there and we had no choice but to walk through and then stand in it. That is NOT right, it is NOT okay, and I damn near didn't make it anyway. When it hit, the man behind me in line had a look of such hurt and betrayal on his face that it bespoke not merely a nose but a soul in anguish. How could you, stranger on line? How could you?

When I finally left the post office (the whole thing took over an hour), it was with a feeling of great hatred. It had stopped raining, so I thought I would walk home and purge some angst. So there I was on the corner of Fulton St. beside a woman and her three girls, one in a stroller, when along comes some asshole booming down Fulton St. at at least 65 mph trying to beat a red light . . . and of course he swerves far right, goes through a massive puddle, and soaks us all before we can retreat.

To recap:

--Phoneless (still!)
--Shoddily customer serviced (trust me, that's how I wound up in the post office in the first place)
--Forced to walk through a fart-cloud
--Angry at learning too much about that chick's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend Shonda
--Covered in street water

NOT OKAY.

I've gone over the bridge a number of times in the last year, but haven't done the dedicated photowalking/blogging. As part of a larger "yes, everything went to hell last year, but so goddamn what" campaign, the copious photographing resumes.

Yesterday's tack: underexposing to bring color to a blah, washed out sky.

Yesterday, I had a lovely afternoon with friends at the Yankee game. The weather was beautiful, it was cap day, and the company was great. The Yanks didn't win, but such is life.

I was in such a good mood that, my friends having gotten off the train a stop earlier, I decided on impulse to get off the 4 train at Brooklyn Bridge and walk over the bridge home. The sun was shining, my camera was in my bag, and "99 Problems" had just kicked on over my earphones. I was happy!

Then, as I emerged from the station, a confused-looking middle-aged woman asked me how to get on the bridge. I told her. Then, because we were both going to the same place, the awkwardness set in. Each time I was about to pull ahead and resume being a free-floating stranger, along would come another question: How far was it across? (About a mile.) Was it all uphill? (Only to the first set of arches; then it leveled off, more or less, then went down after the second.) Was I at the Yankee game too? (Yes.) Did I hate that bastard Farnsworth? (Nope.) How many arches are there really? (Only two.) Is it safe? (Yes.)

I began scouting out the place where I would pull over, make an excuse about taking pictures, and then take a boatload of photographs as she walked ahead and went on her way. Just before I could, things went off the rails. First she was talking about how her kids wouldn't believe she'd done this (noncommittal noise as I looked in vain for a way to pass the clump of tourists ahead of me). Then she started talking about how depressed she'd been for so long, how her one child was driving her to despair, how she'd been growing more and more suicidal.

And that, for me, is where it all went to hell. It's no good being burdened with the problems of strangers; I have enough of my own and frankly, I'm not in a position to help even if I didn't. But I also can't in good conscience walk away from somebody who throws the word "suicide" around. So there I was, fucking life-coaching this woman across the Brooklyn Bridge like the worst-ever episode of Starting Over. Do I know what it's like to be depressed? (Yes. Unspoken: everyone does.) How do I keep going? (This was asked several times. My answers included the tried-and-true standards about not making decisions in the worst state of mind, about owing friends and family better than that, about simply wanting to know what happens in the lives of people you care about.) What should she do? (Call the friend she mentioned. Get professional help. Think of what she wants to have happen; she can't make it happen by herself, but she can do her part to make it possible, or she can refuse and make it impossible. The unspoken answer: ask a professional or somebody who actually knows you for help, not strangers.)

She was a very slow walker, so the whole thing took over half an hour. I might sound flip in the above paragraph, but it was very upsetting. I was throwing bullshit around, trying to be kind without completely forfeiting the privacy I, as a stranger, was entitled to. I can't know how sincere she was; my thinking is that the person whose behavior is a cry for help, needs the help. But that doesn't mean she had the right to ask me for it.

I got her over the bridge and onto her train, and ordered her to call her friend when she got above ground. When I finally stepped off the subway, I was spent.

And now I'm wondering: will the bridge ever be my place again?

