last call

dominique and i have lived in the city for almost a year now. personally, i'd say it's been about 11 months too long. that's not entirely fair, because there was definitely a period of time during which it was novel and interesting. but eventually the realization that living in a city meant living amongst a lot of other people kicked in. and it stuck.

despite living in the "good" part of the city (i think "best" is more accurate since it's a much more relative term), it's getting a bit out of hand. ignoring the often shitty neighbors, the lack of privacy, the parking issues, and the more expensive rent, there are still a lot of problems. a perfect example is last august when our bikes were stolen out of our garage. now i accept some responsibility for that because we forgot to lock them up before leaving town for the weekend. however, i also feel that ideally you shouldn't have to lock up your bikes, even if you live in a city. ideally. but that's why idealists are stupid.

but last night was the last straw. one of our neighbors who lives upstairs from us had her car broken into last night. in our driveway. her car was parked right behind mine, and 2 out from dominique's car. the person broke the passenger side window to get in. unfortunately for the poor planning piece of shit, there wasn't anything enticing in the car, so it was all for nothing. when the neighbor discovered this, she was hysterical (and who would blame her?). she reported it to the police this morning, and was told that 3 other cars on our street were also broken into last night.

the (not really) worst part is that i think i may have heard it last night. as we were going to bed i heard what i would describe as a tapping sound outside. but it had been raining a little and i thought it could've been water running out and dripping on something. i got up twice and looked out a couple of our windows. except for the darkness, i might've even looked at the person (or people) out the kitchen window. i even contemplated going outside to see if i could locate the sound. who knows whether that would've been a good or bad thing.

i was before, but now i'm really happy we're moving in a month or so. but this still really pisses me off. it'll probably make me somewhat neurotic every time i hear a sound outside. do i have to go back to the pennsylvania days of sleeping with my spare 2-iron next to my bed? (there were reports by my neighbors that someone had tried to get into my apartment one summer.) maybe, i don't know. would it do any good? maybe, or probably not. either way, i'm really fucking pissed off that i'd even have to consider it.

tonight dominique and i went out to dinner. when we got back, a house at the end of the street was having a party. there was a live band outside, it was nice. we took the dogs and grabbed some chairs and hung out outside because it was warm. we grabbed a few beers and some cigars. while just trying to have a nice evening, we saw numerous, numerous sketch-as-all-fucking-shit cars pass by down our road several times. what the fuck? we can't even sit outside our own fucking apartment and enjoy the night without being totally sketched the fuck out. i can guarantee you that there is nothing in our neighborhood that would warrant doing laps like this.

the city is extremely frustrating. i hate that it is impossible to mind my own fucking business and not bother anyone but yet not feel safe in and around my own fucking house.

fuck this bullshit, fuck the city, and most of all, fuck people.