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main street, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird. |
This is actually a picture I took a couple of years ago — I really have not had time for photography lately, so I went to flickr and did a search of my photos, looking for my previous impressions of Main Street. My new home looks nothing at all like this, and is, in fact, the ground floor of a nice house on a leafy old street. This is a building several blocks away. And, as I said, this is a picture of the past. In fact, I barely remember taking it.
However, yes! I moved. Tyson, Gillian, Meghan and Gregor were good enough to help me move exactly 37 blocks east. Meghan even drove the van, which was pretty handy, because while I purchase disulfiram can drive, my license expired years ago. (In other news, it’s a long damn bus ride up to the U-Haul in North Vancouver.) In an uncharacteristic bout of optimism, I thought we’d be able to move all my stuff in a single trip. Ultimately, it took two trips, and my bike is still at the Kommune.
But everything else is moved. It seems a bit weird to be surrounded by all the same furniture and things I had before. Wrong, somehow. I’ve moved before, of course, but I’ve actually never moved a lot of furniture and just… stuff. Until now, I’d always been travelling light, or unloading most of my possessions to move to a new city. However, even all my worldly goods assembled don’t really fill a smallish apartment, so I’ll be getting new things soon enough and replacing others.
Modulo a few little annoyances, I really like my new apartment, and I love my new neighbourhood. Within about a four block radius, there are multiple coffee shops, bakeries, butchers, Asian produce markets, greasy-spoon diners, burger joints, Vietnamese pho shops, sushi bars and regular bars. I am going to eat so much bad food.
On Sunday morning, after my first night in my new place, I headed out about 8 o’clock for coffee, walking past bleary-eyed scenesters heading home, and elderly Chinese immigrants hobbling along on their morning constitutionals. I passed signs in half a dozen languages and posters for bands I’ve never heard of and never will again. I felt… I felt like I would like it here.
Anyway, I’ll be going to Tofino on Wednesday to meet up with the family. My parents are looking for retirement property on The Island and my brother and his wife and my other brother and his girlfriend are going up there, too. So I probably won’t be updating until next week, and God only knows when I’ll get around to posting pictures of my new place, but I promised, and I will deliver. Eventually, I will deliver.