skate ramp

(photo taken out of my living room window. i don't really care if this kid knows or doesn't know or cares about me taking his picture. i'm pretty sure he used a racial slur when addressing the guy who goes around collecting aluminum cans in my neighborhood. so one picture of him doing a pretty sweet ollie off of his homemade skate ramp is us being even?)

i'm finally starting to feel "at home" in my new apartment. it's been a while since i moved all of my stuff and i'm only starting to feel that way. unpacking and figuring out where everything should go has taken a long time, this time around. maybe it's because it's a smaller space and i have a lot of stuff.

and i've started to get a sense of who some of my neighbors are. or in some cases have started to see how mysterious and kind of crazy they really are.

for instance: a guy living downstairs and about three or so apartments down leaves his house everyday around the same time. this is not unusual, i realize, but he does so pretty bundled up, carrying a duffel bag. not entirely out of the ordinary, i know. but as soon as he shuts his door, he hugs his bag to his chest and sprints down the street. also he's so bundled up that you cannot tell his age, ethnicity, and i'm really only guessing that it's actually a man. and he's not dressed to exercise. and maybe he's just late to catch his bus every single day, but his demeanor doesn't really express that either. i can't exactly put my finger on it, but there's just something very.. peculiar.. about the whole thing.

and of course the lady who lives at the other end of the building from me, who on one of my first nights staying overnight at my new apartment, made me move my car two spaces over (out of four) so she could park in her space. she wasn't entirely pleasant about the whole thing, knocking on my door a few minutes after her initial request so we "...could do it.. NOW?" i understand the inability to want to break out of habit, the importance of a parking space, i know how people can get. so i went out and moved my car. she came over the next day and handed me two different kinds of body lotion as well as some bath/shower gel stuff. it was completely awkward and she obviously felt kind of ashamed by the whole ordeal and wanted me to know she appreciated my polite compliance with her craziness. (she is also responsible for the cats who have been sitting outside my apartment door driving harper completely bonkers. they live across the street, but she insists on putting out food for them when she comes home from work.)

i share a building with six other occupied apartments (and one currently unoccupied) and i'm sure they will continue to provide me with this particular kind of entertainment.

people are a funny group of animals.