1) When I lived in Astoria from Feb-Sept of 2006, I also always left work at 5:00 PM sharp. Which means I often caught the same exact subway (because contrary to popular belief, there is technically a subway schedule), because there was this very distinctive chatty announcer on the N/W. I think it actually must be the W train, since the N has gone automated. Anyway, today I was taking the N/W home (which I usually don’t. I’m an R train Astorian now) and heard him and his annoucements. It made me happy.

2) I love my apartment, but I don’t think I’ll love the 30th Avenue area as much as I love Ditmars. I’m over in the Ditmars area right now, posting from Freeze Peach. (Say the name fast, the words blending together. That’s where the name comes from). I love this place, not just because it was my home base before I got internet at my old apartment, but because I remember walking by it when we were going over to check out that apartment that became home for nearly 8 months and thinking how home-y it looked.

3) I don’t remember when Rome went to Hawaii, but when he did, he brought me back a touristy piece of volcano rock that is “good luck” or whatever. I thanked him, and tossed it on my desk. It say on my desk at PLI through the best months of my life. And then I moved to Chicago, and that rock was in storage in NJ, and while my life by no means sucked it’s already recorded here what they were. I found that rock when I moved back from Chicago and I thought “what the hell” and threw it in the inside pocket of the bag I carried everyday.

I got the interview that got me my job 3 days later.
I got my apartment a couple weeks after that.

4) I walk a lot in New York, more naturally then anywhere else in the world. Chicago is not nearly as walkable as New York, especially since I was on the border of the Southside and there was the stigma both not to cross the Midway and the fact that the area between Hyde Park and downtown was not good territory to walk through. Anyway, through this I’ve dropped the pants size I gained whilst a grad student, without even trying

5) I got up the guts to talk to a cute boy at the coffee shop last night. We had a good conversation. He has a girlfriend. OF COURSE. But whatever, he loves Boston and can’t wait to move back there and we all know how I feel about Boston

6) A lot of things at work clicked today. I don’t know why. They just clicked.

7) I had dinner with a few Astorians friends a few nights ago. Dinner was delicious and it was good to see a few Astoria faces. I love that a site like this exists. When I tell my other NYC friends about this, they don’t get it, because it is very rare to know people in your neighborhood. We are an amazing and awesome community.

I just love Queens. I don’t know what it is about this borough that makes me love it so much, or at least, I can’t articulate it, but every neighborhodd I visit here, I love.

9) Since being back, I’ve not been a lot of my favorite places in New York. Goal next week: I’m going to the Strand, see if they have the copies of the Stories of Civilization Series that I covet, and just go to the area, since I’ve not been there in awhile. I don’t neccesarily like the Union Square area, but it reminds me of being a new transplant to the city, and following Charice to Strand way back when

It is so amazingly good to be home. I can’t stop saying that.