So last night was my first night at my new apartment in the Back Bay. It was weird as it always is…  noises and serious drafts and mixed feelings… Think I woke up at 4 am and then off and on every hour..

My neighbor upstairs follows monday night TV with sex it seems, at least in the first week of March. Nothing is a funnier introduction to a neighbor than a series of sounds that make you think: “wait is that what I think it is?” In this case there was a what sounded like the perfect oscillation of a improperly loaded washing machine and then a womanly sound, then later there was a loud male gasp and then double gasp. My neighbor upstairs also likes to listen to bad loud music on tuesday late mornings. I will call this neighbor “Molina” after his mailbox name tag. I am merely hoping this pattern does not indicate he is in the restaurant business, as that lifestyle leads to lots of off hour noise which I am not paying this much to deal with.

Today I woke up to real sunlight for the first time in an apartment of mine in more than two years. I cleaned the wonderful woodsmoke enriched seasoning off my cast iron frying pan and made some eggs on my new cramped stove, made some toast in the same pan, found out my faucet’s hot water is hot enough for tea, and ate standing up. Then I built my new Ikea drop leaf dining room table which sat next to my bay windows until I decided my feet were about 14 degrees and moved the whole operation next to the wall mounted space heater by the kitchen door. I am stealing some wireless internet from the unsecured connection entitled “Chandler Bing”. I guess someone, maybe even Molina, thinks that Chandler was the insecure one. Regardless I am grateful to them.

So here I newly live surrounded by piles of my stuff, some still smoked and others newly deodorized. I have two new plants with another on the way soon enough, and have virtually no furniture to put anything on or in. I have a new Ikea 6 month el cheapo foam mattress that is losing its foam smell without me in my loft area, my counters are about 2 inches too short for comfort, and my mom very kindly went off to the Covina, CA Ikea today to track down one of the last pairs of Vika Artur trestle desk legs in the country and ship them to me so that I may have two surfaces to work off instead of just one. I hit Bed Bath and Beyond later for essentials like a shower curtain liner and hopefully a cheap mattress pad. I have ten times as many things to do as I can think of, and am looking forward to getting some kind of routine going again.

Cannot thank Bogie and Dara and Wrigley enough for putting me up for a week at their place while I resorted my Bostonian life. Or Paul for lending me a very capable hand organizing the carcass of my old apartment for excavation. Or Dayna for accompanying me not once but twice to the Scandinavian designed circle of hell that is Ikea, and handing out some helpful advice to ease the process. And while we survived my wallet surely didn’t. Also have to thank my Mom for sending me a proper comforter and some great pillows. Nothing says new home like packages from Mom in the front hall when you check in for good.

Can’t wait to have this place feel like home. God knows when that will be. In the meantime I need thicker socks.