this is it

I just signed my lease. The apartment is really mine.

Now if only the keys will work so I can get in...

I also have requested a second bolt put on the inside of the door at the bottom. Since the door opens to the outside, I would feel more secure knowing that there was a bolt in the middle and at the bottom of the door. (Having looked at it, I concluded that it is impossible, as I at first thought it wouldn't be, to turn the hinges around to have the door open to the inside. Unfortunately. A door opening to the outside is a security hazard in any situation imaginable to an imaginative cop's daughter. I'll have to secure it with bolts and chains and lots of well-forged prayer. I know, I know, the likelihood of me ever being in any danger is minimal at worst. But still. Odds aren't odds unless there's one negative outcome to make them.)

Well, at least I'll never have to complain about the neighbors' TV being too loud. Apparently the guy who lived in my apartment last was, in the words of the landlord's wife, "clean, but a partier," and the downstairs neighbor called frequently to complain about him. I laughed and said, "Well, he won't be doing that about me."

And -- I've been reading the comments on my nicknaming post -- I'll end with a sunnier memory...that of being twelve years old at summer camp, sitting with the girls in my cabin after lunch waiting for the announcements of the morning mail, and hearing the coolest counselor read off in a tone of amused disbelief, "Sarah Beth Bonnie May Becky Sue Billie Jo Peters..." and feeling my heels slowly stop drumming the floor as I realized with dawning embarrassment that the letter was addressed to me...and yet (it was a hilarious letter from my dad in the voice of a total hillbilly) being so proud of my father's creativity and sense of humor, so that I was smiling even as I walked up in front of the whole camp to claim the letter with a red face. I'm sure I still have the letter somewhere, whether in Pennsylvania or Indiana I can't say.