Blog the second: The Neighborhood, Part 1

So, I guess the neighborhood I live in deserves a fair introduction as well. It's as much of a character as any of the wankers previously mentioned.

I live in Shaw, which sort of speaks for itself...and coming from Reston and JMU it's not exactly what I'm used to. We have issues with our house every week...from the AC not working to the water being shut off, locks not working, subterranean tenants boiling with hatred for us, disfunctional outlets, fuses blowing...the list goes on. Our next door neighbor does some troubleshooting for these problems, as she is I guess the acting landlord in lieu of our actual landlord, the owner of the house; the elusive A. Grant. We still have yet to speak with him or contact him in any way since we've moved in. So, that's the house.

Starting with our immediate next door neighbors, there is the acting landlord lady, Noble: jetsetter/ bussiness woman/ saleswoman extraordinaire, her Asian boyfriend/ personal trainer, Jon and their cute, bastard daughter. Also, a live-in nanny who looks like Aunt Jamima and might be mute.


Then, there's the guy who lives in the basement apartment of our house, Mr. Harris; a surly black man who works for the British embassy, avoids all possible contact with us and enjoys writing subversive emails to our landlord expounding the new tenants (a.k.a. us) as the unruly, uncivilized spawn of the devil.

About 100 feet down the block you'll find the jolly black, middle-aged men who occupy both sides of the street for the entirety of the day. I'm not quite sure what they do except sit on their lawn chairs and talk...I've never seen them playing any sort of game or smoking or anything. They just sit...we enjoy a friendly exchange every time I walk by them, which is probably at least twice each day since I go to Windows (another post in itself) almost every day. One of them the other day said he would be glad to carry me to the store every day so i wouldn't have to walk and his cronies all erupted in laughter. I thought that would be nice and wished he wasn't kidding...I said back to him "or maybe you could push me in a stroller" and we agreed on this as a happy medium.

The guys who hang out on the other side of the street are a little more sleazy, but harmless, nonetheless. I've started a thing with them...when I walk by I always say hi and give my friendly smile, then about ten steps after I've walked past them I yell back "stop staring at my ass!" without turing around, which always gets a laugh.

One of the queerest things I observe every day is the house on the other side of the street, towards the middle of the block (the block is full of row houses) with a window display of dolls in wedding dresses. The front window is fairly big...probably about 6 ft x 5 ft or something like that and propped up staring out at you, in all their menacing glory, are about 6 old, scraggly dolls (in various heights) fully clad in bridal attire. What's more is that if you look beyond the dolls there is nothing in the house to be seen....no furniture curtains, tables, whatever. As if to assert their sole occupancy and dominance over the house. Anyway, it's creepy and makes me think there is some crazy woman who is rotting in that house, like Miss Havisham, who was left at the altar or something millions of years ago.

Anyway, that's an introduction to the neighborhood...

More to come.