It's Finally Over

Been traveling all month, which has only compounded apartment stuff.

We last left off with a failed inspection. Since then, I've had two friends visit in two separate weeks, bought a bicycle and have been across the country twice.

On the apartment front, the building passed its second inspection with flying colors, despite the fact the inspector had to look at the place over two days because an apartment building nearby collapsed. Inspectors are like superheroes and emergency response technicians all rolled into one, because to hear the contractor tell it, the guy was out of my building so fast they only heard the crash of the collapse after he was out the door.

I moved in between the two days of inspection, which became a problem when I was still in bed as the inspector was entering the building on inspection day mk. II. Despite the fact my apartment had been deemed habitable, the guy hadn't yet verified that all the doors opened properly in other parts of the building, so people weren't technically supposed to be inside yet. Enter: Super banging on my door frantically while I crawl out of bed. I got out the front door just as the inspector was walking in, bug-eyed at the half-shaven dude slinking out the building he shouldn't have been inside.

Everything worked out, or they finally just bribed the dude, because I got a phone call that day and was cleared to live in my goddamn apartment, finally.

So that's about over. We're getting all moved in this week, and the place is pretty swank indeed. I think I about ran the gamut of the moving experience, less actually living on a buddy's couch in the questionable section of town while job hunting at the same time. But hey, I survived moving into a new building in a city full of ancient ones, and now I've got a base of operations for learning the rest of the city.

And while I still don't think of myself as a New Yorker yet, I will say how nice it felt to come home after traveling. Somehow, even a neighborhood in Brooklyn I barely know feels familiar after a 7-hour red eye. That's a step in the right direction.