I hate to reiterate this point, but today was a dreary day. Finally I hear a rumble of thunder. Something to disperse this gloom of clouds and thick air. I feel like the color scheme of this blog-type page is pretty apt.
I am moving to Philadelphia at the end of the summer. I have been looking for apartments online, but I suppose it’s too early, still. I will be making more money next year than I ever have, but somehow that is not enough to afford a nice apartment in Philadelphia. Ideally, I would like something in a nice area near public transit, less than a half hour bike/bus/subway ride or walk from Temple. One bedroom. Allows pets. I would really like a deck or yard or something, but would settle for a nearby park and a sunny window. And for under $500. Or up to $600. I could live with $575.
For a few months, every night, around 10:30, I hear a strange thumping coming from my neighbors house–I think. We share a wall. It’s irregular. It almost sounds like someone is playing the bongos really slowly. Usually at night there is a faint sound of new age music that creeps through our shared wall. I think I like that better. It just stopped.
I am really nervous about moving. I bought a bike. I haven’t ridden a bike (regularly) in years. Am I going to change so much that I will become someone who rides a bike? I am not looking forward to living by myself. I will miss my boyfriend. I will have my pets. That’s not the same. I can’t think of a room mate who I would actually want to live with–specific person or type of person. I am deciding whether or not I want to get internet. I only had internet on my computer for 1 year of college, and it was the worst year, performance-wise. I feel like I do better with no distractions.
That strange thumping started again–but it’s faster now.
The thunder made one more appearance, and now it’s just rain. I was hoping for a storm. I miss listening to storms at my parents’ house. They are surrounded by tall trees, 100 foot tall trees, that sway violently, branches snapping, leaves rustling, wind howling through the valley. I liked to hear twigs fall on the roof overhead. The rain was much louder. The lightning was spectacular to watch through their big glass windows. It would illuminate the whole hillside, the black curtain would dissipate, revealing the whole valley, across the valley, the fir trees in the distance across the meadow.
The view from the window here is nice, too. The cemetery stretches so far into the distance, and I’m sure if I were to catch it in a flash of thunder, it would be wonderfully eerie.
The nice thing about rain in the city is the sound of car tires swishing through the wet roads. I like that sound a lot. I like to hear my own tires when they drive through puddles and flooded roadsides where the grass can no longer absorb the water and it pools along the shoulders. The streets in this city are so clean. I would eat off of them sooner than I would eat off of the floors in my own house. I would not say the same thing about Philadelphia’s streets. Though I am very excited to live in a big city again. Even if it will be without friends or companionship for a while.
If this project is revived again in two years, things will be much different. It will be midweek, a Wednesday I believe. I will be writing from a different location. I will have written much more in the meantime. Hopefully a book-length manuscript. I will be worried about other things, probably more than I worry about now. Maybe I will have a future plan. Maybe not. And it is likely that it will have been a rainy day–you know what they say about April.
The rain is much harder now. It appears like it might storm after all.