In which where DOES the time go?
It’s September?!
I’ve been at the cheese shop for a month and a half now and really enjoy it. My friend got a job there too, so I have someone to ride to work with now that my beloved is working at the casino and can’t chauffeur me around everywhere.
We’re still at my grandmother’s house but are considering moving to Milton Freewater to shorten his commute and remove my need for a car. (I really don’t want to buy a car. They’re wasteful as fuck in terms of resources, and you have to throw money at them ALL. THE. TIME. Gas, maintenance, insurance, registration, parking. Yuck.) I also really want my stuff back, in particular my kitchen and the rest of my wardrobe, and we’ve been leaving the Ubox in storage until we’re fully settled.
I love living in this house in this neighborhood, but if we stay much longer I’m going to need a refrigerator and a hot plate and an area rug and MY CLOTHES and probably some other stuff I’m not thinking of right now. (I can and do cook in my grandmother’s kitchen, but rarely. I cook weird stuff at weird hours and I need my own kitchen space.)
I also want a proper desk and a second monitor and keyboard; I computer very little right now because it’s a pain in the ass. Mostly using my laptop for streaming, and do most of my internet fucking around on my phone. Could easily set up a workstation here in the basement, but keep not doing it because we might move out any minute AND OUR STUFF IS IN A UBOX IN PASCO OR RICHLAND SOMEWHERE.
I’ve seen both my parents, my brother, two aunts, an uncle, and of course my g’ma. I’ve seen TONS of friends and fans and gotten lots of hugs and kisses and emails and texts. I played at Marcy’s last Saturday and literally dozens of people came out to see me.
After living an almost entirely socially isolated life in Minneapolis for the past five years, I can’t even express how deeply fulfilling and satisfying it is to get to love on so many people!
I have a friend whose mom owns a restaurant, so I GOT CUSTOM ARTICHOKE COTIJA TAMALES, even.
It’s never what you know, and always who you know!
Plus the weather here, the goddamned amazing weather. Sure it’s hot during the day, but it’s dry, and it always cools down 20-30 degrees at night, so you can actually sleep even without A/C in the attic bedroom.
AND THE PRODUCE. OH MY GOD, THE PRODUCE. I’ve had a perfect peach, a couple of Hermiston melons, veggies from my aunt’s garden, and I made pico de gallo from heirloom tomatoes a cheese shop customer gave me — FOR FREE — because he didn’t sell them at market.
You don’t get produce like this in the city, you just don’t. There’s some amazing produce to be had in cities, sure, with co-ups and CSAs and stuff, but it’s nothing like living in farm country. You get stuff here that was literally in the garden that very morning, and it all tastes like happiness and sunshine.
We’ve been to a ball game, restaurants, bars, a couple shows, and people’s houses for BBQs. Look at this food I ate at Embo’s house!
We have A Social Life and it’s wonderful! We’ve been shopping, on Sunday drives, and across Stateline (between Washington and Oregon) too many times to count.
We’ve done more stuff in the past two months than in the past five years, probably, and it’s easy here because the whole town’s barely five miles across and the traffic is actually reasonable (rather than millions of passive-aggressive Minnesotans).
I’m so super happy to be home, to have people again, to have a good job, and my better half seems to like it here too! (I actually knew a couple of old online blogger people in MSP, but never managed to meet up with them. Somehow never felt like taking a few buses all the way to Saint Paul and back. Kind of regret it now, but obviously not enough to have actually done it in five whole years, so. I don’t know. Combination of distance and weather, I guess?)
Deeply looking forward to the season change, a proper autumn and sweater weather (there’s no fall in MSP, as I’ve complained for the past half decade), and then the holiday season rituals with family living nearby! We’ll probably GO to a Thanksgiving meal! Or a Christmas one! I’m so excited to be back that I probably won’t even briefly consider trying to get out of it this year!
If we’re in an apartment by X-mas, I might even splurge on a real tree, just for the hell of it!
In which AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Cycling rapidly between “This pile of boxes will absolutely fit in the U-Box container, no problem,” and “This pile of boxes WILL NEVER FIT IN THE CONTAINER, AND I SHOULD FREAK OUT, BECAUSE THAT WILL TOTALLY HELP!!!” and isn’t it cool how moving just never gets less stressful, no matter how you do it?
