Philly Journal, 11/26/13

It is, ultimately, not easy to live in the city without a car.  But it also is, also ultimately, completely glorious.

I will have a better feel for how physically challenging it is to live like this once I’m finally done “working” on my apartment, but my first two weeks here have been really tiring.  Mind you, this whole time, I’ve been working my regular job, which during the holiday season, is especially trying.  Then, on my time off, I’m still putting my apartment together, which normally isn’t too much work, but my place includes really narrow, really steep stairs to the second floor, and really unreliable, really steep stairs to the basement, and I’ve taken approximately one million trips up and down both—usually carrying things that weigh 100 pounds—in my first two weeks here.  Then, there is the bike ride to work.  I must admit, it is a little tiny bit further than I’d anticipated.  It’s about two miles each way, which isn’t a lot as the crow flies, but city biking is not your typical leisure riding, and of course the weather hasn’t been making this any easier, and of course the one million trips up and down stairs have not been making the biking any easier on my legs, which never seem to get completely rested before I ask another enormous thing of them.  Then, on top of this, any time I realize I need something for my new place that I don’t have–a dish drainer, a certain light bulb—I have to literally go ride my bike to get this, or walk to get this.  Luckily, unbeknownst to me when I moved in here, I am ridiculously close to tons and tons of convenient retail.  Literally two blocks from my apartment there is a Target, Best Buy, Lowes, a chain supermarket (for locals, it’s a Shop Rite), and tons of other stuff (there’s a Wal-Mart about half a mile away, but across a very busy road.  I’ve gone there, but that’s more for biking only, it’s not practically walkable).  So I got lucky there.  But coming from an entire life lived hopping in cars, it is a massive adjustment.

Now, having said all that, now I must tell you I love it.  It’s just a lot going on at once and a lot of things to adjust to all at once, but a few weeks or a month from now, when I’ve been settled in for awhile and my body has adjusted and it no longer gets dark at noon (I’m confident that adjusting to these changes at the same time as the clocks going back has made it more difficult for me) that I am going to 100% be all about this life.  Already, in many ways, I can’t imagine having a car.  I see these neighbors of mine worrying about parking, and soon, the snow, and all these one way streets and all the silly tangential bullcrap that comes with a car in general, and is totally amplified by having a car in the city, and I could not be more thrilled to be out of that rat race.  I need milk and soda, I get my little handcart and I walk over to the Shop Rite.  I breathe the air and nod to other pedestrians, immersed in our own, more slow, more visceral version of the travelling world.  Later today I will be going to a movie for the first time at what will be my “new” theater, a United Artists about .4 miles from me.  I will bundle up, hop on my bike, and ride it for seriously just a few minutes.  I will hitch it to a post or a bike rack at the movie theater and go see a movie.  Having paid for no gas, looked for no parking spots, waited for nothing to heat up.  Just using my own power, taking whatever route I want…I will just…go there.

There is a lot more to talk about and tell you about this lovely, lovely experience of living in the city, and now that my apartment is nearly done, blogs will be coming more frequently and, maybe, even more eloquently written than this one.  Stay tuned!

Philly Journal, 11/19/14

I had a truly enormously long day today, but I’m still wide awake, so I thought I’d open up the old blog here and just start typing and see what came out.

As mentioned before, this move from Jersey to Philly was always going to require two moves, with half of my belongings being at my mother’s house in Jersey, and the other half at my father’s house in Central PA.  So we moved the stuff from my mom’s on Friday, and today was the day to go get the stuff at Dad’s.

So I woke up at 6am to leave, with my mother in her car, by 7am.  We drove the 2+ hours to Newville.  Travelling with my mother is always quite a joy, even that early in the morning, so the morning had that going for it.  Sadly, we had some rest stop bad luck and I got zero coffee until well over an hour on the road.  That was not swell.  Long story short, it was a pleasant surprise to find the U-Haul pickup spot was seriously about 300 yards from my dad’s house, so…that was a bonus.  Promptly after arriving, my parents and I set upon loading my belongings into the truck.  It was a little strange, as some of these items have been with me for quite a few years now, all over the state of Pennsylvania, and they’ve been sitting in my dad’s garage waiting for me for about 18 months, but it felt like we had just put them there.  Oh hi, couch.  Oh hi, chair.

 

Mom having lunch at a PA Turnpike rest stop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, the long drive back to Philly.  I drove the U-Haul, following my mom.  There were actually quite a few misadventures on this trip, but I am, as I write this, becoming as tired as I really ought to be, so I must cut to the chase.  This is what happens when you begin writing a blog entry just to “see what comes out”.

