
Then! Street cleaner! Jump back!

The street cleaner turned the splop into a nice smooth and very slippery line... within a few minutes, we witnessed three different people nearly slip. Not flip-flop friendly terrain here.
The apartment is in the back of the building on an upper floor, so it's quiet and full of light, with a great cross breeze. It has a funkiness that you don't find in Manhattan much anymore — worn unvarnished wood floors that groan when you walk on them, cracks in the plaster walls, sagging original moldings. The place only improves with degradation, as long as you don't try to tart it up.
I'm not nostalgic. I don't feel like the apartment matters because it evokes the '70s or something. But it's nice that we've been together for so long and we're still compatible, even handsome, in a battered way.