Today marks the first day of my residence at my new apartment in Derry, New Hampshire. Why the move? Funny you should ask; I was just about to tell you.

I was evicted a couple of weeks ago from my apartment in Plaistow for breaching my lease…specifically, for owning a cat.

I got her as a kitten in July of ’04, barely a month old at the time. Her Excellency’s name is the Baroness Lucretia von Kittenstein (Chase for short, because that’s what she does to my heels whenever I walk around), and in spite of my obvious efforts, I fail at originality: someone I met online told me of a friend whose cat is called Countess Wilhelmina von Kittenstein (“Willy” for short). For Chase’s part, she was none too pleased to learn of a ranking member of her line, turning her nose up at “those busybody Salzburg von Kittensteins” and showering her disdain all over a coat I’d tossed on the floor.

Anyway, I think this is going to turn into one of those blessings in disguise I keep hearing about. My old place wasn’t exactly the Castle Heights Luxury Suites. My landlord was a do-it-yourselfer who should have let someone else do it. A quick glance around the apartment inspired mental images of a slight man with a hammer in one hand, nursing a smashed thumb in the other, huddled over a dog-eared copy of Time-Life Books’ Kitchens and Bathrooms. It was all the little not-quite-right details, from doors that swung open in the wrong direction to hang obstructively out into the middle of a room, to bubbles in the linoleum, to substandard exterior electrical wiring that made every windy day a game of “How Many Times Will I Have To Reprogram The Alarm Clock”, to berber carpeting whose stitches incorporated every one of the ugliest shades of brown known to modern science, and which didn’t quite reach from wall to wall, as though the person responsible considered his miscalculation with a prolonged scratch of the head, shrugged, and said “Aw, fuck it, close enough.”

There are certainly things I will miss about the place. I had my own front door through which I could quickly stroll out to my car, and my own back door for stealthy escapes from unsavory visitors. I had my own traditional mailbox, positioned right out on the curb of a fairly busy road in such a way that retrieving my bills involved a tension-filled game of chicken with oncoming traffic. And of course there was the Green Bathroom. Its festive centerpiece was a bathtub whose avocado green hue was every bit as displeasing to the eye as it sounds. Since this tub would make any bathroom ugly no matter how it was decorated, I decided to go for the gusto and fill it with avocado green everything else…rugs, towels, you name it. You could throw up in that bathroom and if not for the smell, no one would be the wiser. It was quite a sight.

My new apartment in Derry takes all of this character (or ugliness, if you will) and replaces it with technology which confuses and frightens me the way a cordless drill would affect a caveman. I now have actual kitchen cabinets instead of storing things on top of the fridge. I have a garbage disposal, the bane of wedding rings the world over. I even have a dishwasher, so I finally have a good place to hide my dirty dishes when company’s over.

And, of course, Her Excellency is actually allowed here, so she can finally repose at the window, regally surveying her domain, without getting frantically shooed off the sill out of public view. The only thing that could spoil this for us now would be for that busybody Countess to move in next door.