Sometimes you hate your neighborhood.
Sometimes it’s too grungy and loud and entirely too in-your-face for a person who (perhaps) has just returned from the seaside.
It doesn’t matter which seaside, only that the glaring juxtaposition with any seaside drives home the fact that someone has recently puked in the alley and you may or may not have run over an already deceased rodent while parking in your garage immediately upon returning from said anonymous seaside.
Sometimes after-hours Spanish karaoke sessions will take place at the bar directly diagonal from the back of your house. These are loud. These go way late. You’re not sure if you’d feel such animosity if you’d been given an invite (once, just once!) to this illicit singalong. But it’s unlikely that you wouldn’t.
Sometimes the violence and the litter and the cigarillos being smoked directly into your kid’s window screen make you wonder about life on the coast. Any coast. Alaska might even work- especially around 3am when you feel like an equal party to the screaming match across the street, the one attempting to be heard over the dueling car alarms.
But then you remember that dinner is being picked up at the taqueria four doors away. And it’s cheaper and more delicious than anything you could possibly cook up in your (overheated and, frankly, smoked-out) kitchen.
And then you, quite literally, sprint to a dance class 2 and a half blocks beyond that. (Carefully, because you’re slightly over-full, but still, the studio’s within sprinting distance and that’s your point.)
You pick up a prescription at the pharmacy directly behind your house (taking care to avoid the fully deceased rodent- and why is this thing still in the g-d alley!?) and pick up a bottle of (yes, fine, okay, overpriced) wine at the liquor store across the street from them.
The lady who sells the best homemade tamales in the entire world sings out your blonde daughter’s name whenever she sees her (and sure, the fact that she always- always– has a bag of tamales at the ready for her doesn’t hurt in the slightest).
It takes roughly fourteen seconds to walk across the street and get a (cheeeeeeeaaaaaap) pedicure at any hour of the day.
A Catholic church is five doors north, in case you care about that sort of thing. (And sometimes you do.)
You fully acknowledge that there are two rather great parks within four blocks of your home. True, your kids will legit not be able to walk there solo until they’re roughly 23, but they’re great parks.
Fresa tamale/Manor Park/happy boy.
You’ve got a train line and three buses in walking distance.
A neighborhood library branch under a mile away.
A jumbled, tumbled, insanely priced thrift store down the block.
An exceptionally affordable bodega (which carries the daily-baked tortillas you’ve come to crave over nearly all other sustenance) across the main intersection.
Within four city blocks of your front stoop are three Middle Eastern restaurants, three solid brunch places, three incredible Mexican dining spots (one of which is Zagat rated!), a Southern barbecue/Filipino kitchen, a Colombian chicken joint (which ensures that your house smells mostly like roasted chicken around the clock) a newish Starbucks, a wine bar/brick oven pizzeria, a hipster craft brewery, the best Lebanese bakery outside of Lebanon, and at least five terrific bars.
One of which you contemplate popping into nightly with a neighbor, since it’s so terrific and so right there on your corner and all. The one where you always see a neighborhood pal, regardless of actualized plans.
Speaking of those friends…they’re great, too. And they’re here. In your neighborhood.
Where, after you tally up all of those pros and cons, you’re probably going to stay awhile longer.
Nice try, everywhere else.
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