This is a Brooklyn-bound A train, the next stop is...Bed-Stuy!

After 8 months of living on the Isle of Manhattan, and about half as much time spent (unsuccessfully) attempting to find affordable housing outside of Manhattan, I am pleased to announce that I am finally bidding New York County a tearful adieu, and moving to Brooklyn. More specifically, I'm shipping out to Bed-Stuy, the neighborhood in central Brooklyn that received a shout-out in "You May be Right" by Billy Joel, when he crooned "i walked through Bedford-Stuy alone" while listing crazy shit he's done in his life. Holla'.

In what I can only interpret as an attempt to sabotage my overwhelming glee and uncontainable elation at having finally found a legitimate piece of New York City real estate to call my very own, as soon as he heard that I was moving to Bed-Stuy, Chris scampered off to his computer excitedly in order to pull up the NYC homicide map. You don't have to look too closely to realize that indeed, the highest concentration of murders in New York do occur in, or around, my new hood. Lest we forget, the neighborhood's motto is "Bed-Stuy do or die". This however, is no deterrant to me, because if the stats on this highly interactive map tell me anything, they tell me that 20-something white girls don't get murdered all that often in NYC. And really now folks, murder jokes aside, the pluses in this situation CLEARLY outweigh the minuses.

A few examples:

I am now unofficially authorized to shout "Do or Die!" every time someone asks me which neighborhood I hail from. I am confident this will give me some added street cred. Or get me shot. Tough call.

I get to take the A-train home! This is pretty darn convenient, since I have had an unfortunate tendency to snap my fingers and sing "you must take the A train..." while waiting on the subway platform since moving to New York several years ago.

I get to try out all these new restaurants that I would probably not have bothered to schlep to otherwise. I'm particularly stoked for Peaches, a pseudo-soul food place where you can get grits as your entree. O.M.G.

I will now have lived in 3 of 5 NYC boroughs. Whether I'll ever make it to the Bronx or *gasp* Staten Island remains to be seen, but I think this is a pretty impressive start.

All silliness aside, I'm moving into a beautiful apartment on a street with lots of trees and pretty brick buildings, with super cool vegetarian roommates and a brand new dishwasher (what what!). Goodbye tiny Manhattan dorm room, hello spacious Brooklyn flat!