Thursday, April 24, 2025

suburbia

Having made the great escape (pilgrammage? exodus?) to the wilds of Everett to live cheaper and easier is, as expected weird. It's nice in that a lot of the things that were starting to grate on me downtown are now gone. With that thosugh is also so many of the daily routine interactions with people that I had grown used to and often looked forward to. I mean there are always pros and cons to any move - no one knows that better than me. This time though, it's been 12+ years since I last pulled up stakes, and I'd be lying if I said this time wasn't especially odd. For so many reasons, really - mostly because I moved in to mom's old place and while my brothers and I did initially remove a lot of the obvious stuff that wouldn't be needed (her clothes, furniture, loads of duplicate tools and stuff she had acquired) as soon as I flipped and decided it was in my best financial (and if we're being honest, emotional) interest to do so, they tapped out on the overall removal place to give me time to "sort throught" stuff. I had a million dollar view, but you can't eat a view, and the building was shit. Water randomly not working at least once a month (or at least losing hot water),the potential for the roaches to return at any moment, elevators being down (not to mention constantly defiled in such a wide variety of ways, every weekend, it made your head spin) and having to hike 12 floors....it was all just getting tiresome. The junkies outside (though that may change with Yarn Dragon going in and being a presence, but still - PSQ gonna PSQ) especially were just a daily reminder of the Fall of America. Living through late-stage capitalism (defunding forests, educational grants hotlines for LGBT youth testing of food safety; ( this isn't even adressing the wholesale disappearing of people off the streets) has kind of forced me to hunker down, and I guess I'm glad I have a relatively cheap place to hunker down. That said, it also induges my biggest weakness: drinking alone. Especially with a nice big kitchen to cook in, and handy stores within a mile? My love for a glass of red wine (or three) with food is a sticky situation that I'm gonna have to be careful with. Having a brother whose most serious hobby is collecting whiskeies (so, cruising liquor stores) also isn't a great thing if I can't rein in my "just do it" attitude, because I now have found a taste for tequila, which doesn't hit like wine or whiskey. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. How much of a serious hermit I become. That said - sleeping a whole night with no sirens is AMAZING. No random shouting throughout the night, no gunshots, cars racing around, all of it. Which leads me to a lot of dreaming - which was rare in the last 2 years downtown, unless I was heavily sedated with edibles. But up here, I'm dreaming like I am making up for lost time and my brain is hilariously inventive, and then sometimes steadily on-brand. I'm considering taking up a dream hournal. Here? On paper? Not sure yet. But everything from driving boats with Green Day to last night fighting forest fires with Brad - endlessly entertaining dreams, I just wish they'd last longer. Maybe, as my sleep pattern adjuststs they will.