For some time now, walking over the Brooklyn Bridge has basically been my substitute for meditation. If I was alone, I was either taking photos--my way of absorbing how lovely this city can be, and of keeping the creative part of my brain alive--or I was just on a walk to calm myself, to be alone with my thoughts in a beautiful place. If I was with a friend, it was invariably a happy time--either practicing a hobby with an in-town friend or having the gratifying experience of taking a visitor to see something guaranteed to delight.

My first thought is that this won't tip the balance; the next time I go over the bridge, this thought goes, I'll feel that same sense of wonder. But I worry all the same. Not about Esther, the possibly suicidal, certainly troubled woman whom I will not likely see again. I tried. I did what I could. But I do, selfishly and unapologetically, worry about what I'll do if the next time I step on the bridge I feel, instead of awe, only wariness of the people around me.

Somebody HAS done some kind of reggaeton remake of "Feel Like Making Love". And it is even worse than you can imagine.

I hate my neighbors.

(Note time of post. This shit is still blaring.)

Update: it finally stopped at 3:40. I don't care if it makes me an old lady, I don't care if it was Saturday, they are assholes. The "yards" around here are garden-sized and no amount of pretending you're P. fucking Diddy in the Hamptons will change the fact that your speakers are three feet from somebody else's bedroom.

Friday brought bad tidings: our landlords have sold the building and out we go. It sucks out loud. We have until about the end of September to pull off a miracle: find another place in this neighborhood that we can actually afford.

I haven't swung into the hunt full force yet, but I will shortly. For now I'm just lamenting the loss of a home I've really loved for over four years. And beholding the prospect of moving--with its uncertainty, expense, and fatigue--with immense dread.

One thing that is making me feel better about the whole situation is the conduct of our next door neighbors. As mentioned before, they are partial to having incredibly loud parties into the morning hours. In their backyard. Which, measured generously, is approximately seven feet from my window and from my roommate's.

Where their last get-together was more salsa in theme, this weekend's was largely a return to the reggaeton blast that put them on the map. I wondered if my hatred for that genre--with it rapidfire cheap Casio drumming and misogyny--played a part in how annoyed I was to have it blaring. Sure, I'd be annoyed no matter what was keeping me awake past 4 in the morning, but perhaps I'd be less annoyed if it were music I enjoyed?

Then, for a break, they played "Hypnotize", a song of such danceability that no matter how aware I am of how dumb it is, I still like it. And even with a song I liked, I found myself praying for lightning to hit their PA system.

That's not a typo or overstatement, by the way. They have a PA system. Microphones. Loudspeakers. Etc.

They also had an MC for the evening, who punctuated his set with shout-outs to every Latin American country and commonwealth except, notably, Mexico.

"REPUBLICA DOMINICAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"BORICUA REPRESEEEEEEEEENT!"

"COLOMBIANOOSSSSS!"

And so forth. I wonder: why do my neighbors hate Mexico?

There were also periodic checks to see if Brooklyn was, in fact, in the house. Or rather, in the stamp-sized yard. It was this combination of screaming into the mic and blasting music that caused me to dub them the Carnaval de Douchebags. And so shall they be forevermore.

At about one in the morning, we went over to ask them to turn the music down and to turn off the floodlight on the side of their house that illuminates our living room and my roommate's bedroom like the sun. A woman of 50-odd years answered the door and told us that it wasn't her party, it was her brother's--as though that somehow made it any less her yard. We persisted, politely, and made our request, and they did turn the light off.

But they turned the music up.

DOUCHEBAGS.

Our upstairs neighbors, as frustrated by this horse shit as we are, are developing a theory based on circumstancial evidence (an "Officer ___ Way" sign in their yard, a shout-out to somebody's boys in the ____ squad) that somebody over there is a cop or connected to one. Again, I don't know for certain. But it would sure as shit explain why calling the fuzz, by 311 or direct to the precinct, doesn't get us so much as a minute's silence.

So, new owners/tenants of our building, who will doubtless rip it up, refurbish it to a full brownstonian glory, and turn it into condos: I hope you like Daddy Yankee, assholes.

As mentioned before, our apartment building was sold. The new buyers wanted to have a look inside of our apartment, my roommate arranged a key-swapapalooza with the real estate agent involved and they went by today.

