My roomates are fattening me up to eat me at the end of the summer OR Where I live and some things I've done

The Apartment

So, our apartment is huge. We all are doing our own work from home, and some days I don’t see my roommates all day. I’ve made whole meals without them even knowing. It’s like I’m in a separate wing of the household. It’s great.

A lot of days, though, all three of us will congregate in the kitchen, mostly in the mornings and evenings. In the mornings, there’s an air of possibility as we wake up around the table, like that day could hold anything, and that anything is ours to accomplish. Kate gets a little frustrated from time to time, because Chris and I will have our heads buried in a book, magazine, or laptop, and she wants someone to talk to. She is in the right here, obviously; Chris and I make for rude breakfast company on mornings like these. Still, a little quiet time in the morning with a whole bunch of coffee and some Cheerios is not a bad way to go either. The evenings are a little more social.

A lot of cooking goes on at night, hence the title of this post. I have been eating like a king out here. Some days I’ll eat about seven different times. One of the first nights I was here, when Pete (Chris’ musical cohort) was out here staying with us, he, Chris, and I, after a show they had, went to a pizza joint for a slice, then walked across the street and ate some Turkish food. One needs to get all the flavors of this city. And if it’s back to back at two a.m. on a Wednesday morning, so be it.

Chris, it turns out, is quite the cook. Although he has some trouble paring down the recipe for just three people. There are currently six containers of vegetarian Jambalaya in the freezer (we’ll save some for ya, Dustin. It should keep till August). And that is after we went through the leftovers in the fridge that pretty much filled a large cooking pot. Along with the Jambalaya we’ve had some great Thai dishes, and all this stuff is from scratch. None of the bottled sauces or boxed concoctions. And then there is my lame pasta. I need to start pulling my weight. Which, at this rate, will soon be considerably greater.

The neighborhood

There’s not much going on in the immediate neighborhood: a lot of auto shops, small grocery stores, gas stations, and fast food joints. Nothing to really go and do. There is a massive cemetery two blocks from us. When I was in the cab coming from the airport, this thing looked like a smaller version of the skyline on the horizon behind it. Huge. I have yet to walk through it, but it’s on the agenda.

About twenty blocks north is Park Slope, which borders Prospect Park, which is pretty, and absolutely hopping on the weekends: soccer, biking, volleyball, Frisbee, cricket…cricket?! Park Slope is a good neighborhood to hang out in. There are a lot of restaurants and bars. It’s about a twenty-five minute walk or ten minute bike ride. I have yet to find that place to call my home away from home, where the bartender gives me a tab for $6 after I’ve been there for 6 hours. But I don’t really know if I had that in St. Paul anymore. Not since the good ol’ days of the Tap (What up, Ellen? That was that bartender’s name, right?).

Just beyond Park Slope another mile or so is the Manhattan Bridge, which dumps you right into the lower east side, which is where all the pretty people hang out. I’ve never seen so many guys in horizontal-striped shirts and tight jeans and girls with short skirts and tights underneath. Originality loses something in such places, I think in more ways than just the dress code. Still, it’s a fun place to be. Chris has a consistent gig at a place called The Living Room that is right over there, so we’ve been in that neighborhood a few times.

So that’s the run down on my immediate vicinity, and a little ways out. I haven’t ventured to either of the Upper Sides yet. Went to see a free Apples In Stereo show in Central Park—that’s as far north as I’ve been. I went to a poetry reading at Battery City Park, which is right on the Hudson, as far west as you can go, just past Wall St., and you can see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. That was nice.

That’s where I’m living in Brooklyn. And those are some places I’ve been. And now you know about some of them.