A New Home

Today we packed up my sisters stuff and moved her into her new house. It was an odd dynamic because its that time of the year to be moving people back to school and considering similar sites like the uhaul and that couch, it felt like I was moving someone in to school. It hasn't settled in that in a week from now she will be married and no longer be living here. It was definitely weird to use phrases like "your house" today. Her place is awesome, though.

I remember taking many a nap on this here couch. I would say my roommate could say the same. That thing would catch you off guard. You would sit down and all of a sudden, whether you knew you were tired or not, you were out. Wrestling it up the stairs in their house was fun. This time, it was not me involved. Also, it only had to go up one, very straight flight of stairs. Not to the third floor, having to pivot every 8 steps - so I did not feel so bad for those who did move it this time.

Makin' It Worse

About two months ago someone or something did battle with the wall in the stairwell around the 2nd floor of my apartment building. About 2 weeks ago someone decided to make that puncture into a fist sized whole. Then some time in the past ten days, someone else contributed (or maybe this has all been the same person). It has continued to get worse, to expand, and more look like someone is standing there. It is not necessarily that it looks like the shape of a person. It is more that it is sizeable enough that, when you aren't paying attention, it looks as if 'something' is there and leads your mind to quickly jump to 'oh! someone is standing there'

Needless to say, I am very curious as to where the money to fix this hole is coming from. Clearly nowhere yet as nothing has been done in 2 months since it started. However, that 600 dollar security deposit I put down one year ago is starting to sound like the answer to that question. I have been wondering, recently, if I will see any of that money. I realize they will most likely paint the apartment over, and find any little thing to take money from it. I am curious if it is an all-or-nothing system or if it is a - take what we need- system. I would like to see some of that money back, and I am sure my roommate and I could not have created 1200 dollars worth of damage in this apartment. However, I would not be surprised if the party in the backyard (which I wrote about previously and has left it destroyed) and this kind of 'cannot pin it on one person' damage will get subtracted from everyone.

Planning is hard!

I don't know if the people who work out the details of the Spring Weekend shows have to deal with this, but planning a concert event has been a real strain. Before I got the event approved by the school I had 5-7 bands interested in playing. 4 Days before the event, now, and I can't seem to lock down more than 3. I have messaged more people and gotten more no's than I ever thought I would.

This past Thursday we received a request to play at a bar 24 hours later. We said yes, we had no prep time, and we managed to play an 11 song set without any real problems. These bands I am asking have had anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks to prepare and still can't seem to find the time to do so. And most of these guys are all Fordham Students. I don't get it. We have a band member who does not even go here and we still manage to be more together than all of these other dudes. I get that several bands had other conflicts and had to say no because of those reasons, but several others just felt they did not have the time to prepare.

It's not like you have to pick a weekend to practice. Every one of you go here, and it couldn't take more than 2 hours to rehearse 30 minutes of material.

I know I am ranting. I just am frustrated at the responses I have gotten. Hopefully we are able to pull this event off. The last thing we need is for our Go! trip to lose money on this event.

For something that was born out of wanting to give everyone a good time, this concert has become nothing more than a chore. Hopefully as the week progresses that all changes.



(These pictures are of my backyard at 2 am this morning. I know it's hard to see, but if you click them you get the idea of what it looked like. The party lasted until 4:15am or so, having started at noon. It's a disaster now.)

A Welcomed Change

I know it's a little late to be pointing out something I appreciate in my apartment this year as compared to last. But at the same time, maybe not. As I was about to write this blog, I was packing up my things to notice a guitar lying out. This, while not typical, is a representation of how much music is played in my apartment this year.

While most of us last year were music fans and were typically all listening to something at any point that we were home, playing music was not a common occurrence, and it was not with my previous roommate either. It is something that I love.

I may not always have time to pick up my guitar, but I don't think a day goes by that one of us hasn't played our guitars. And the beauty is when its a communal thing, finding two or three of us sitting down and playing music together. It's definitely something I love and have become accustomed to and one of the bigger things I will miss about this place in a few months.

A Good Story Has Proof

Warning: Tonight's blog contains details and pictures that are not necessarily friendly.

Ever since I moved into my apartment there has been a level of fear mixed with entertainment with regard to the noises audible from my bedroom coming from outside. Sometimes it might be the sound of a car who can't get down the street because someone has double parked. To remind this ignorant driver of their selfish act, the individual trying to make their way down the street will lay on their horn for, at one point, 25 minutes, at 8 am (that is not a lie). Or how regularly around 1 am there is a trash truck that drives by which continues to pose the question, what trash truck is in service at 1 am?

Amongst other things, however, there has been many a time in my months here, shouting matches that take place on the street below. While most of them take place out of sight, they have still only ever been shouting matches. Every so often, if it is early enough that we are not all in our own rooms, my roommate will comment about how he hopes one day we get to see a fight. It's kind of like hearing the screech of a car but not hearing the collision (yes like the Dane Cook joke). Well last night, again, around 3 am there was an audible 'disagreement' going on outside. And as in the past, my roommate commented on how we've never seen a fight take place. Sure enough, minutes later, this argument turned physical and within view of my bedroom window. There were probably somewhere between 5 and 10 people in the street all throwing punches in little 2 and 3 man factions. One person even got their shirt pulled off Mighty-Ducks-style.