Despite how I ended my last entry, I don't actually hate anybody for having the gall to buy our building. It sucks, hard, and it's throwing a massive, chaotic wrench into my life, but I'm an adult and I get that this is how it goes. So do my roommates, and we were trying to cooperate. In fact, this thought actually crossed my mind today: Should I have left them a note saying to help themselves to a piece of the cake on the stovetop?

I'm embarrassed to admit that, but there it is: I wanted to feed the people who are taking over my home. I am like a brain-damaged puppy.

Here's what I should have been thinking:

I hope that the real estate agent doesn't lock anything behind her that wasn't locked when she got there, and hasn't been locked in over four years because nobody has a key. I hope that 411 won't give me bum numbers, and I hope it won't be impossible to find a set of yellow pages to call a locksmith, forcing me to call every neighborhood friend in turn until finally finding somebody at home. I hope that it doesn't take a cajillion years, and I hope that when I get inside, I don't find that the agent has systematically closed:

--the door to the closet where we keep Spike's litterbox (especially since it has a kick-spring to prevent that)
--the door to the living room, where Spike's food and water are
--the door to my bedroom, with Spike inside, scared, screaming, and shitting my bed because he's been in there for hours without any necessities

Spike was freaked out; he could hear our varied attempts to get in, and that only made him more agitated. To state the painfully obvious: Animals do not like to feel abandoned, hungry, or thirsty. And since she was plainly very aware that there was a cat in the apartment--her multi-tiered containment plan makes that readily apparent--it is unconscionably cruel to have done that to him. (To be clear: I don't care if the cruelty was accidental or intentional; the result is the same, and no professional should fall short of the "leave it as you found it" standard.)

And, of course, my duvet is ruined (one can't clean down) along with my mattress pad, my sheets are a loss, my mattress had to be turned, and my duvet cover has to be dry cleaned. This is on top of the massive frustration of being locked out in the first place.

When I called my landlord to give him a heads up about this incredibly shoddy conduct and to ask that these people never be unchaperoned in our apartment again, I found myself using the shaky voice of rage, saying sane things but clearly hanging on to civility by the thinnest thread.

That is not a normal part of my character.

The only other time I spoke that way was five years ago in an argument with my mother, which should say a lot: I haven't even met this woman face-to-face, and she managed to provoke the same degree of rage and frustration that my mom had to work 23 years to elicit.

In short, I feel like this:

Image courtesy of Yorik

My cameraphone, while possessed of some reasonable limitations, is startlingly good for, you know, a bonus feature on a cellphone.

For fun times with the W600's panoramic mode, see below. Some images I intensified in Photoshop, but all images were stitched together by the camera, not on the computer (hence some imperfections). I also didn't do more than one effect on any image. And all of these are half-size.

Pretty damn cool.

Unfiltered images:

The full spectacularrrr:

than a concert by an immensely talented musician for YOU and YOUR friends, complete with open bar?

Ah, Laura Cantrell and JANE Magazine, I can't thank you enough.

(Longer, more discursive entry inevitably to follow.)

When I call you roughly 10 minutes after you post a listing and it's already gone, you don't have to follow up with a "these are going so fast, it's insane." I know that. And you don't have to make other remarks designed to put the fear in me. I've got the fucking fear, okay? You aren't doing me any favors by trying to ramp up my anxiety.

The lease is signed, money changed hands, and we have a new apartment!

Please, please, please, may I not have to move again for a long time. Like, not until I actually have money. This whole ordeal, with its stress, fatigue, and self-abasement (ohhhh pleeeeeease pick me! look at my credit! pleeeeease!), would always be a pain. But having enough money to be worth realtors calling me back? Would have really taken the edge off.

Jose, Terri-Ann, Mateo, Arvad, Dick, Omar, Marcia, David, different David, Av, Ariel, Thomas: these are the realtors we met in person whom I can remember off the top of my head. There were more. And there were many, many more on the phone. And by email. And . . . and . . . shudder.

Anyway. I'm immensely relieved, and the new place is nice. I'm happy. The lease having been signed, I now only have 884 things to do between now and October 15th. Keep on, keep on, keep on . . .

One of the consequences of having moved is that I can now show the world the magical (or magically dorktastic) map I made to our former apartment (much better than giving friends long-winded directions). Sure, I started with a basic Yahoo! map. But I made it so much more!

