Wew! It was a mad dash getting everything pulled out of the house, and I’m sweaty and tired and cranky. But it’s DONE! I’m so excited. Nothing is ever entirely bad, of course, and there are always going to be good memories mixed in with the bad. So was the case in living in Bed Stuy.

Here are some of my favorites:

The parties. All of them! There were too many to count, and a lot that just kinda came together last minute. We rocked it out almost every month, and I got to know so many cool people who were friends of friends that later became friends of my own.

November 4, 2008, 11:00pm and the hours that followed. Never, ever, ever will I forget the air in the streets that night, hugging neighbors, slapping high fives and crying like crazy, overjoyed people. I know it was similar in other parts of Brooklyn, but I don’t think it was as vibrant, as meaningful, as in a poor black neighborhood. I don’t care what you think of Barack Obama: it was an amazing day for black people (and, really, it was an amazing day for everyone who hates racism).

Sitting in the tiny front entry way bundled in my coat with Bra the cat curled in my lap purring like crazy, happy to have somewhere warm to put his paws.

Fried chicken! Horrible, greasy, sketchy fried chicken, right down the block.

The look of sadness on my old-lady neighbor’s face when she saw us bringing our final boxes to the car. “You’re leaving us?” she said, and Rob said, “Yeah, we are.” “Awww.” she said, crestfallen, and I felt bad, which is saying a lot.

Time to move forward, though! Here we go. Park Slope. Tiny apartment. Laundromats. Vibrant neighborhood. Excellent shopping. John Hodgman as a neighbor!

Happy August.

*This is the fourth place Rob and I have lived together in almost as many years. WHO DOES THAT?

August 1 is when it all goes away, when it’s all over. We have to turn in the keys to the old apartment by midnight tomorrow, but before then we have to get our stuff out of there.

I know! I thought we got all our stuff out of there, too! We certainly paid the movers enough. But there’s still stuff in there.

All the furniture is gone and has been moved to where it’s going to be, but there’s a bunch of STUFF, just STUFF, the stuff that piles into the corners and gets in the way and annoys you because you don’t really know what to do with it, where to store it, or even why you need it, but you can’t throw it away because OMG what if you need it next week except, you totally won’t. But you might. Also, it was expensive.

If you have a place you’re living for a while you have the luxury of ignoring it and storing it, but I have to move it outta there, and the way I’m dealing is sticking my head under my pillow and going “La la la, is it August yet? No? Ok. La la la.”

For some reason, this method is completely unsuccessful in moving the piles of stuff out of the old apartment, nor is it taking care of the other task at hand after getting all the stuff out: “broom sweeping”. That’s term used in real estate to mean “you didn’t bleach it, but all your stuff is out, and there isn’t dirt everywhere.” or rather “Empty, and reasonably clean.”

I just don’t want to. It’s hot. I’m tried. This is overwhelming. Podcasting was rough this week. I need a nap.

Just a little further, Amber. Just a little more.

Last night I hit my head. There were stars and birds and shit flying around my head while my eyes crossed and then faded into slow, circling spirals. I was pretty sure death was eminent, and I cried and cried and cried while typing a last love note to Rob on the notepad application of my iPhone. Romantic, right?

I put peas on my head, Nicole came over so I wouldn’t be alone, and all was well eventually.

***

The local independent book store has a resident bunny, a resident elderly dog that sleeps in the doorway, and a pond in the back. It used to have a resident iguana, but he died. The local pet shop has a resident gray kitten, who likes to climb up the cat tree things and, from there, climb onto customers’ shoulders and help them shop.

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Our grass is growing! We’ll have a lovely lawn in a few weeks.

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Moving isn’t done yet. There’s still a bunch of stuff that needs to go to the basement in Connecticut, where it will sit until we figure out what to do with it, which means eventually selling it or throwing it out. I miss being settled into one place. I’m really loving this neighborhood, though; I like being able to walk around and shop without having to get into a car or get on a subway. It feels luxurious.

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Photos are coming soon of the new place; I need to figure out where to put all of my art, which is normally the fun part, but feels overwhelming right now.

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After a hiatus, I’m back to working on Hey Brooklyn and there will be a new episode this Friday. Woohoo!

So, we’ve landed in Park Slope after a very self-sufficient move. In addition to going DIY with the painting, we packed everything ourselves* and then ran some of the boxes of stuff over to the new place and unpacked them in the weeks before the Big Moving Day with the Movers. These small chunks of moving were not only sanity-preservers, they made everything way cheaper: our by-the-hour rate movers had finished everything in just under three hours, including the drive over to the new place. Even they were stunned. Rob and I celebrated with a high-five.

