At home, in my treehouse, there are lots of things to love: The Scamp’s awesome nursery school; unexpected sweet things (so far, a ring, a butter dish, and a great dress) found at the Brooklyn Flea; Rice’s Thai coconut curry chicken over sticky rice; mint and basil plants from Root, Stock & Quade; Fresh Gardens’ nectarines and grapes; the underappreciated Threading Place; the Pratt Sculpture Park, always; fatoosh salad from Zaytoons; french fries and milkshakes from 67 Burger; interlibrary loans picked up from the Clinton Hill branch. Best of all, and the reason I moved here nearly a decade ago, are long, leafy walks — priceless.

Pot Psychology.

(I don’t need to tell you this is NSFW, right?)

Also, the Written Nerd has kicked off Stimulating Reading as a way to raise funds for a possible Fort Greene bookstore. Show some support if you’re able.

But my pal Hilary Davidson tagged me, and I can’t ever turn her down. So, briefly, seven random things about me [that I’m willing to post on the internets]:

1. I agree with Charlie Parker that you just really need to listen to Hank Williams.
2. My first apartment in Fort Greene — a ground-floor, rent-stabilized studio on Washington Park — cost $683.50 per month in 1999. I should’ve taken the 1-bedroom in the Clinton Hill Co-ops for $800.
3. When I was pregnant with The Scamp, nothing in the universe tasted better than Cocoa Pebbles in ice-cold whole milk. I seriously ate it for dinner for days straight during my first trimester, which was in the summertime. And hey, the kid loves chocolate now.
4. I am addicted to the Thai coconut curry (with chicken and sticky rice) at Rice and the elderflower water at Smooch.
5. My hair is cut by a well-tattooed California surfer boy named Michael.
6. Whenever I walk over the sidewalk subway vent on Lafayette Avenue near the former Video Basket in warm weather, the smell of the underground that wafts up along with the cool blast of air transports me to July 1999 immediately, every time.
7. I had — and still have, rest their souls — crushes on Orson Welles (Citizen Kane and F Is for Fake — please!) and Robert Rauschenberg (not on my team, I know, don’t care). Warm, open, generous spirits paired with a sexy voice/drawl are irresistible. Hmm…maybe that explains something of why I also adore Peter Falk.

I’ve been camping out in this diner all week, waiting for a “come get your kid” phone call; forcing myself to eat — even though I have no appetite — in order to justify my butt in the booth; amping up with coffee and finally putting my wrung-out emotions aside, digging into my work, currently a rewrite/update of a travel guidebook. When I first ducked into Academy on Monday, I had no needs other than a warm place to collect myself and pass an hour; now, I can’t imagine a better diner in the city and I don’t know why I didn’t start coming more often a long time ago.

In this gilded New York City of $2,000 one-bedroom apartments, $20 one-course brunches, and $2 one-way fares, it has been easy to undervalue the charms of the diner. After this week, I won’t again. I walk into Academy and I can seat myself immediately, whether in a booth by the window or at the counter. The no-nonsense, nicotine-stained waitresses bring a menu, take my order, bring my food, and drop my check easily and efficiently, without leaving me to wait for anything. I’m left in peace to sit staring out of the window, reading a New Yorker article on Michelle Obama, writing new restaurant reviews from my collected notes, checking my phone anxiously to make sure I haven’t missed the nursery school’s call. And the banter all around, words falling like confetti, every fragment of conversation an inspiration: Tommy Konstantakis with a wry word for everybody coming in and out; a young gringo who lays out his plan to move to Central America and live on the cheap with a full staff of hired help; a drummer on a break who pounds absently on a barstool with his sticks while waiting for his order; the middle-aged guys who point to Madonna as the beginning of the end of the age of sartorial grace (”The pants are falling off their butts now — of course they’re violent!”), but insist they’d vote for a woman politician (”Just not Hillary! And I told her, ‘You only like Obama because he’s black!’”).

And at a time when I feel almost paralyzed by multiple pathways that lead to I-don’t-know-where, and I second- and triple-guess nearly every choice I make from the time The Scamp jolts me awake (”Muh-MAH!”) in the morning till the time my mind finally wears its battery out and lets my eyes close too late at night, it’s comforting to know that “scrambled hard” means the egg will come scrambled hard; that asking for a decaf will get me a cup of instant Sanka, so I’d better buck up and drink up the real deal; and that I am alone together with a steady stream of working stiffs, artists, and those without a trust fund who just want a fill-up kind of meal and a smile for under $10 (or even $5) ‘cos that’s all they got to spare and they just want to make it through the day like anybody else. Some things are too good to change.

