Where I Live

I've been daydreaming a lot lately. Mostly of things I can't have yet, stability yet to be achieved. It's a by-product of thinking produced by long walks with the dog through green parks and around Baltimore neighborhoods, and most likely, a reprieve from the world of standardized test studying. These walks are a chance to gaze longingly at the fronts of houses and to peek into the windows of other peoples' lives. When will I have such a life? When will I have brick wall in my house like that, and I like the wooden coffee table they have, can I have one of those too? Does it even matter what kind of stuff I have? I hope my future house has a Chamber's stove and lots of warm wood-detailing. It'll have to be a row-home, I hope to get to do some work on it, I have the perfect albeit derivative idea for what the floor-plans should be. And while such thoughts are probably fed by the fact that spring is on its way, in the sense that there's something about sporing greenery that brings about dreamy contemplation of the future, that's still a lot of self-generated daydreaming. That's human nature, right? Not only to think about, but also to try and control the direction of the future.

I can't help it though, this neighborhood brings it out in me. I've noticed on my long walks that many of the houses in this neighborhood are for sale (auctions and foreclosures, either up for immediate purchase or being renovated by some real estate corporation). It's the nature of living near the ghetto and highway, I suppose, to have a neighborhood with constant turnover. It consists of a few long-time homeowners, but mainly temporary renters that move-in and out (or squat a few months) because they can't afford the rent for long periods of time, or people that bought a house and then couldn't afford to pay off the mortgage. Despite all this though, I like this neighborhood a great deal, even though I often weary of some of the people that live here. Here's a picture of my neighborhood. A block up from where I live is a K through 5 school, church, a restaurant-bar, and a few families of varied ethnicity - the streets are generally clean up there and people are nice. The blocks down from us (there are 3) in the other direction are noticeably the "ghetto" (I'd say a milder version of what you'd find on TV though), consisting of run-down houses, families from mostly one or two racial backgrounds, no stores of any sort except a halfway house, and lots of police cars and paddy wagons arriving in the middle of the night with the classic flashing lights and "woop woop" sounds of sirens. My block, which sits between these two diverse blocks, has a few students and some families of varied ethnicity. However, being that my block is buffered on both sides by gates to the highway (North and South routes), by a liquor store, dive bar, and seafood and fried chicken shacks, the ghetto trickles in a bit on one side and not on the other.

I liked living on this block because it was fairly peaceful, until recently, when new neighbors moved in next door, one house down (towards the ghetto block). Now the view in front of my very own window has become a bit noisy. Police cars "woop woop" in the middle of the night right in front of our house, mostly because there's a group of yelling and arguing women on the porch right next door, usually at 3 AM, running back and forth into the street to talk to someone who's double-parked in a car with tinted windows. Sometimes, I'll walk out the door, straight into a crowd of "gangsters" congregating on my own front porch, with their pants hanging low, flicking cigarette butts here and there. Sometimes, I'll exit from the back porch and be startled to death when suddenly, in the silence behind my back, a hooded drug dealer sitting underneath the neighbor's porch, clears his throat. I kind of miss the old man who used to live next to us. Never heard a peep out of him, except for sometimes in the mornings, when he'd poke his head out the door to get the mail, smoking a cigarette, and say hello.

For you see, it's one thing to look out the window and feel disappointed when you see passersby throwing trash into the street.  It becomes another thing when all that shit happens right on your front porch. The images of litter accumulating in the cracks of your front stairs, compounded by the jabber of toothless crack-addicts drifting through the window on the morning air, arguing with one another about who should be pimped to who, along with the endless sounds of yelling that seep in through the walls from the neighbor, are all a bit much. You get used to it though. I used to think it was a bit ridiculous when a brother-sister duo would walk by our front window after a night of doing heroin, because one of them would most likely fall asleep for a few moments standing upright while the other one would slump over and stare at the ground for a few minutes. Now, this all seems normal to me. Is this what acceptable human behavior has become? It's difficult not to worry about this place, especially when the families around you, the ones that have been around for awhile, all seem to be moving out, or when you notice that exterminator trucks are fumigating the corner-store down the street, the one you used to eat at all the time. It's hard not to look out the window and feel resigned.  Baltimore wears on people in that way, and so many things that once started as a future so bright, no longer seem viable in the next couple of years. 