One of the things we did early was put our bookshelves in the empty apartment and fill them.  By “we” I mean Eric.  The wall they are on is drywall over brick, and I said to Rob, “There is no way we are tackling this ourselves.

If you ask nicely he’ll wear his tool belt while working (you know, for the ladies who are into that sort of thing) and he gives a discount if he can bring his dog.

Thanks, Eric!

It doesn’t feel like home yet, and I wonder if it ever will. It’s very small here, and it’s clear that we will have to move eventually. Not just because of the space issue, either; the landlord actually told our real estate agent, “Three dogs is no problem, but NO KIDS!” It’s quite nice for now, though.

Stu! came over Saturday with champagne and cupcakes to celebrate the new place, and we spent the afternoon with me shirking unpacking responsibilities to show off the new neighborhood and slowly but surely convince her to become my cup-of-sugar neighbor.

Thank you to Effed In Park Slope for the Twitter welcome! This 4-part-series of videos they did of the local Target explains, to a level I don’t have the ability to blog about, why I feel like I’m descending into the seventh ring of Hell when I go.

*Apparently the really rich people leave their homes and go away for a few weeks and people come and pack them up and move them. Then they come back from vacation to a newly set up home somewhere else!

Ever since the green paint incident* I’ve had a fear of painting the wrong color in a room, but I’ve done pretty well for myself, I think, with this current apartment. That’s a total attitude change from a few days ago, brought on by the elimination of the ugly blue-green trim color that permeated our new digs, the color I’ve been raging against since I first saw the place. (“What were they thinking?!”)

We painted every white wall first with “risky” colors that I hoped I would come to love, and having the ugly trim paired with my freshly painted walls that I wasn’t quite sure about threw me off into believing the entire place was a disaster. I was so upset thinking that I was going to live in the UGLIEST! APARTMENT! EVER! and that I spent money for paint and worked hard painting for that privilege. (It would be one thing if the apartment was ugly through no fault of my own, but to actually make it ugly? Unbearable.) Now, though, with a few coats of America’s favorite paint color, Navajo White, the ugly trim is gone, replaced by crispy colored trim that gives the entire apartment a fresh, modern feeling. It’s downright beautiful if I do say so myself!

We’re half-way there getting the trim done; the ugly color is so deep it requires two coats of Navajo White, and is so extensive – every room, every doorway – that I’m going to be super busy painting it all before moving day Thursday. I’m listening to Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk while I’m doing it, which helps pass the time better than music.

I’ll be back in a few days, posting from Park Slope!

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*Oh, it was bad. The worst was that my friends tried to talk me out of it, even as they were painting it, and I was all, “No, no! It’s gonna be great!” and I loved it for about three seconds, and then I was devastated and had to paint over it.

“You didn’t actually want to paint!” I said to Rob. The realization hit me suddenly, roller in hand, mid-roll, and I froze while paint dripped down my arm. I felt terrible.

“It’s fine!” he said, but then later he admitted, “I would have just left it. But I know you. You need it nice. So, we paint.”

How great is my guy? It hadn’t occurred to him to bother talking me out of painting the entire apartment, he just sucked it up and did it.

You may take this moment to stand up and applaud my husband for his awesomeness, thoughtfulness, and wonderfulness.

Later, he was all hugs and consoling pats on the back when I had a meltdown and could not paint another single stroke. After that, I was sent home to shower and relax while he spent the day finishing up by himself. I really hate moving, but since I have to, I’m glad to go through this with Rob. He is a good dude.

We painted two colors, a light slate blue that’s unusual but growing on me, and a color that I thought would be a hip modern camel-butterscotch beige, but what actually turned out to be a mustardy, baby-poop, project housing hallway tan. Bummer! I’m hoping that will grow on me, too.

The whole process of picking colors was frustrating and overwhelming.  I’ve picked paint before and had both great success and horrible results. If I was doing it again, I would have borrowed the ENTIRE color deck selector from Home Depot rather than deal with traveling to Home Depot several times for a bunch of chips (at one point I had about 2 dozen different beige squares spread out on the floor of the new place and let Stu! pick what she liked; she told me to throw them all out and try again).

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According to this article NYTimes, we are part of a growing trend of people that rent in NYC and buy in the suburbs. I wish we had thought of this before we spent months and months looking for something to buy here last year! We felt a little crazy taking this unusual real estate path, but it seemed like it made sense, and a year later, I’m excited about our decision. See? I do live and learn! Just not about picking paint colors.