Living in Bufflo, NY

Living in Buffalo, Zach and I have encountered a few misfortunes. For example: the smashing of our car window, which led to the loss of our newly acquired GPS. Also, the next week when I foolishly didn’t heave my bike onto my back and pack it up the four floors to our apartment, it vanished!

Besides the loss of our material possessions (which don’t really matter to either of us anyway), several times there has been loss of life just a few steps ahead or behind us. I was working at a chiropractic clinic and twice I called people about missed appointments and they had been shot the day before! AND both happened in our neighborhood! One died and the other, a 17 year-old boy, was in critical care.

Five days ago, Zach and I were going to a restaurant called Merge for a “Pints and Paints” event where you can go and pay $5 to use their supplies and paint. We showed up and the whole place was swarming with police and it was sectioned off with caution tape. Apparently only an hour earlier, a man had walked in and shot four people. One hour. That’s how close I was to being in the wrong place at a very wrong time. None of the other things that have happened made me feel any real fear until this.

Not that it’s really a big deal, but it could have been. I’m not afraid of death. I feel content about the amount of goodness I’ve produced in my life so far. I know a lot of people who would know that I loved them, even if I died today and didn’t get the chance to tell them again. I feel at peace with all my relationships. I’m at a good place in my heart. I mean, the worst thing in my life right now is that I’m unemployed (and by the way, it drives me crazy). But who needs a job when they’re dead? Okay, that was creepy. I retract that last statement.

I’ve never lived in a place so diverse as Buffalo. I’ve also never lived in a place this dangerous. Though maybe Gorlovka in Ukraine would be a close contender. I lived there for two weeks and my hosts feared for my safety on a daily basis. They have a homicide a week in that city. Unfortunately, there’s a homicide every five days here in Buffalo! So, I was safer in a former Soviet country half way across the world, where I don’t even speak the language, than in my apartment here in the US. And yes, I realize this probably an exaggerated miscalculation but you never know!

Anyway, I wouldn’t say I like living here but it won’t be for too much longer. I have an escape plan in the works. (Cue the maniacal laughter)