 

Mom getting me back by surprising me emerging from a rest stop bathroom

Anyway, after unloading everything into my house in Philly and mom and I emotionally parting ways, I had to go to work!  It was only for a few hours to count inventory, but I was already bone tired!  Add to that the fact that “going to work” now also means a 15 minute bike ride, and I was NOT looking forward to it!  THEN, add to that some unforeseen complications during said inventory count, and what you have is me just arriving home at midnight.  I am so tired, I feel as though I could poop out an entire, intact feather pillow right now.

 

But the good news is, all my stuff is now here in my apartment.  Thanks again to everyone involved, but most especially my parents…a more supportive, badass, cool-to-the-max and unconditionally loving set of parents, I could not ask for.  And I now have a couch, a dining room table,

My living room with all my crap in in

chairs, and all kinds of stuff one imagines when one thinks of…sitting down, and stuff.

 

Tomorrow will be my first real day off of work, with no “moving” to do since moving in, so I look very much forward to the free time to actually start getting this place in order and maybe stepping outside and exploring the neighborhood a bit.  My work schedule during this move, coupled with the move itself and it necessarily happening on my days off, has been just brutal (especially with my legs adjusting to the bike ride at the same time that I was moving boxes up and down stairs and onto and off of trucks in pretty much all my free time).  So I am in a pretty degraded physical state at the moment.  But it’s nothing one good night’s sleep and refreshing day off can’t undo.

This has been a fairly pedestrian blog entry.  My apologies.  I was more tired than I thought when I started.

Philly Journal, 11/18/13

Philly Journal, 11/14/13

This afternoon, after a morning of meetings in the city, I picked up the keys to my apartment.  My move-in day isn’t until tomorrow, but I stopped in just to have a look around at my new place for the first time in over two weeks.  Then I came back to Jersey and loaded all my stuff from Mom’s house into a U-Haul, with the help of the bro-in-law, the nephews, Uncle Dale, and, of course, Mom (and sister in spirit, no doubt).  I parked the U-Haul in a neighboring parking lot; we’ll be moving the stuff into the place early tomorrow morning.  Mind you (and I’m somewhat embarrassed by how much stuff I have) this is only half my stuff; the other stuff is at Dad’s house in Newville, which we’ll be moving on Tuesday, so while I’ll be living in the city tomorrow, I will be missing some key stuff, such as most of my furniture.  Anyway, I took some pics of the place today, here they are:

The living room, looking in from the kitchen, toward the front door.

 

 

The kitchen, looking in from the living room

 

The stairs, right inside the front door

 

 

The small bedroom

 

 

The larger bedroom

 

 

 

 

Philly Journal, 11/12/13

I worked just until the early afternoon today, so when I got off, I took the opportunity to swing by the new apartment (it’s a townhouse, but for simplicity’s sake, in all future postings, I will be referring to it as an apartment) to walk around the neighborhood a little bit and take some pictures.  Here be the pictures:

 

 

This is the apartment (the one on the left, #105). It’s a two-bedroom townhouse with full basement, washer-dryer, and ton of badassery.

 

The street I live on, from directly in front of my apartment. The Pennsport section of Philly pretty much looks like this down every street for about 30 blocks.

 

The view down Front Street right by my house. Front is one of the main arterial streets through Pennsport.

 

 

 

Application to be my girlfriend

Copy the application, and paste in an e-mail, along with your answers, to sdellinger1978@gmail.com.  You will receive a reply within two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

 

1.  What is your favorite season, and why?

2.  Rank the following authors in order of their academic relevance:

–Barbara Kingsolver
–Wally Lamb
–Thomas Pynchon
–Dave Eggers
–Stephen King

3.  Do you think gay people should have the right to marry each other?

4.  Say you and I go out to dinner at a diner.  Not a fancy place, just a straight-forward diner.  The waitress is not a bitch, but she isn’t very nice.  The food comes out on time and is of an acceptable nature.  The bill totals $18.  How much do you tip?

5.  On a scale of 1-10, to what degree would you say you have a “badonk a donk”?

6.  Without using the internet, can you name a poem by Robert Frost? Nevermind, I have no way of knowing if you used the internet.

7.  If you could move anywhere in the world, where would it be?

8.  You can have a full bedroom set made out of walnut or cherry.  Which do you choose?

9.  What is the best shape of pasta?

10.  Do you own any white denim pants?

11.  What is the ideal amount of band members to be in a rock band?

12.  I need lots of my own space and am frequently grumpy and sensitive.  There’s not a question here, I’m just letting you know.