Behold:

I seriously devoted energy to aligning the subway logos just so. And note the instructions as to which exits ought to be taken from the subway!

I am proud of this out of all proportion. I have already begun one for the new pad, and I am elevating my game: now, I'm including bus lines. Awwww yeah.

No one wants your car. Now change the settings on that fucking alarm so it's not triggered by a strong breeze. And for the love of god, if it does go off, make it stop.

Asshole(s).

Warmly,

Adair

True story.

But I should still remember to take my digicam or SLR around with me. This is getting ridiculous.

Pics from yesterday's walk through Prospect Park.

The lake.

One of the bigass trees by the Long Meadow.

Quite the revelation, I know.

Anyway, what was meant to be a quick stroll through Prospect Park turned out to be a very long photo session. Because all of the following things are wrong with me:

-- I can't just see a duck. I have to look for its duck and geese friends!
-- If I have a camera, I have to photograph all of them
-- When near a lake, i have to take photos every three feet as the vista changes
-- Similarly, during a sunset, I have to take photos every 45 seconds as the light changes
-- If the moon is out, I have to shoot it in every damn segment of the frame
-- If the moon is out amongst trees . . . oh, forget it, I go on forever
-- Like most photo nerds, I bracket my exposures
-- Unlike many photo nerds, I also go beyond bracketing and just screw around with exposures to see what I can make appear from seemingly drab subjects

Well, this walk through the park was basically the perfect storm of my photo spasticity. Ducks! A lake! Sunset! A moon visible before and after! I'm lucky to have emerged without smoke coming out of the lens.

The very much culled results can be found by clicking on one of the ducks below:

One of many touching moments from my move:
I was packing, purging, self-recriminating, stressing, etc., and my sister came over to help out. I had just taken another bag to the curb when we had this exchange:

Me: It can be upsetting to actually see homeless people going through your stuff.
Alanna: Well, they need it. It's hard to begrudge them.
Me: No, that's not what I mean. There was a homeless guy out front going through a bag of underwear I threw out. Hello, Rock Bottom!

Needless to say, it is mortifying to watch someone drop your old undies onto the street one by one. I waited for him to finish, rebagged them, then buried them underneath some other trash, then stuffed the can good and tight with a pillow I was ditching. Thus did I narrowly avoid the death by shame that would surely have resulted had I only espied the disaster after the garbage truck had come and gone the next morning.

May I never have to pick my drawers up off the street again.

I did a rather spur-of-the-moment walk over the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, and then just kinda kept going until I was most of the way home.

Pluses:
--There were flood lights on at South Street and at the base on the Brooklyn side, so the whole thing looked different than usual
--It was freezing (literally) so there weren't many people out
--I walked 4.5 miles!

Minuses:
--That 4.5 miles was in improper footwear.
--I left my digital camera in my friend's car on NYE, and I keep forgetting to get it back, so I only had my cell phone's camera to snap away with. All that dramatic lighting went to waste!

Results, such as they are:

Strange shadows on the first tower:

Lights between the two towers:

Being a strange shadow on the second tower. I love my hat:

Yesterday I had a long, dumb, enraging post office ordeal. I'll spare you the details. But when I was waiting (and waiting . . and waiting) at the counter and I saw the markings of those who had walked the path before me, I felt no longer alone:

If you can't make them all out, the various scrawls are:

"This post office SUCKS!"
"Burn this place down and start over"
and
"I'M IN HELL"

There was also a sign from 1985 that I'm posting here as a public service. Remember, kids: if you're going to get busted for drugs, at least make enough money to have some half-decent artwork on the walls.

My feeling is that the most well thought-out etiquette book can still only cover so many contingencies; always, one must learn on the fly, frequently using the conduct of others as a guide.

It is for this reason I am so very, very grateful to the douchebag I nearly met tonight. Were it not for him, I might very well have thought it was customary to, say, get out of the car and check on the pedestrian one just backed into with one's Jeep. Instead, I now know that a quick glance at the recovered figure on the sidewalk and a wave are sufficient.