This was a serious fight.

Maybe 5 minutes later the fight separated and then the unexpected happened. They were inside my apartment building. Maybe they got in because someone else was opening the door, maybe they live here, maybe they buzzed every floor until someone let them in. I don't know. What I do know is that they were in the building and I could hear them in the stair well. Shouting continued and people were no longer visible out my window. Minutes later I could hear the voices carry down the street and it seemed like they left.

I had a meeting today and when I left I walked through what appeared to be a crime scene. From the bottom of the steps through the first floor and out out the door there was blood. A combination of droplets on the floor and streaks on the walls, the inside of my apartment building looked like something from a horror movie. I don't know how someone got to be so injured or if it was multiple people but it was what was left of the events that transpired the night before.

On my way back from the meeting I took a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately something malfunctioned upon importing them and I lost a few of them, specifically, the picture of the main wall which had a huge blood smear across it. I went back downstairs to retake the pictures only to find the walls bleached over. There are still drops of blood on the floor, but someone from maintenance definitely cleaned it all up. I do, however, still have some of the pictures which I am including below. This all comes after a conversation earlier in the night with a friend of mine about how my street, this year, seems to be the safest place to live on as there has not been any reported violence or muggings on it unlike the rest of the streets students live on in the area.

The Man Upstairs

Do you ever wonder about your neighbors. I am not one to go out of my way to meet people, and unfortunately it doesn't take long to build up a distaste for those people you never see but always know when they are around.

Maybe if I was the type of person to knock on the front door of my downstairs neighbors when I first moved in I'd feel differently about them, but 6 months later I don't like them very much. There is definitely an imaginative benefit to never knowing the people you live between (upstairs and downstairs neighbors). Everything from the insides of their apartment, what they look like, what they are interested in, what they might talk about - it is all up in the air for your mind to decide and depict when you try to imagine what could possibly be going on when you hear them through the floor or ceiling.

Until the end of December, no one lived above us. Our downstairs neighbors were our only problem. They were consistently annoying but at least once a week they would, and still do, have music playing with a bass so loud that not only can you figure out what song it is by vibration alone, but it is like your floor has become a massage chair because then entire floor of the apartment is vibrating. It is especially frustrating when trying to get work done or watching a television show - hearing a bass pulsating the whole time.

December came and we added friends to the north. And by friends I do not mean friends. Again, had we gotten to meet, noises from above might be tolerable or I would feel comfortable enough to say something. Instead, a distaste for them has been growing for the past month. Ever since they moved in it has sounded like they have been building something. There is always reptetitious banging as if they are building an addition to their 4th floor apartment.

Every so often there comes a loud bang or rolling that sounds like either someone is just jumping off stuff or bowling in their hallway. What is more frustrating is that despite the constant bangs and booms that occur, we have never complained. Tonight, however, when I was playing my acoustic guitar in my room the man in the bedroom above mine starts stomping on the floor as if to say 'shut up'. Excuse me, but I am allowed to play my guitar. I am not playing the electric guitar, I am not playing at a loud volume. You could argue, well it is a school night - maybe he is trying to sleep. Yeah I thought that for a bit, but it is now an hour later and I can still hear him walking around (every foot step up there sounds like there are giants walking around). So apparently it was not that my guitar playing was disrupting his sleep, but that he just did not want to hear me. Tough, man. Unless you expect me to walk around in silence for another few months, you better build up a tolerance level because an acoustic guitar is not terribly loud.

Needless to say, the chance of befriending our neighbors to the north went out the window tonight. Sheesh. Sorry for being so cranky, but if your banging is going to be loud enough to interrupt things and, on occasion, wake me up and I never complain, then stomping on the floor when you hear me is inexcusable.

moved in

i guess thats relative though. i am in the bronx now. this building is now my primary residence after spending 3 different times here as a visitor knowing i was returning home i am now turning the tables. i know theres stuff we still need - but for the most part we are settled. my goal for tonight was to unpack and tomorrow was to food shop but got hungry. so tomorrow my goal is to unpack. its better this way because i can have a bowl of cereal or some eggs in the morning before i unpack instead of waking up totally unpacked and with no food.

nfl draft is tomorrow for my fantasy team and i havent given it any more thought than i am right now as im typing it. i should change that.

also - my big light wouldnt fit in my car and my desk lamp sucks so i brought a clip light figuring i can just bend that where ever i need to. problem - bulb is burnt out. solution - went to target for things like bowls and shower curtain which we needed and bought bulb. no resolution - socket didnt match. alas i am using my closet light to illuminate my room. yes they give you a light in the ceiling in the closet - but not in the bedroom.

the end.