didn't want too much in a new apartment. I wanted a bathtub. Maybe a tree outside, instead of the gaping hole in the ground and occasional jackhammer I'd been staring out in Williamsburg all these months. I knew I'd have to sacrifice space -- the apartment I'd lived in for two years was a palace by Manhattan standards, a rambling shotgun with one entire room reserved for books, a desktop computer I rarely used, and red glitter platform heels -- but I just wanted a place large enough for my cat to run. He had taken to sliding across the rugs, sometimes in the middle of the night. An annoying habit. But it was bad enough he hadn't touched paw to wet earth in three years. To be robbed of his gallop seemed like too much cruelty.

At the time, I wasn't having the greatest run of things. They say April is the cruelest month, but to be honest, March was pretty shitty, too. I didn't want to move -- or, more precisely, I wanted to move, but I wanted someone else to do it for me, to slog through the Craigslist pages and huff it on the subway to meet with realtors, to pack up three years of belongings and ephemera, to scrub behind the toilet tank and wipe down the grimy hood of the refrigerator. Agggh, weren't we promised robots for this shit?

But I found a place, and it didn't even take that long -- a cozy one-bedroom in Clinton Hill, six blocks from my buddy Bryan (and his Wii). My block is in what you would call a "developing neighborhood" -- mostly, this means I wear ear plugs on Saturday nights to drown out the parties and the domestic violence, and I have to walk further than I want for good coffee. Oh, they're filming the Biggie Smalls movie down the block, and it is, in fact, the street on which the rapper grew up. But there's also a glass condo rising up into the horizon right behind me, so before long, I'll probably be living across from a wheatgrass store and Pilates studio. Good luck, crackies!

Anyway, I was excited about my new place. My old place was too big, one of those drafty old crumbling apartments that was impossible to keep clean. (You should have seen it after I moved out the furniture. Cat hair drifted across the floor like tumbleweeds. It was like Morris the Cat in the Wild West.). This new place is tidy, with all new appliances. Of course, the front door is dented badly, looking for all the world like someone bashed in the door to break in. But I try to concentrate on the fact that, for the first time in three years, I have a dishwasher.

I moved on Wednesday -- and yes, thank you, it was hell -- although thanks to my parents, hell was quicker and kinder and involved more dinners paid for my someone other than me. And so I write to you now from a room full of boxes, piled halfway up the wall. My cat is dozing on top of the boxes. What was I going to tell you? Oh, yes, the tree. This is important.

When the realtor showed me the place, one of the deciding factors for me was this tree. Like I told you, it was one of the only things I wanted in a new place. I had this vision of a spring morning -- breeze cutting through the room, cat curled beside me -- and a bedroom window that looked out onto some branches. But when I moved in, the tree had yet to bloom. While the rest of Brooklyn flourished, the tree was bare, stark, a bony candelabra.

"It's dead," I told my friends. "Just my luck. I move into an apartment for the tree, and the tree doesn't bloom."

This morning, I woke up at dawn. The tree was backlit by the streetlight, and I could see something i hadn't noticed before. Practically overnight -- and I know everyone always says that, but I swear this is true -- blooms had sprouted. Purple flowers like trumpets. Clusters of green. Not only is the tree NOT dead, it is gorgeous. Just my luck, right?