The kitchen cupboards and drawers are empty. The fridge is very nearly empty; I kept the cheeses, and a bag of walnuts, and stuff I was intending to eat for breakfast until I just now, while typing this, realized there’s no way to cook it since all the pans are packed.
(I threw away so much food today. Gawd. It feels terribly wasteful, even though I did try to make sure we ate as much of it as possible. We only decided to move five or six weeks ago. No way to eat ALL the condiments and random dry goods. But goddamn, I have thrown away probably $200 worth of opened boxes, packets, and jars.)
Bathroom is emptier than a motel bathroom: there’s only the shower curtain, one towel, one washcloth, Qtips, matches, and the toiletry stuff we use daily, in travel bags.
Bedroom’s as done as it can get before container day, I think. We still have clothes in the closet, but that’s just a few minutes to pack.
We have more lamps than I guess I’d realized, somehow. Five? I’ll keep any we have room for, but none of them are particularly cool.
Basement storage has been gone through and is about a third of what it was before, mostly just Christmas stuff now. (My man is amazing. Last week I mentioned sorting the storage was on the list, and he just went and did it.)
I’m essentially packed for my two nights in Atlanta. Most of the stuff’s in the suitcase, at any rate, in an untidy pile, and I know where the other stuff is. Honestly, the timing is pretty crazy (who decides to go on a retreat for two of the last three nights before a cross country move?!?!), but on the other hand, I’ll be in a great mental state for a long drive.
I’ve apologized several times for fucking off right before we leave for Washington, but he seems utterly unruffled and fine about quite possibly having to steam clean the carpet on his own. I’ll try to get it done before I go, but we might be fucking with the remaining furniture or something. (Nobody’s bought the couch or coffee tables, and there are two shitty office chairs and a desk that we need to do something with.) He’s so mellow, it’s just completely wonderful.
Every time I make a huge pile of garbage and recycling, he just gets up and takes it out. I haven’t taken a single thing out to the dumpster because he just handles it.
Any rate, I have a burrito in the fridge I made yesterday when I wanted to wash the dish the refried beans were in so I could pack it. I think I’m gonna go nuke and eat it!
In which it’s actually not that bad?
T minus four days and mostly packed! Here’s the pile:
There’s also the bed, half a dozen boxes in the basement, and another half dozen out of shot or not yet packed, but that’s the main bulk of it.
It’s really not that bad, but I keep vacillating between “Oh, we’re FINE” much of the time and a panicky HOLY SHIT THERE’S TOO MUCH AND IT WON’T FIT AND I’LL HAVE TO THROW SOMETHING PRECIOUS OUT because my mind’s an asshole.
I’ve watched the U-box video — you can get a LOT of stuff into one of those containers — and the specs say it fits 257 cubic feet, so intellectually, I know it’s fine. But. Ugh.
My original guesstimate was 40 boxes and ~800 pounds (not including the bed, the microwave cart, the microwave, and the aluminum shelving unit). I think we’ll come in below that number of boxes, probably closer to 30, and well under 2000 pounds, which is the U-box max.
Also, since we’re driving, there’s overflow room in the car. We’re taking our luggage packed with clothes/toiletries, our computers and devices, the one surviving plant, some kitchen stuff I’ll want access to (mostly my spice collection, espresso, and dry goods), and a box of mending so I’ll have something to do during the 24 hours of drive time.
On top of the move, I’m going to Atlanta for two nights for my annual Amma trip, which is less than ideal timing, but that’s the only time I could go. (I had originally planned to see Her in Dallas this year, but couldn’t get a nearby hotel room and didn’t want to have to deal with taking taxis back and forth at odd hours, or trying to hitch rides with other devotees.) He’ll probably be at a local motel those nights, unless he decides to sleep on the floor in the apartment — our bed will be in the U-box by then, on its way to Washington.
In conclusion, everything is under control but I feel unsettled and stressed anyway! Additional proof that feelings are mostly garbage data!
UPDATE: Okay, I’ve packed the rest of the kitchen and am freaking out again, TOO MUCH STUFF, OMG IT’LL NEVER FIT!!!1! *headdesk* Andy WHY do we have so much opened, unfinished, un-donatable food?! Such a waste! Why the FUCK didn’t I serve all this before now?! I KNEW WE WERE MOVING.