13.  What is the farthest you would drive to see a Revolutionary or Civil War battlefield?  Don’t lie to me about this, I’ll know.

14.  Salt or pepper?

15.  Discuss the last time you thought the Academy Awards got the Best Picture award correct.

16.  If you could choose one animal to represent you, what would it be, and why?

17.  What did you score on the SATs?  I didn’t do that great, I’m just wondering.

18.  Favorite Ninja Turtle?

19.  Can you “do the Carlton”?

20.  Will you shave my neck?

 

Philly Journal, 11/6/13

While I am super-pumped to finally be living in the city, it should be noted that my year and a half in South Jersey has been an extraordinary time in my life, and I shall miss it greatly.  I’m sure I’ll elaborate very much on this soon, but at the moment, I’m tired as all get out, and just want to show you all the sweet-ass video I just made, commemorating my year in Jersey:

Soon, Again

Someday I know I’ll just start waking up
at six o’clock in the morning again
and drive to my old high school
bleary-eyed and pissy
and walk unflinchingly into the first classroom
I see, ready to go again.
Or, failing that,
it seems certain
that one day soon the old friends
will drop by and pick me up
and we’ll scurry off the the drive-in theater/pizza shop
to play pool and the juke box and smoke reefer
for a few blissful hours;
or, failing that,
it seems certain
any day now some pals from way back
will knock petitely upon my door
holding a red bouncy kickball
and invite me to the church down the street
which boasts a really large green lawn
upon which we will play a long sweaty muddy game
of kickball, the kind with baseball rules,
except you can throw the ball at the runner.
Or, failing that,
it seems certain
that any time now
I will crawl directly back inside my mother
up the wrong way
and settle down inside the scarred womb
among the sinew and bloody tissue
to once again hear the songs of angels
and the sleep of forever.

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

So, it is that time of year.  We all know it well.  A day or two after Halloween, and suddenly decorations are up for Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas, and there is holiday music everywhere, and TV specials, and all the big box stores have set aside three huge aisles for holidays that are still a few months away.  My question is, so fucking what?

 

Why are you all so piping mad about this, year after year?  The only thing you can count on more than a relentless parade of Peanuts specials as soon as the leaves turn, is everyone in the whole world bitching about Wal-Mart and Target selling Christmas stuff.  This barrage of bitching has been going on for so long, and by so many people across every possible social strata, that the inherent wickedness of these “early holidays” seems to just be generally accepted by everyone.  It has just become a societal fact: Christmas being advertised in November is evil, it’s bad, it’s annoying.  Give us time for Thanksgiving!, everyone bemoans, as though the Wal-Mart packages of three different kinds of Brut cologne were somehow going to stop them from posting , to their Facebook wall, one thing they were thankful for each day during the month of November.  Let me guess, your kids, husband, job, health, and God, right?  Got it, same as last year.

Listen soccer mom, big cardboard candy canes on the light posts aren’t going to stop you from stuffing Stove Top into a dead, genetically enhanced bird.  Nothing about the holiday of Thanksgiving is changed by our thinking about Christmas early.  Nothing.

I have thought long and hard about why this must get everyone so riled up, and have come up with a stultifying lack of credible reasons.  You’re mad because…why?  You hate Christmas?  You hate loving your fellow humans?  You hate presents and joy and the ringing of bells?  And you don’t really like Thanksgiving that much, do you?  You know turkey and mashed potatoes are available year-round, right?

The only viable argument I can come up with for folks’ dislike to November Christmasing is the obvious commercialization of the holiday, and mega-corporations using this wonderful time of year (whether you celebrate religiously or secularly, it is still a special time) to make money, preying on our emotions and beliefs to squeeze every cent out of us.  That is all true, but seriously, where are you the other ten months? You are aware, right, that this is ALWAYS HAPPENING.  Enormous, headless, faceless companies are constantly using your emotions, desires, memories, and fears in the most brazen, shameful ways to get you to spend three more dollars.  Every fucking moment of your capitalist life, you are being used and prodded.  Every aisle in that Wal-Mart is ALWAYS, year-round, set up to screw you over, psychologically.  If you want to just wake up to the way the world is working because suddenly your Coca-Cola has polar bears on it, I have little sympathy for you.

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

Philly Journal, 11/3/13

Me with my precious.  Yes, I know the S is out.  They’re working on it.

 

Philly Journal, 11/2/13

It’s been quite awhile since I posted a Philly Journal.  Click here if you’d like a refresher course in the older ones.

