in da hood

you know, when the best adjective you can think of to describe the neighborhood in which you live is "ghettotastic," it's sometimes rather easy to forget the things that you actually do like about it. particularly when it is so very close to another neighborhood that is so very easy to love that you can't believe you don't live there sometimes.

the point: i'm going to take this opportunity to make a short list of things i like about where i live, so i have it on file the next time some asshole calls me "mami" while staring blatantly at my tits and i start looking around for the nearest crowbar.

*ahem*

what i like about my neighborhood

-my apartment. i've tried to deny it, tried to say i'd like to move, but it's a lie. i am in love with my apartment. if my apartment were a person, it would have a loud laugh and give the best hugs ever. it's very nice to come home to.

-talking to the guys who run the bodega, who always come out to say hello to me when they see me walking past. somehow, they manage to do this without being creepy. hence the love.

-the 24 hour laundromat one block away.

-the chinese restaurant where they recognize my voice on the phone (which is impressive, considering i order chinese food maybe twice a month) and notice such things as the fact that our door had been replaced and the hallway painted.

-the greenwood cemetery. morbid, but true.

-the tiny, wizened pizza delivery guy, doesn't speak a word of english, but still has entire conversations with me in italian (which i don't speak at all) whenever i order a pizza

-the fact that the street is almost always silent between two and three a.m. beyond that, however, is a completely different story.

-the bus stop a block away from my apartment. now that it is no longer beneath my window, it rocks my world. because late at night, sometimes you just don't feel like hiking twenty some-odd blocks to get home. lazy, but true.

-the fact that i've grown to like it here enough that i can parade around hungover, without makeup and in my pajamas and not give a damn who sees me. that means it's home.