Thursday, September 09, 2010
snail mail
I remembered to snail mail a birthday card, an achievement for everyone these days.
The little market around the corner owned by the friendly Chinese man where I buy bananas has been closed down tight for several weeks. He's either visiting relatives in China or has gone out of business. Too bad if he's bailed. But a supermarket is opening a couple blocks away in a former car dealership, one of the urban types you know if you reside in New York City. It probably would've ruined him. The market was there as long as I can remember this area, which goes back many decades, & it included a floral dept quite popular with county employees driving home on Morris Ave. The Social Security office relocated two miles up Morris Ave. to a new, larger building, which I'm sure made the employees happy. I doubt the old building will be rented any time soon.
Of the hundreds of apt buildings in this city, there's only about 4 I look at & think I'd rather reside there, three of those are within a block of where I am, & all are relatively new.
I've felt comfortable only twice in apartments, & then for brief periods. One was an apartment in Linden NJ I'd been in for 12 years, & only for the six months between the time my girlfriend moved out & I was evicted because the owner was renovating & mine happened to be the last of the four apts he got to. It was a perfect apt for one occupant. The other was the first three years I resided in a downtown Rahway studio & my new girlfriend - who often stayed there but never moved in - had an amazing aptitude for keeping it organized. I moved here in 2004 & never really settled in comfortably. I was discussing this with my friend Gina last night on our weekly shopping trip. The problem we share isn't that we hoard - neither of us is irrational in that respect - but that there's too much stuff we like to collect. Since Gina has cats, she's forced to vacuum on a regular basis.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The little market around the corner owned by the friendly Chinese man where I buy bananas has been closed down tight for several weeks. He's either visiting relatives in China or has gone out of business. Too bad if he's bailed. But a supermarket is opening a couple blocks away in a former car dealership, one of the urban types you know if you reside in New York City. It probably would've ruined him. The market was there as long as I can remember this area, which goes back many decades, & it included a floral dept quite popular with county employees driving home on Morris Ave. The Social Security office relocated two miles up Morris Ave. to a new, larger building, which I'm sure made the employees happy. I doubt the old building will be rented any time soon.
Of the hundreds of apt buildings in this city, there's only about 4 I look at & think I'd rather reside there, three of those are within a block of where I am, & all are relatively new.
I've felt comfortable only twice in apartments, & then for brief periods. One was an apartment in Linden NJ I'd been in for 12 years, & only for the six months between the time my girlfriend moved out & I was evicted because the owner was renovating & mine happened to be the last of the four apts he got to. It was a perfect apt for one occupant. The other was the first three years I resided in a downtown Rahway studio & my new girlfriend - who often stayed there but never moved in - had an amazing aptitude for keeping it organized. I moved here in 2004 & never really settled in comfortably. I was discussing this with my friend Gina last night on our weekly shopping trip. The problem we share isn't that we hoard - neither of us is irrational in that respect - but that there's too much stuff we like to collect. Since Gina has cats, she's forced to vacuum on a regular basis.
Labels: Elizabeth NJ
