(no subject)

She looked up at me from the second floor stairwell, as I stood outside my front door. I was wearing my leather jacket, cold from the falling snow, holding a box full of cleaning supplies. She was plump and in her late fifties, wearing a blue robe, her hair was covered in pink rollers. It was 8:45 at night.

"Do you have children up there?" she asked me, scrunching up her nose.

"Um...yeah," I replied. Well, clearly. They were inside the apartment, playing a perfectly lovely game of their own invention, where they had taken off their socks and were chasing each other around the living room. ("This game's more fun at night, when your socks are REALLY stinky!" Ashley reported to me.)

"Well, can you ask them to tone it down?" she replied. "Running all around the apartment...it sounds like a stampede down here!"

"Ummm...I sure will," I replied. "They're just excited, and um..."

But she was gone.

Well, that's my first meeting with the new neighbors. Seem like a friendly lot.

So now I'm sitting here, waiting for Annie to get home from a date. Tired, but can't really sleep. It's my last night in my single apartment, and I'm just looking back on things. So much has happened this past year...so many dates...fractured ribs...so many Buffy episodes...trips...The Producers...camping...apple picking...I learned to stand on my own two feet, make bacon, grow really poor...

I'll kind of miss it.

But I know that, in so many ways, things were mostly sad, before Corb came along, and I'm really looking forward to starting our new life together. This is exactly where I want to be.

Grouchy neighbors or not.