Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Alden Way


I didn't live in this apartment very long. No more than a few months, in fact. After I met Jen and decided to continue that relationship, it became time for me to move out of Laura's apartment and find a new place. I spent a month or two sleeping at my mom's house. I slept on the couch so I wouldn't get too comfortable there. I didn't want it to feel like I'd actually moved back in.

Jen let me know that the apartment across the driveway from hers was vacant, but the rent was more than I could afford on my own, so I cast about for a housemate and found a guy named Dan, who used to live with my friend, Matt. As it turned out, by the time I left this apartment, Dan still hadn't moved in. He paid rent because he'd agreed to do so, but in the end, still owed me money (for the deposit, if I remember correctly) that he never paid back.

Other than my developing relationship with Jen, the only event of real note that took place while I lived here came one morning in September. I'd gotten back from delivering papers and was in bed asleep when Jen knocked on my window. She looked frantic about something, which jolted me into immediate alertness. She said that there had been some sort of attack on the country, so I rushed next door with her and we turned on the TV, which was broadcasting the unfolding story of the 9/11 attacks. Jen had gotten a call from her stepmother, who had done a good job of blowing the event all out of proportion, which when one considers the gravity of the actual event, is saying something. Alex, who was not quite five years old, sleepily wandered into the room at one point, but Jen quickly ushered him back to bed. We were riveted to the TV for hours, or so I remember. Eventually, I went next door to go back to sleep, but sleep obviously didn't come easily. At that point, nobody knew how extensive the terrorist attacks would be. There was fear that there would be more, which is of course exactly what the terrorists were hoping for. That's why they call them terrorists.

This was Jen's apartment (slightly blurry because, like the other photos, I took it from the window of a moving car):


Sophie was born on the couch there in June of that year. She is now 14 years old.

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