So, today I finally got word that the row house I’d applied for in the city will be mine for the taking.  I haven’t said much publicly about my quest to move from South Jersey into the city, and that, as you may know, is pretty typical of me.  I don’t really tell people what I’m up to until things are kind of a done deal.  So, here’s what’s going on:

About a year and a half ago I moved from Erie, PA to the development in Jersey where my mother and sister live.  I got a new job, in the city of Philadelphia.  The goal was to stay with my mother for awhile until I figured out where I wanted to live in the city, and then be a big boy alone in the city.

It took a little longer than expected.

Mostly, because it took me almost a year to know for sure where I’d end up working in the city.  I work for the largest chain of coffee shops in the world.  I got hired as a manager but had to undergo some training before I got my own store, and that training does not have a specified length.  Not wanting to move onto the opposite side of the city from where I’d be working, I waited.  Then, once I got promoted, it still proved a daunting task to move into the city.  It’s just so big!  Try as I might, I just could not find a proper way to begin the task.

Also, there was the matter of my car.  I really, really wanted to not have it.  I didn’t like the idea of worrying about parking in the city (it’s a very legit hassle), and ridding myself of the expense would also be a major plus.  But, see, I had bought the car new, and still owed more on it than I would get by selling it, so I was in a precarious situation.  Eventually, over the past year, I paid it down enough to make selling it a viable option, and about three weeks ago, I did sell it.  I currently have no car!  It is a very, very strange feeling, one I have not felt since I was 16.  For those doing the math, that is 19 years ago.  So for the past few weeks, I’ve been driving my mom’s car while I took the final few strides toward finding a place in the city.

Luckily, even though I could certainly be classified as a bit of a loner, I have made a few connections in the city over the past year, one of whom happens to be a real estate agent who specializes in showing people apartments that meet their criteria.  So, I told her what I was looking for and where I was looking for it, and this past Tuesday we walked our rear ends off checking out apartments.  I liked quite a few, and it turns out I can totally afford to live in the hippest and coolest sections of the city, but alas, though affordable, they were all super small.  I fell in love with the last place we went: a townhouse well outside the cool parts of the city, and even a pretty good distance from my work (but really, just a ten minute bike ride, which is how I’ll almost always be getting around).  It’s not incredible, and certainly not much to look at from the outside, but I was just head over heels with the interior, and the idea of having so much space for myself.  Those of you who’ve been reading for a long time may remember how thrilled I was by the space I had in Erie…well, this is considerably more than that.

The house is in the neighborhood of the city known as Pennsport, by all appearances a neighborhood that is not an incredibly good one, and not an incredibly bad one.  I will here copy-and-paste the contents of the very brief Wikipedia entry about Pennsport:

Pennsport is a neighborhood in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Pennsport is home to a large working Irish American population and many Mummer clubs. It was also the site of a controversial push for casinos along the Philadelphia waterfront.^[ Foxwoods Casino was proposed for Christopher Columbus Boulevard at Reed Street.

According to the Genealogy of Philadelphia County Subdivisions, Pennsport was originally part of Moyamensing Township. Most of the area north of present-day Mifflin Street was included in the Southwark District from 1794 until the consolidation of Philadelphia in 1854. At that point, it was mostly contained in the First Ward. The First and Second Wards ran east of Passyunk Avenue and were divided by Wharton St. (First to the south, Second to the north). The southern boundary of the First Ward initially spanned south to the river, but it was stopped at Mifflin St. in 1898.

That is the extent of the entry.

Here is a map of South Philly neighborhoods.  Now, if you don’t know the city, this will be rather meaningless, but you can see Pennsport there on the far East of the map; that is the city’s end, so my neighborhood borders the Delaware River, and in fact, my house is in the 100 block of my street, so I’m actually dang close to the edge of the city:

So that’s pretty much it.  I got word late tonight that my rental application had been accepted; however, my move-in date isn’t until the 15th, so I’ve got a little time to do some South Jersey victory laps.  I’ll be resurrecting the Philly Journal for this process of moving and the new journey I’m on.  There will be pictures soon!

Some day no longer will you doubt me

Postmark: January 10th, 1910 (that’s 113 years ago, folks).
From Eaton, NY, to Earlville (?) NY

Front:

Back:

 

Dear Brother

I will drop you a card and let you know that I am living and hope you are the same.  Well Frank

after “Well Frank” I can’t make this out, but I’m incredibly interested.  Reader help in transcribing this one would be much appreciated.  Remember, if you click on the image, you can get a full-screen version of it (this won’t help much if you’re on your phone).  I find this card, with the front image, the handwriting, the year, and the brother-sister relationship to be very unique…help me figure out what it says.