Let me just break out of my pseudo-calm voice here:

1. No, I am not injured.
2. No fucking thanks to him.
3. I was in a goddamn crosswalk and he was reversing, meaning he was going the wrong goddamn way. Good thing he had no speed. That was all kinds of not good.
4. A WAVE? A FUCKING WAVE?? YOU HIT ME WITH A JEEP. I think the very least you can do is exit the goddamn vehicle, check if anything is wrong, and apologize.

There were two girls coming out of a store behind me. "Holy shit! Did you see what he did to her??" And, my favorite, "Kick his car!!!" If I had been less occupied with shock, and less alert to the possibility that the fucking asshole who backs into pedestrians could easily be the fucking asshole who kills pedestrians for kicking his Jeep, I might have. As it was I settled for gaping and cursing. And gratitude that this was ultimately as innocuous as it was.

Anyway, to recap:

Always wave! One wave--no problems!

Before we found our current apartment--actually, two weeks before we found our current apartment, which is like 10 years in NY real estate time--my roommate and I applied for another apartment. We negotiated a rent decrease, turned in our paperwork, and paid a deposit to the agency involved.

Then it all went to hell. Slowly, and over the course of several days. And oh, did it suck. The agent mistakenly told us certain utilities were included that were not. Then, the landlord didn't agree to the rent decrease. So there was no way of working the overall cost out of the fee, etc.; it was completely untenable. The president of the agency owned the error, apologized, etc., and when it became clear that it was just not going to work, promised to refund our money.

Now here's the thing: we each paid our half of the deposit with a debit card, for which they charged a two-dollar processing fee apiece. And instantly upon accepting that this deal had irrevocably screwed the pooch, my roommate and I were both adamant: "They better give us both our two dollars back!" We would never have paid the deposit and attendant fee if they'd gotten things right to begin with! If we lost our four dollars, the terrorists would win!

So amidst many cries of, "Two . . . dolllars" and "Didn't ask for a dime. Two dollars--cash" my roommate, as the one who worked near enough to pick up the deposit on her lunch hour, began the siege. The best part: the woman who gave us the refund had to ask permission for the four-dollar expenditure. But by God, each of us got our two dollars.

Small victories, man. Small victories.

Twofold joy!

1. I finally took a picture of my favorite Brooklyn storefront: Bad Apple Bail Bonds.

Why do I love it so?
a. The presumption of guilt in the name. It's such an awesome way of attracting clients. "Yeah, asshole, we know you did it, and we don't care. Just sign here."
b. The worm in the apple is wearing striped prison garb and an olde tyme prison hat!!!

2. I was racing racing racing for the F train this morning--you enter my subway station by a ramp, go through turnstiles, then straight down stairs, so you can hear the train coming a good ways away--and despite my best efforts and speediest MetroCard swipe I heard the telltale chime of defeat as I was still descending the stairs to the platform. BUT! But but but! For no reason other than pure kindness, a fellow passenger stood in the doorway of the train as the doors closed so that I could squeeze past him and make the train. Oh, it was only a few seconds, but it made all the difference.

Because it was an F train, and who knows when the next one is coming.

And because it was an F train, and I had become convinced that its ineffable crappiness had made Machiavellian monsters out of all of us forced to rely upon it.

Oh, Subway Hero, you have restored a small bit of my faith in humanity. I have no choice; I must quote Lyle Lovett: I love everybody, especially you.

• Six months ago to the day--another Friday the 13th--I moved into my new apartment. After we'd gotten through the bleary day, my roommate and I staggered around our new neighborhood looking for a place to copy our keys. Fun fact: nothing breaks in Kensington. At least, that's what one would imagine from the total absence of hardware stores. We were defeated that day, but we did find this awesome storefront some blocks from our new abode:

  

  MAGIC.

• Five years ago tomorrow, I first moved to the warm bosom of Brooklyn. (Scroll down.)

• Some-odd years ago today, my beloved older sister Alanna was born. She is better than hardware stores, inadvertent dirty joke signage, and Brooklyn's comforts combined.

Because moonlight and the beginning of Spring are not to be wasted.

More pics if you click.

in inappropriate footwear, as is my wont.

As ever, click for more.

Late last night as I headed home on the F train, I espied this gentleman:

The best part was that he was reading a book called The Greatness Guide at the time. While I can't claim to have read that volume, I have to believe that it contains no directive to be completely fucking disgusting on mass transit. But it's just possible that it fails to tell its readers not to do so. So please, readers of this undoubtedly fine work, consider this a supplemental chapter:

Thank you.