Photo of Ms. Badu modeling a Jacob’s Eye purse from Jacob’s Etsy shop.

Jessica Stockton Bagnulo may be set to finally change that. The keen mind behind The Written Nerd, one of the best blogs on books and bookselling you’ll read, Jessica has also just won the Brooklyn Public Library’s PowerUp! business plan competition. Local residents immediately began lobbying Jessica to open up shop here, so Fort Greene/Clinton Hill isn’t about to lose out to Windsor Terrace or Prospect Heights without a fight. Still, $15K is just the start of the funding that Jessica will need to pull it off, and there’s still the pesky matter of securing a suitable space at a reasonable price.

I have no doubt, though, that Jessica will realize her dream: Not only is her enthusiasm infectious, but she also has worked methodically for the better part of a decade to learn the ins and outs of the business. Find out why she’s bullish on independent bookselling and hear her ideas about the bookstore that could soon be on a Fort Greene/Clinton Hill corner after the jump.
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• 58% of the respondents (there were ~400) said they were “somewhat likely” to satisfy their daily needs when shopping in Fort Greene; another 34% were either somewhat or very unlikely to find what they needed.
• No surprise that there was significantly greater satisfaction with existing restaurant options than retail/services options.
• The effect of the Internet on brick-and-mortar stores is overrated, at least for this neighborhood: Only 10% of respondents shop online when they can’t find what they need here, while 51% cruise over to a nearby neighborhood and another 32% handle their business in Manhattan instead.
• The top 10 most-wanted places across categories (retail, restaurants, and services) were: bookstore (overwhelmingly — something like 70% or so of survey respondents picked this), bakery with bread and desserts, seafood store, hardware store, natural foods store, gourmet grocery store, cheese store, 24-hour diner, stationery/card store, and florist. The most-wanted places were fairly consistent across incomes and ethnicities.
• Other desired stores included a bike shop, a food co-op, an Ethiopian restaurant, a knitting store, and a cooking supplies/housewares store. Um, and someone did request a Starbucks.
• The person who requested a Starbucks was a lone wolf, though: Respondents rejected “chains,” Starbucks, fast-food or take-out Chinese, “overpriced boutiques and markets,” porn shops (!), and dollar stores.
• At the Ingersoll and Whitman houses, respondents most wanted a supermarket, preferably either a Pathmark or Shop Rite (though Fairway, Costco, BJs, and Wal-Mart got 1 vote each as well.

As for my beloved bowling alley, it seems that mostly black respondents wanted one — it was number 12 of 20 when the data was cut by race. Someone pointed out that there is a bowling alley in the basement of Cadman Church on Lafayette and Clinton; wonder if it could be refurbished and find a new life?

According to Jason, one of the store’s partners, fresh fish and meat will be available on Tuesday; the rest, including cheeses and charcuterie, will show up over the course of the next month. There have been murmurs of concern about the number of groceries in close proximity — including R&J’s, Fresh Garden, Greene Farm, Union Market, and whatever the Brooklyn Heights-based prepared food company that snapped up the former Seven Corners hardware space is going to open — but Jason didn’t seem particularly worried. Speaking of Fresh Garden specifically, he said, “I think we’ll complement each other.”

Now, will all of this stop me from ordering from Fresh Direct? Let’s face it, probably not; the convenience of being able to order online and have it show up at my door is too good to pass up (maybe if I didn’t have a toddler to wrangle and my local Met wasn’t so crummy…). But I’m finding already that I prefer to go to Fresh Garden for good fruit (Fresh Direct’s is generally crap; I used to go all the way to Citarella in Manhattan) and La Mediterranee yogurt, and I may find myself stepping into Provisions for other extras and treats (such as the freeze-dried peaches and Rao’s tomato sauce I picked up today). The prepared foods place could also be a boon (other than pizza, Fresh Direct doesn’t do that well, either). My homelier end of Fulton in Clinton Hill appears to be gaining an organic food shop, which if it’s really worth a damn will be fantastic to have; I’m also looking forward to Choice Market II, whenever they get their landmarks situation sorted and the doors open. Nothing here is really a one-stop solution (though a possible food co-op is promising); still, it’s nice to finally have some worthwhile options.