neighborhood colonialism

[keryx]

At the furniture store this afternoon, Tim the sofa guy's cheery response to Willie's address was "Oh, you're a colonist!"

Me: perplexed look
Me: Oh, you mean that I'm gentrifying North Church Hill? [While I didn't say this, I like to think that Richmond's neighborhoods are in a different cycle (NCH 50-100 years ago was a predominantly white merchant class suburb), and I like the idea of living in a mixed-race, middle class part of the city proper. They are rare, these parts.]
Tim: But it sounds so bad when you say "gentrifying"! You're an adventurer! An early adopter!
Me: Right, cause "colonist" brings to mind such wholesome images of smallpox-infested blankets and wholesale slaughter!
Tim: Everyone has their own perspective!

Tim, by the way, got more exclamation points than I did when they were handing out punctuation.

I do dig the neighborhood in NCH. It's definitely urban, but peppered with people who really care [Possibly to the point of fabulous insanity - their house is kitty-corner to mine, btw. Yay, neighbors.] in a way that evokes the military burbs of my childhood if they'd been populated by the sort of historians who own broadswords. In a word: awesome.

Comments

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize you'd be so close to John M! I am his biggest fan.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I am frankly a little fangirlish that Decrepit Victorian is TOTALLY ON MY BLOCK OMGSQUEE.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

Do you know that as his day job he is a teacher at MLK middle school? That makes me positively swoony.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Really?! Yeah, that does make him officially dreamy.

One of the other across-the-street people is a teacher, too. It's the best block evah.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

On an unrelated note, did you catch the delightful thread on historic area blowjob guidelines: http://chpn.net/news/2008/07/22/chimborazo-aint-what-it-used-to-be/

We'll have to take that into account when we re-open the brothel.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

Oh GOD. I had stopped reading that thread before the historic BJ post. I can't wait to share it at work tomorrow.

My original interest in that post was what relation Henry Boschen is to writerboz, who is one of my "sort of looking in Church Hill kinda maybe soon" clients.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

historic blowjobs for the win. must keep a wagon, a corset, and a stovepipe hat around at all times, got it.

sounds like willie's neighborhood is a good thing. I'm definitely a fan of mixed.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Technically Chimbo park isn't exactly Willie's neighborhood. But it's you know, less than a mile.