Does living on the tracks count as the wrong side of the tracks?

Go ahead. Drink it in. And be jealous. This is the view out of my new living and dining room. Apparently, in this part of California, it is considered unfavorable to look at train tracks outside your window and your apartment costs a little less if you do. However, I am from Los Angeles where people pay big money for a downtown loft with this sort of industrial vibe, and I rather like it. I have the pricier "courtyard view" out of my other windows and it is nothing to write home about (except that I did already write home about it, but that is beside the point). I do not have any sort of smidgen of the priciest "bay view," but I happen to know that the bay view is also a "freeway view" and "bright blue and yellow Ikea building view" and so I think I'd rather look at these train tracks.

I was worried, however, based on all sorts of trash talk I read on the internet prior to moving here, that the noise and shake accompanying my train track view would make me regret moving here. I also read that shady criminals live in the building at half-price due to Emeryville's aggressive anti-gentrification laws. I read that rowdy youth frequent the mall and that I would likely lose my life at the nearest BART station. And all of these things worried me and caused endless second-guessing of my life's plan and now that I am here, all I can say is...

What?!!

So, you know how it was a staple television plot of yore that some rich guy would die and bequeath his entire estate to the show's stars so long as they would spend a single night in a haunted house? First, he's a sadist. Second, apparently I am, too. Because now that I am here in this entirely pleasant community, I would like to challenge all of those internet axe-grinders to spend a single night in my old Westwood apartment. I could go on and on about how the elevator in that building shook it more than the train tracks do here, how they don't know the definition of "shady criminals" until they've lived in a building owned by the Russian mob, and how happy and energetic youth are tolerable so long as they are not running a sophisticated purse-snatching operation.

I could go on like that, but I won't. Because my old roommate, who has also left the Westwood apartment for a better commute and in-unit laundry, summed it up far better than I ever could. She wrote me an email listing the ways her new housing was better than our old shared housing. Number one on the list:

"People don't poop on the sidewalk here."

True story. I will spare you more details than that. But, for the millioneth time, I will declare my belief in the fact that you can't believe anything you read on the Internet. And maybe I'll stick to it this time.

Moving on... do you like horses? Of course you do. Then check out my Etsy shop.