Neighborhood Watch

I went out first thing this morning to get coffee and came face to face with this nice guy.  It was so startling because he was basically right at my eye level, and completely unexpected.   In all the time I've lived here, and even before when I would come hang out at this apt, I have never seen anybody in any of these ground floor apts until recently.  There is a family now that lives in this apt who brazenly keep their blinds drawn all hours of the day and night.  I passed their window the other evening and saw two nine year old boys playing the same Mario Party that Dan and I had stayed up all night trying to play while we were wasted only a few nights earlier.

But this is the first time that I've seen this handsome guy.  I like that it was early in the morning so nobody was around, that's his time to check things out, see what's going on.

It's kind of weird watching this neighborhood slowly changing.  I'll never forget when I first moved in and I was watching Tyra and she was doing a segment about gay bashing and the intro had her saying, "Gay bashings happen on streets like this in nyc EVERY DAY" and they were literally showing my street, like my front door.  And I thought, "that's comforting".

In some ways I wish that I could buy property in this neighborhood because it's only a matter of time before it turns in to the next williamsburg, but then again I can think of nothing worse than committing to staying in Spanish Harlem for the next x amount of years.

But for as long as I am still here I can find comfort knowing that while the Detective keeps track of what's going on behind our building, this nice guy is holding down the fort at the entrance.