In which it’s not a real blog post, just moving notes.
To take IN THE CAR with us so we have access to it (packed mainly in luggage/duffels/backpacks):
– couple weeks worth of clothing
– shoes
– computers/monitors/electronics and power/chargers etc.
– basic toiletries/beard, hair & teeth stuff, vision, makeup, tweezers, shit like that
– documents file box
– instant pot
– gameboy
– spice rack, espresso & moka pot
– mending and journaling crap
– vaping crap (+ misc juice for bro)
– amma doll.
IN THE U-BOX, everything we can live without for a month or more:
– bed
– cart
– shelf unit? (if there’s room)
– big mirror
– clothing/coats/shoes
– kitchen
– bath
– microwave?
– linens, rugs
– electronics, TV, console/s
– lamps?
– books
– altar
– pictures
– fans
– toolbox
– xmas stuff.
Misc notes:
– pack extra clothes in the big hamper? rather than a box?
– wrap big mirror in blanket/s
– pack misc crap I may not be able to fit in the Ubox in a separate box so it can be mailed or trashed?
– repack the books, that box is too heavy
– figure out how to get rid of the couch
– finish getting crap together for final Goodwill donation.
Items in progress:
– bedroom closet
– kitchen
– packing for Amma trip 6/27-6/29
Completed:
– living room
– front closet (except chemicals: leave those for free?)
– bathroom (except curtain/hooks)
– my desk
– basement storage
In which LOL MY MIND THO.
What’s the word for that psychological condition in which, after you quit a job and receive your final paycheck and have no income, you suddenly find yourself wanting, practically needing, to spend money on inane shit?
I always have this! Every time I’m unemployed.
Well, shit, no money coming in, let’s eat out and go to bars and shit I should buy this dress, right?
(I mean, I already have a job offer in Washington, so I’m only temporarily unemployed and not rife with uncertainty, and we have savings, but all I want to do is BUY SHIT lol. I think the point is sorta tangentially related to UBI: financial uncertainty, even mild and temporary, seems to have an effect on the way the mind works.)
In which I very nearly gave myself a panic attack.
We’re still over a week away from loading the shipping container — and we’re at least half packed — but my mind just served up this whole entire OMFG WE’RE NOT READY, WE CAN’T DO THIS, IT’LL NEVER WORK, IT’LL BE A NIGHTMARE thing about moving because minds, it turns out, are stupid.
I mean, it did everything it could to freak me out and make me feel bad. WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF, IT WON’T FIT IN THE CONTAINER, WE’LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO THROW AWAY!!! IT’LL BE A DISASTER, THIS FEELS TERRIBLE AND SCARY, I’M INCOMPETENT, IT’S AN ABJECT FAILURE!
I had to google the dimensions of the box again and look at a bunch of pictures again to convince myself of what I already knew, like, three months ago: without any furniture but the bed, all our stuff will totally fit, plus there’ll be overflow room in the car if necessary.
And fuck, mind, so what if we have to toss something. What do we own beyond the file box with all our papers in that’s truly that important, anyway?
Honestly, the real trouble is that no one wants to buy the couch so we’ll have to figure out what to do with it, and he really needs to sell his desk. (My desk is already mostly apart and can go in the dumpster with his office chair.)
It’s fine, mind, and in two and a half weeks we’ll be snugged up in the ancestral pile surrounded by family and friends.
Stupid mind. Jesus.
In which there’s some cash.
Homeless chick rode up to me on her bike during my walk to work today, very conciliatory, sorry to bother, said she’d just woken up in the park, mid-afternoon (I assume she was awake most of the dark hours, perhaps to move on, perhaps to watch her stuff), only had three cents, was, so sorry, very hungry.
“Oh, you need some money? Cash?” I asked. She didn’t even respond coherently, really, was trying to speak but mostly there was a sort of wave of OH GOD YES SOME CASH WOULD BE SO, SO WONDERFUL vibe.
So I pulled up short (halted my rapid waddle down the sidewalk), pulled out my wallet, and gave her ten bucks.
It was tips from my job, free money for me anyway. She thanked me, obviously had only expected a dollar or two, at most, started to explain why she needed it, like desperate people do, to justify their need, our collective human need, but I said, “I’m a bit late, on my way to work, didn’t leave quite on time, can’t slow down. But you have a good lunch!” (Because I hadn’t. Left on time, that is.)
