February 7, 2012:
Poma Delicatessen: still there. Nati's: still there. But there are new sidewalk bistros catering to twenty-five-year-olds, drinking beer and acting knowledgeable. And the Poma has security bars. And everybody has tattoos. Used to be, to have a tattoo in this neighborhood meant you were a bad, bad, bad girl. Now you have to have several to fit in. You probably got your first in middle school.
Spaceway: gone. Wow. You'd think that would have been made illegal. That the tattooed, bearded, pierced grandees would've called a community meeting, resolved to leave tire tracks up and down anyone who closed that landmark. Today it rots under its strange curved roof, looking like a tattered old roller rink from days bygone.
The apartments I lived in are all present. One of them was college social central in 1980. Names of out-of-town visitors off the top of my head: Katherine, Christopher, Anita, Beth, Keith, Marie-Claire, Karen, Wendy, Neal, Melissa, Heather, Katherine again, Beth again, Keith again. This is who I remember; there must be four times as many.
Could I live here again?
In a fukkin' heartbeat.