Last night was the last night in that apartment I’d tell people was down by the Stadium and the Convention Center when they asked “where do you live” because the Stadium and Convention Center are landmarks and most people wouldn’t know the cross streets anyway.

Now comes relief, and I don’t mind saying that. New anxieties, of course, but also relief. Fresh coat of paint, different arrangement, new habits and a new habitat. Something to write about, more stories to tell. Stare too long at the same walls and out the same windows and you get listless, languid, lethargic. That may happen anywhere, though, of course, I suppose.

No matter. Tonight I’ll sit with Teju, my regular settler of late, with his essays known and strange and his voice steady and assured and inquisitive and absurdly learned, and I’ll read something absurdly placid, maybe about Aciman and his connoisseurship of lavender, or Walcott and his naturalness and tomorrow I’ll get familiar with some cross streets and practice new descriptions.