She said she’d eat WELL, SO well, gave me a “God BLESS you!” (which I’ll take, thank you, beloved Guru), and let me power walk on. “Thank you!” she called. “Be well!” I called back. “Eat something nice!”
Mentioned I’d done this when I arrived at work, gave a homeless woman ten bucks; co-worker said, predictably, “Ten bucks?! You shouldn’t give them money.”
(Them? THEM?! It’s a human, a person.)
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I replied. “Adults, even the homeless, can safely decide what to do with ten bucks. She needs food, she’ll get food. She needs beer, she’ll get beer. Shampoo. Tampons. She knows far better than I do what she needs. Jesus.”
Maybe she’s an addict. FINE, she should BUY WHATEVER SHE NEEDS TO TREAT THAT. It’s a condition. It’s ten bucks.
Maybe she’s not homeless but has the balls to LOOK homeless and convincingly approach a total stranger in Uptown in broad daylight for money? FINE. TEN BUCKS for the performance, well done, good show, huge balls.
The whole “don’t give THEM money, THEY will hurt themselves with it, don’t know what THEY really need” thing is paternalistic, classist crap. Fuck the charities. Nobody knows better than the actual person what the fuck they need. I mean, can you even imagine being homeless and needing, for example, tampons? Or hemorrhoid cream? Or lice shampoo? You can’t beg for that, but you can beg for food.
Yes, on occasion you may get the vibe wrong, and give an asshole grifter ten bucks. SO THE FUCK WHAT. In the grand scheme, you give way more to professional grifters than you do to the homeless. Most of the time, you’re buying an actual human being lunch, beer, tampons, soap, pet food, or yourself a “God bless!”
Give the ten fucking bucks, if you have it, which, in this mostly cashless world, I actually did, today.
In which blah blah Facebook blah.
Somebody from Fairfield posted this on Facebook:
And I wrote this in response, but didn’t post it. Because why bother.
Counterpoint: There is no good reason to shame people who need pharmaceutical antidepressants. Those meds save lives.
Humans suffering from mental health disorders do not need to hear that their meds are bad and what they REALLY need is… a drum circle? Seriously? It’s like telling someone with cancer that all they need is a good attitude. It’s judgemental, unloving, and ignorant.
People with serious illnesses need drugs to survive. Diseases like depression and cancer are NOT the sufferer’s fault, and these diseases can’t be treated with positivity alone. That’s why we invented drugs in the first place!
Are drugs side-effect free? No. Are they perfect? Also no. But do they save human lives? Yes, they absolutely do.
Sorry for the soapboxing, but I know a lot of humans on psych meds who don’t need to be shamed about it.
In which I’ve checked some boxes on my to-do list.
Slept a solid 8 hours… in a row! (Lately I’ve been sleeping in shifts. Bit annoying, really. Had to work Saturday’s 11-7 shift on a mere four hours sleep, because I woke up at five in the morning and never got back to sleep.)
Woke up and meditated.
Made the bed, started the dishes, brewed myself a latte, journaled a bit. Fountain pens! Washi tape!
Looked at flights for this year’s Amma retreat and rescheduled my hotel dates. Listed the couch and the air conditioner for sale on Craigslist. Cleaned the toilet bowl. Gave himself a basket of laundry to do and a short grocery list to shop.
Made and ate a cheesy, saucy bean tostada.
(It was delicious.)
Today is a rainy, green and cool and overcast and lovely, day. Birdsong. Open windows, breeze.
I’ve got some garbanzos cooking for Moroccan stew for dinner!
Currently re-watching an episode of Firefly again because it’s good and it’s there. Plan to read later; most of the way through Doctorow’s latest and just bought a Delaney. Also have a trilogy sitting on my Kindle I bought a while ago still needing to be read, too.
Okay, off to chop veggies for the stew!
UPDATE: Stew!
Really delicious! I used freshly ground cumin, and added a bit of a few extra spices (ginger, cinnamon, paprika, and black pepper) because WHY NOT.
In which spring has FINALLY fucking SPRUNG in the 55408!
I took this while walking to work this morning:
The trees here leaf out so quickly you can hear them grow. They start late, so they have to!
VSCO
Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
