I’ve survived my first week living in Center City.  Here are a few things I’ve learned about myself and the world so far:

-The customer service lobby at the Peco building is the scariest place to get your electric.  I sat next to two gentlemen who were discussing how they were going to murder another gentleman while one of them bounced a 2 month old baby on his knee.

-I should not go grocery shopping without a list.  I don’t like radishes, but they are now in my fridge.

-The phrase “cooking with gas” has a basis in fact.  Apparently, a gas range gets hot very quickly.  News to me.  My first cooking excursion here involved me running back and forth from the stove to the smoke alarm, frantically waving a towel in front of it so that it would stop beeping.  I’m worried everything in my apartment vaguely smells like sausages.

-My dad’s biggest fear is flash mobs.  Every time we talk on the phone, he says the exact same thing.  “I just worry about you getting on that subway with those god damn flash mobs terrorizing people.  We should be able to shoot them, those lousy terrorists.”  So I won’t be leaving the apartment much longer.

-My apartment is surrounded by some of the nicest hotels in Philadelphia: Four Seasons, Sheraton, The Windsor.  It’s just a stone’s throw from the Comcast Center and from my front door I could spit on the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.  And yet there is the highest density of homeless people that I have seen in the city.

-I lived with my parents in the suburbs for four years post-graduation, and the first week on my own I had three great improv shows, I got a new writing assignment, and I went on a date.  With a girl.  I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.

-And about that date!  The last date I went on was in 2007 and I am terrible at picking up signals from women.  So I have no idea how this one went.  My initial feeling is good(?), question mark included.  Every time a girl talks to me or shows the slightest bit of interest in me, I always think it’s for one of two reasons.  First, they feel sorry for me, much like when they see an unattended, shoeless child in a park.  Second, they immediately file me in the friends column because they can’t imagine me ever having sex of any kind.  These are the kind of mental roadblocks I have to hurdle every time a girl says hello to me.

So it’s been a great week so far.  I hope it is the start of my transition into a true Renaissance man, a master of improv, a writing wizard, a super athlete.  Yep, everything is coming up Luke.

On the other hand, I just ate half a loaf of homemade zucchini bread.