I suppose all of these observations work to temper my daydreams a bit. Now, whenever I walk past one of the foreclosures or houses up for auction or whenever I hear of new shops (butcheries, theaters) opening up right in the neighborhood, a twinge of wistfulness hits my gut and I wish I could live here permanently.  I can't help but think of all the opportunities that are passing me by as I wait for my future to stand itself on its legs. And although my dreams of owning a home are certainly far away in time, every run-down house presents itself as an exciting project that I can't start. Every walk outside gives me the highest hopes that maybe one day, this neighborhood will be a little less scary for the unaccustomed person, and that maybe one day, I'll be a real adult.  And then an image of those heroin addicts, falling asleep as they walk by, appears in my mind, and I'll stop daydreaming for a moment and postpone being an adult for another day.  

Here are some tasty baguette rolls, that take a bit of time to prepare but not too much effort. They stale after about 3 days, but are so good that the two of us had no problem consuming all six rolls within that time. 

Baguette Rolls

Adapted from Magieri's "How to Bake"

makes 6 rolls, takes at least 2 days, up to 3

sponge

1 C warm water

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour

dough

1 C unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Mix all the ingredients in the sponge together, and let sponge rise for 1 hour until doubled in size. Then  cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight, or at least 8 hours.

The next day, remove the sponge from the refrigerator and mix in the remaining ingredients, in the following order. First mix in the 3/4 C of the flour, then turn the dough out onto a cutting board or surface. Knead by hand to form a smooth, elastic, but still slightly sticky dough. While kneading, incorporate the last 1/4 C of flour into the dough teaspoonful by teaspoonful, using it to flour the surface or prevent the dough from sticking too much to the surface. You'll want to have your pastry scraper on hand. Once the dough is relatively smooth, elastic, but still slightly sticky, return to an oiled bowl and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Once the dough is doubled in size, carefully turn it back out onto a floured surface, deflating it a bit. Fold the dough over on itself 5 to 6 times (fold the ball in 1/2, rotate 90 degrees, then fold it in half again, repeat). Tuck the seams underneath and reform the dough into a sphere. Place back in the oiled bowl, cover again with plastic wrap, and return to the refrigerator and let sit at least another 8 hours (or overnight again).

Remove the dough from the refrigerator after this second set of 8 hours, turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and fold the dough 5 or 6 times again (as in the previous step). Then cut the dough into 6 parts and shape each part into a sphere by pulling the newly cut (exposed) ends below and pinching the dough together. Working with one piece at a time, lightly press and stretch each sphere into a rectangular shape, and fold the dough into thirds, lengthwise, and pinch the seams together (forming a skinny long rectangle). For the last fold, fold the rectangle in half again, via the short edge (so that the dough is now in the shape of a square). Pull the seams and corners of this square-like dough shape beneath and pinch the dough together on the bottom, thus reforming the sphere.

Place the rolls on a piece of non-stick parchment paper on the back of a baking pan, each piece at least 1-inch apart from the other. Cover the rolls with oiled plastic wrap, and let rolls rise until doubled in volume, or until the rolls are nearly touching. Preheat the oven to 465 degrees F while you wait.

Place the rolls in the oven (on the parchment paper on the back of the baking pan), and cover rolls with a large aluminum lid (or any oven-proof lid). Let bake covered for 15 minutes. Covering them with this lid will allow them to "steam" and form a crispy crust. After fifteen minutes, quickly remove the lid and lower the heat to 350 degrees F. Continue baking at 350 degrees for another 10-15 minutes, or until browned. Remove from oven and let cool.