Ladies and gentlemen.

The urban meadow is no more.

No N says that the neighbors are ecstatic because their property value just went up. I’m ecstatic because I no longer have to fear dropping my keys in that mess and never finding them again. As almost happened the other night. I still need to mow, but got-DAMN! I weedeated my little heart out.

There was actually something very satisfying about attacking all that grass. And winning. I prevailed, I triumphed, and I even figured out how to work the damn thing. No N was being generous and said I did a good job, but I think I have a ways to go until I can consider myself a skilled weedeater.

There was one interesting thing I thought about while doing this tonight. I feel like a real homeowner. With a house, even. And a yard, and certain responsibilities as pertains to keeping my house looking neat so that the neighbors don’t watch the value of their homes plummet because mine looks so crappy. It’s a neat feeling.

By the time period in which 100 Miles started, I had never lived on my own. Not once. Always with roommates, or with parents or grandparents or whatever. Even after I left PK, I still lived with someone else, always. When GoodMan and I met, I had lived in my first apartment for a month, but we were together so much that he just moved in.

My first-ever place of my own was a 1920’s apartment in Old Town Tacoma, and I moved in right after GoodMan and I split up. If you’re not from here, it’s a quiet neighborhood filled with vintage homes and apartment buildings. They are all the old brick, casement windows with extra-deep-able-to-be-sat-on sills, complete with ivy creeping up the side of the buildings. Homes there sell for astronomical prices, but the rent is okay, if you get in at the right time. There was a Seven-Eleven two blocks away. There were cherry trees growing right outside my window. The walls were green, the hardwood floors warm and inviting, and it was home, you know? Remind me to tell you some time how I got the place, I stole it smack out from under this dude that took me out once. We didn’t hit it off, but I stole his apartment.

It was mine, and I absolutely loved it. I lived there for three years, almost exactly.

I had two cats, Lilo and Stitch.

I can’t find the picture of them just now, but trust me – they totally looked like assholes. They didn’t particularly like apartment life.

One morning when I was leaving for a 10:00 AM flight to Chicago, I walked into my narrow-ass gallery kitchen, to find one twelve pound bag of sugar scattered across the floor, and some very large, very salient pee stains throughout.

Let me remind you that I had approximately 20 minutes before I had to leave or I would miss my plane.

I shrieked. I did. I yelled at the top of my lungs. I searched through the apartment. No cats. I checked the cupboards, the bed, the closets. No cats. NO FREAKING CATS!

I go into the living room. I always used to keep my windows open, and there is the screen for the window laying on the ground outside the window. The clear escape route. I never saw them again. The Kid is of the opinion that they got lost in the forest.

That was in May 2005. In October of 2005, I bought my own house. My very own, first time, mine-from-the-roof-to-the-crawlspace-and-everything-in-between, house. I didn’t beleive I could do it. Even up to the point when I got the key, unlocked the door for the first time, and laid down speadeagle on the floor.

It’s a very neat feeling.