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Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 - 4:05 p.m.

Stale beer

I walked into the kitchen this morning to get my breakfast after my shower, and something smelled. I couldn't quite place, it but I knew I'd smelled it before, though not recently. It's like when you pass a woman in the mall and smell her perfume, and it's immediately familiar, yet you can't remember why it's familiar, who it was who once wore it, or if she turned you on (well, that's probably a "yes").

Only this was different, because the smell in the kitchen wasn't a good one. It didn't smell nice, and yet, in my mind I had a feeling that the memory to which I was supposed to be associating this smell wasn't a bad one.

After eating my Cheerios on the bed while watching SportsCenter, I carried my bowl and glass back into the kitchen to wash them. That's when I noticed them: Sitting next to the trash can were half a dozen empty beer bottles from last night. We keep the bottles seperate from the trash because, apparently, they are recycled. Somehow. Our trash system in the building is a mystery, to say the least. There are about four large gray pails in the basement near the door leading outside to the alley. There are also three large blue ones, which contain any combination of glass, plastic and aluminum. We have no idea if these recyclables get separated further or if this whole recycling thing is just a farce. I was once told that "they" separate the trash themselves, whoever they are. As in, we don't even have to keep the bottles out of the regular trash; someone in the basement (gnomes?) will do it for us before putting it out on the curb.

(That's another thing with our trash pickup -- they come at 3 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays. At least, that's when I've been awakened recently by the trash men shouting in the street and lifting the dumpster behind the boro hall across the street and banging it back and forth to empty it.)

I seemed to have digressed. The smell came from the bottles; it was the smell of stale beer, like the morning after a college party when there are bricks everywhere, beer spilled on the end tables, a stain on the carpet. It's a revolting stench, yet the memories can sometimes be fond ones, those of kick-ass keggers and the like. But this was merely from a few bottles drunk with dinner while watching TV (and they weren't mine; I know I rinsed out my empties after finishing them). So on my way to my car, I put the bottles in a bag and dropped them off in one of the blue containers that held other empty bottles.

While the Weather Channel (or at least its website) promises this rain is going to push through tonight and produce an at least partly sunny weekend, it remains dark and damp outside the one window I can see at the other end of the office. Blah. Bryan just called and is now in the city and wants to meet with me alone before we meet up with others tonight. There's something he's been wanting to tell me since May, though he'd said it's not urgent or life-changing enough to require a more immediate meeting; however, he prefers to tell me in person. Mia must know, and my sister probably does too. I'm just confused -- if it's important enough to tell me in person, how is it so not important that it can wait four months from when it's first brought up? Well, I'll find out tonight.

Only who knows when we'll get into the city because Casey and I are meeting with Our New Landlord at 6:30 to sign the lease to the New Apartment. It's a perfect place for us -- roomy and afordable in a nice neighborhood close to work and bus routes into New York. We won't be far from the current place (and therefore won't be far from Whole Foods) and there's off-street parking, a dishwasher, a deck (it's a second-floor apartment in a duplex), three bedrooms, doors to every room, hardwood floors and we're allowed to paint the walls (and don't even have to paint them back). All we have to do tonight is provide a security deposit, and on October 15 give him the first month's rent, and we move in on November 1. Or that weekend thereabouts. My current lease isn't up until November 30, but that's Thanksgiving weekend, and just won't work. But the current landlord is being flexible and has put the apartment on the market; if he finds someone who wants to come in at the start of November, he'll let us out early. Worst-case scenario: we have to pay rent at two places for November. But it's worth it; this apartment is worth it, a clean credit report is worth it, and paying an extra month's rent at the old place is cheaper than losing the security deposit at said old place.

I only saw this place on Wednesday, but I loved it immediately. It has a comfortable feel to it, reminding me of friends' apartments in Boston and Cleveland that I liked. It seems like a 50s-era home, and there's just something about that.

The best thing may be that there's plenty of room for a Christmas tree. Hell, there's plenty of room for a cat ... but, no. Not yet.

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