Summer, Don’t Let the Door Hit Your Ass on the Way Out

I speculated that the only way I'd be able to escape
the babies and all they stand for (it's not really their fault) would be to
find a mildly fringey (no, Gowanus and Greenpoint don't count) neighborhood.
Essentially somewhere not truly dangerous but not yet safe for babies mentally
(so-so schools) or physically (kids get their bikes stolen by grownups–scroll down to "7-year-old assaulted") and now
shit is getting real. I will be living in a new neighborhood on Friday, and one
that fits my criteria exactly.

However, now that I'm an iPhone-owning type I would
prefer it not getting stolen at gunpoint (last week's 88th precinct police
blotter listed a robbery on the corner of my new apartment building, Steuben
and Myrtle, and the deli in the ground floor had an attempted robbery in July–have I mentioned the hilariousness of big, shiny modern condo with
retail space that has been filled with a bodega and 99-cent store? ) which to
be fair, is also a common Carroll Gardens crime (though here there are
community meetings to address the issue–it wasn't my imagination, there was a
genuine rash of muggings this summer–and action is taken) but maybe I would
prefer the potential threat over the fifty (ok, three) strollers on the other
side of my door and the ruckus that accompanies them? Yes, I'm at a point in
life where I'd rather be mugged than listen to screaming and crying from being
put into a stroller, screaming and crying from being removed from a stroller,
crying and screaming from being made to walk up the stairs, and screaming and
crying after falling on the stairs. I grew up ranch houses and was made to walk not stroll as soon as I was standing upright so I have no tolerance.

So, I'd like to believe that my life will be
changing on Friday. (Though, I also said that in early 2008 at the dawn of my
Chinese zodiac rat year and it was a total bust.) Fall, the best season,
obviously, begins (summer can fuck off) the work deadline that has held me
captive the past month will be met (and then begin all over again the following
week–help) and I will be starting fresh as a pseudo-home owner (I don't own
anything, but try to reap the benefits). I'm 40, which sucks because I hate the
concept of middle age as you all know, but it's also a fresh start of a new
decade. I didn't even have thoughts when I turned 30 (I'll have to check, maybe
I did) it was a non-issue. As an adult, though, I've always felt about four years
behind. I think it started when I moved to NYC at 25, closer to 26 than 24, and
thought I could just get into magazine publishing and learned that was
extremely old for an editorial assistant and it would be weird to do the job
under the unlikely circumstance that anyone would hire anyone out of college
four years who'd never interned (and this was before the days of perpetually
working for no pay, which I guess is now the norm for middle class and up
twentysomethings?). I didn't really understand or care about careers, though,
until I was well into my 30s, which is what I mean. This is not a lament. I
couldn't do an office job in my 20s.

When I got my MLS at 32, ten years after my BFA, I
actually had a plan. I needed to spend my 30s working a real job, pay debts (I
still owe $27,000 in student loans but that's abstract and I actually have the
savings to pay it off I want but like the cushion) save and be responsible and
move up a chain like NYC types with good educations do in their 20s so they can
settle down and have kids in their 30s. And then in my 40s I could do what I
really wanted, which is what non-NYC types do after having kids in their 20s
and are grown by the parents' middle age.

So, that's now and I have to do it. What I really
want.