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.

So in the weeks since I last wrote, one or two things have happened.

I made plans to move to Chicago for law school.
I gave notice at work and scheduled a Chicago apartment hunt.
I tried not to be spastic about moving halfway across the country to a city where I don't really know anybody, and instead to be thrilled about the wonderful school I would attend, the new friends I would make, and the new baseball stadia I would frequent.
I made plans for a "So Long, Stink Town" party so I could say goodbye to my NY friends.

Then I got into NYU Law.

NYU LAW!!

So I have the satisfaction of knowing I would have moved for the right school--and it would have been great--without actually having to, you know, bundle a screaming cat into the back of my sister's car. I get to go to an amazing school, start a whole new chapter in my life . . . and my commute will actually be shorter! SWEEEEEEEET.

This made Independence Day an even more festive affair than usual, especially since some long-departed friends have recently moved back to New York. So lovely an occasion was it, we did not mind mildly obstructed fireworks:

Of course, I had to cancel the "So Long, Stink Town" party, and instead marshalled the troops for an "I ♥ Stink Town" party (that's a [heart] if your browser doesn't catch the code). Needless to say, it ruled.

And lastly, I have continued to document the, um, forthright little delights that make Stink Town so damn lovable:

I love that it is signed by the plant. So magical.

Dear Jerk,

I'm sure you spend a lot of your life being called "entitled", and because you are an idiot, you probably think that means you are actually endowed with more rights and privileges than others. Allow me to clear this up for you: people are using that word to avoid calling you an asshole. That, however, is exactly what you are.

Having thus provided you with needed information, I now feel entitled to ask you a question:

Did you really think that when I saw you, on a reasonably crowded F train, taking up a whole three-seat bench--with your spread-out legs, perpendicular elbows, and bag of crap--I wouldn't do something about it?

There were other seats. There were even other people violating the common laws of the subway--pole huggers, door blockers, etc. But your conduct was so appalling I knew I could not look away, could not possibly approve of myself if I did not do all in my power to put a stop to it.

This is why I deliberately sat on the nice end seat by the door, giving an insincere "excuse me" as I forced you to move over and take up a mere two seats. It is also why I made eye contact with the next person who got on the train, gave a head tilt, and got her to sit on the other side of you.

You are an asshole, and I will combat your socially unconscionable conduct wherever I encounter it.

I hate you.

And tonight, I defeated you.

Next time, act right.

Adair

Yesterday morning, before we had managed to travel a full stop, our subway train stopped with an announcement that somebody was injured on the tracks. The power was shut down (auxiliary lights came on) and we sat still for 27 minutes. It wasn't that bad, just strange; even when trains are stopped, there's usually a hum of speakers and paused engines. It's rarely that truly quiet.

The conductor herded us up the length of the train to a car that was in the station and we were then free either to wait for the situation to be resolved (if, you know, you had a spare few hours) or to exit the station and make our way as best we could. This led to my favorite snippet of dialogue from the day:

Cop to querulous member of public: Do you have to wait for the train? No, you can do something else.

In this "I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist" era, I know what I'm about to say will make me sound shrewish and vile and--nightmare of nightmares!--not "sex-positive", but I have to say it anyway:

Could we please stop pretending prostitution is glamorous? Or that a woman who becomes a prostitute is "making it"? (Yes, ha ha, I get the pun.)

Even if we were magically transported to a patriarchy- and misogyny-free land where sex work was just like any other kind of work, it would top out at just that: work. Drudgery. As it is, the prostitution industry is linked with a lot of violence, exploitation, addiction, human trafficking, and pretty much every other shittastic idea the human race has ever thought up, including the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the solution is to "écrasez l'infame!" or to fight for the dignity of sex work--to try to make it so that the high-priced call girl with full agency and excellent medical care is not the Sasquatch-rare exception but the rule. But in neither case should pin-up glamorization play a part.

My hatred, it bubbles over**. And this clinches it: I am never subscribing to Showtime.

** Except at whichever of my neighbors did this to the poster in my subway station. To that person, shiny unicorn rainbows forever!