Though I can’t quite believe January has come and gone already, I had a lovely birthday. I received some festive flowers, an extraordinary homemade cake, and a shiny new president. Not a bad haul, really, and a fine consolation for being all old and crusty now. Older and crustier than I was before, even.

Of course, the big news (which isn’t really news at all if you follow me on Twitter) is that in a little less than a week I am leaving behind Raccon City and moving back to dear old Brooklyn. The past few weeks have been a flurry of boxes and boxes and oh look some more boxes. Although some of them are quite large, I have used only one or two to sneak up on terrorists. Mostly I just put things in them, and then tape them up. The boxes, not the terrorists.

I signed the lease on my new apartment about a month ago, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about the various things I will miss about living on this strange little island. Here they are:

• I am really, really going to miss having a doorman. Five doormen, in fact. Mostly because of their signing-for-packages capabilities.
• The quiet. Brooklyn is many wonderful things, but eerily silent it is not. I am fond of my eerie silence.
• My dishwasher. Oh, how I love my dishwasher. I wish to take it with me, but in fact it isn’t really mine at all and would leave a strange hole in the kitchen if I did.
• John’s, the Italian place just over the bridge in Queens which happily delivers to my building and does amazing pepperoni rolls. Try them, I implore you.

And here are some things I will not miss:

• Having a doorman. Which is to say, the package signing is great and all, but when I haul my work-weary ass through the door at the end of the day, mostly all I want to do is get upstairs and enjoy the three hours or so between getting home and going to bed. I am not so much interested in a conversation about how late I get home or what various sporting teams are up to.
• Gristedes, the one grocery store on the island. It’s an awful grocery store, full of expired food products and half-human register-creatures who literally throw your food at the bag-creatures. Who then paw at it and make you uneasy about eating it. And crush the bread with canned goods.
• The shocking amount I currently pay in rent. If you do not currently live in New York or Tokyo and I told you how much I pay in rent, it is likely that you would fall over. My new rent would merely make you gasp a little.
• Living a little bit too far from the subway to walk comfortably in bad weather. Which means waiting for the wretched little shuttle bus, which is propelled by crazy people who like to drive up on the curb.
• The F train during the morning rush hour, particularly when the tram is out of service.

The new building is quite close to the subway, which is nice, and the apartment itself is quite pretty in an old-fashioned sort of way. Interestingly-shaped doorways and such. I am sure that once my toil and tribulation in box-hell is complete, I will be happy there.

And another quick note, as it’s quite likely I will not yet have cable on the day itself: on Sunday, this much-neglected beast of a site turns ten years old. Ten fucking years, for really reals. Let’s ponder it for a moment.

Ok, enough of that.