A Door Closes, A Window Opens

Those of you who who spend countless hours reading my Blogger profile and dreaming of me - I know you're out there, and God I hope you're beautiful women - may have noticed a slight change. My location has changed. That's right, I've moved. No longer do I live with my parents in quaint, bucolic Clintonville, Pennsylvania - official motto: "Watch out for those Amish Buggies." I have taken up stakes and moved into the very heart of the thriving metropolis that is New Brighton, Pennsylvania - official motto: "We're thriving compared to Clintonville." I now make my home in a lavish three bedroom apartment which I am sharing with my fellow Cellar Dwellers Christoph and Joe. Christoph you might recognize as one of the people who are members of this blog, but for some unforgivable reason refuses to post. Joe would be a member of this blog and he would post; however, Bloggers insidous invitation process somehow managed to completely mystify him.

So, here I am out in the real world, making it on my own. Well, at least I've been making it on my own for the better part of two days, but I am already loving this swinging bachelor life style. I know, such a statement might prove to be a little premature. After all, I haven't had a chance to let the freshness and newness of this new chapter in my life wear off. I am well aware that there are going to be things, triffles which will prove bothersome about this new stage in life, but I can confidently claim that I am almost certain that I will find this apartment dwelling existence much preferential to the past parents-house dwelling year. To prove this I am prepared to enumerate the many advantages that New Brighton and my new life hold over my old quaint life.

But first, I must admit that Clintonville was not all bad. In fact there are many things which I fear I am going to miss. So, now, without further adieu, I present my fond fairwell to Clintonville by listing just a few things which I am going to miss.

I am going to miss the almost constant clickety-clack of horses as they drive by pulling Amish buggies. I am even going to miss being awoken at ungodly early hours - like 8 o'clock - by these passing clatter wagons. Sadly, the Amish - being the hearty salt of the Earth folk that they are - refused to push back their schedules to better accomodate my sleeping needs. Also, while on the subject of the Amish, I am going to miss those awkward moments whenever a passing Amish man would wave to me and I was left utterly confused. I mean these were complete strangers to me. Wherever i lived before people I didn't know weren't going around waving at people just because they were sitting on their porch. Obviously, the average Amish person would not last long in New York City.

I am also going to miss living very close to the interstate. I loved that I could hear passing trucks at all hours. I am going to miss having a basketball hoop right outside my house and a playground right behind it. I am going to miss Bonnie, my neighbor who up to last week thought my name was steve, but was still kind enough to loan me her truck so I could move. I am going to miss the white rural kids who dressed like inner city rappers. I am also going to miss the guy in the crappy Civic who would cruise around, peeling out, playing loud music acting like his car was the coolest thing in the world. I am going to miss the countless local nature trails. I am going to miss the YMCA in Franklin which allowed me to pay student prices even though I suspect they knew I was not a student. I am going to miss living close to Grove City College - my alma mater - which led to me several times hiding from past professors when I saw them in public to avoid telling them that I was making absolutely nothing about myself. I am going to miss living with my parents who routinely did such things for me as buy me food, and prepare me food.

There are many other things which I am going to miss, but I fear time is running short - I have monoplosed the wireless internet capabilities of Christoph's laptops. I have yet to list the many things which I feel are going to make New Brighton superior to Clintonville. So, now with possibly only a little further adieu, I present the things I am going to like more about New Brighton.

First, allow me to start with two simple words: walking distance. In Clintonville, the only thing which I could walk to was a small country store. Getting to anything useful involved at least 15 minutes in the car and 20 miles on the odometer. Now, from my apartment in the center of New Brighton I can walk to all sorts of places. I can walk to several restaurants, bars, a grocery store, a couple pharmacies, a library, a book store, two music stores - not that I'm musically inclined - and the scary stoner head shop masquarading as a tobacco store on the corner. What more could a young man ask for?

Second, I actually have friends in the area. Not only do I live with two of them, I live directly beneath another one. There are also all my Cellar Dweller friends and people I went to high school with - although I generally dodge high school aquaintances to avoid having to tell them I'm doing nothing with my life. So, now instead of sitting around my house all the time being bored, I can go out with people and be bored.

Thirdly, have I mentioned that I'm now single and living on my own - save my two roommates. Did you hear that ladies? I am single and now I'm on my own. I no longer need to either sheepishly admit that I live with my parents or make up extravagant lies. Not that I actually expect to have a lot of the fairer sex over. I am too much of a romantic retard for that. However, it's nice to know that the only things keeping me from scoring now are my social incompotence and Christian values.

There's more of course. I'm closer to Pittsburgh now which remains the major City in the area. I can concentrate more on work with the Cellar Dwellers. I could go on. But I need to get to the bar, and Christoph is loading a gun and practicing his aim at a fake James target. So, I guess I better be going. Heck, I'm not even going to run spell chek or proof-read for a change.

Shalom