Perhaps in anticipation of this feeling, for the last month or so Chris and I have been looking for a new place to live in Philadelphia. We were ready to emerge from our five-year hibernation, on City Avenue, in this apartment that's absorbed that many years of growth, change, clutter, and routine, feeling as much physical wear as that restless, gnawing sense of sameness. We looked forward to starting our married life in a new place - somewhere bigger for the cats (for Grundton to explore, and for Nicholas to hide from Grundton's shenanigans), and embedded in the city, not just by longitude and latitude, but by elevation as well.
I liked apartment hunting! Although sifting through craigslist postings got tedious at times, I enjoyed harnessing the excitement of envisioning a new life, and molding that vision to the places that seemed (even if only on paper) like a good fit. We whittled down bookmarked postings to a handful of places that we saw in person... On the "likely" end was a 3-level rowhome a few blocks away from Johnny Brenda's, with the 3rd floor being a "penthouse" master bedroom. The owners had really given the place a lift - installed surround sound, built-in bookshelves/entertainment center, added a chandelier to the kitchen, etc. We also debated a place in Art Museum that had a really gorgeous redone kitchen and living room, with a new fireplace, floating stairs, and a sunlit backyard. On the bottom of our list was a trinity home in Washington Square West that we dubbed "the creepy house". Photographs of the home were quite alluring, with exposed brick walls and a wide, slightly convex 3rd floor bedroom window, as was its proximity to about four different cupcake shoppes with impressive window displays. Then we toured the place, and realized it was cramped, a total fixer-upper (broken window panes, among other things), and totally creepy. I guess these "trinity" homes mean they're 3 floors tightly stacked atop one another...the stairs to each floor are a set of steep, rickety, and narrow spiralling wooden steps that pose a Mt.-Everestian feat for any person who's had one too many drinks. I imagined Chris, after a night of drinking, slipping on the stairs, knocking himself out, and wedging his unconscious body in that narrow spiral staircase, entrapping my own feeble self on the third floor with no way out.
Finally, last weekend we found a place in Northern Liberties that I really fell in love with right away. It had plenty of space, was in a great location, and had lots of the criteria we were looking for (spacious kitchen for Chris to do his cooking in comfort, hardwood floors that didn't absorb kitty messes the way carpets do, lots of storage space for our crap, etc.). After checking it out a second time yesterday and negotiating on the rent, we signed papers (woohoo!!) and celebrated by walking four blocks next to North Bowl and getting lunch at Dos Segundos. We'll start moving our stuff out gradually, but the big move will likely come in May after the wedding is no longer a priority.
Of course, no big change - even a happy one - is without giving something up. Leaving apartment 1115 in Executive House means saying goodbye to some pretty sweet things as well as things that just have become a part of our lives, like being regulars at neighborhood restaurants where the staff knows us (Shangri-La, Ginza, Primavera, Sangkee), having a plethora of nearby parks and lush neighborhoods for frisbee-tossing and Saturday morning strolls, and most of all, our 20-foot balcony and its accompanying view of the Philly skyline and (sometimes even better) different sky moods:
(dawn in January) 
(impending storm in May)
(after a storm in late summer)
(Supermoon last night)Of course, it also means saying goodbye to sharing a building with college students (hearing the tail end of an elevator conversation that ended in "smelled like vagina" does not happen when with real adults), having to deal with driving on Lancaster any time I'm heading into West Philly (3-mile-an-hour trolleys, ungodly traffic, fresh potholes daily, the intersection at 52nd that is pure hell), and the omnipresent roving groups of giggling, suburban teens ("oh my god, I can't believe he said that!"). I can live with saying goodbye to all of that.
I'm looking forward to shedding all of winter's weight in the next few short months. Stay tuned for more updates on the wedding, moving, and life!
