a stoop of my own

last night i had the pleasure of drooling over my uncle's old brownstone in brooklyn. sometime in the 1970s, my uncle and his wife at the time decided to rebel against their suburban backgrounds and find a charming old 1870s, 4-story brownstone in the 'hood in brooklyn (now the hipster haven known as clinton hill). when i used to visit as a kid, i thought their house was so much cooler than the house we had in houston. how many of my friends had three sets of stairs in their houses? how many of them had houses that were over a hundred years old... in the middle of new york city no less? ever since then i dreamt of one day owning a brownstone of my own... of course now that i'm old enough to consider buying any piece of property (notice i didn't say wealthy enough), the price of a brownstone in any of the boroughs hovers around a million dollars if not infinitely more... so sad to see that dream squashed.

my widowed aunt is now selling the place, so i will not even have the pleasure of visiting in the not-too-distant future. i guess that's how it goes...