Monday, July 20

Five years ago today, I moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan. I had already spent a couple days trying to get my apartment set up, but July 20 was the night I made it official. After a long day, I drove over to my friend Ashley's birthday party out near Ford Lake, knowing afterward I could just go home and crash in a place that was all my own. I've made so many friends here — these have been some of the happiest years of my adult life.

At seven o' clock, I walk up to Wax Bar and meet J & J for a celebratory cocktail. The Alan Parsons Project is playing on the radio — there are maybe seven or eight other patrons. I sip my mezcal negroni and gaze out across the alley, watching a woman stop and smile in front of the pet store. The shop cat must be lounging in the front window. 

Walking back from the bar, I meet on our well-traveled street the family of my neighbor Matt, who announces as we pass "this is my family!" I reply just as vaguely, "Hello, I'm the neighbor, two or three houses down." Poking out of my mailbox is a signed copy of Robyn Hitchcock's second memoir, Stranded in the Future.