Schreiber

< Headdesk >

More failures of common sense:
- Roommate [M] pointed out that the front seats of cars also frequently fold down, giving you a great deal more real estate if, for example, you want to cram a six-foot piece of plywood into your car.
I therefore happily headed off to Home Depot this evening. However,
- I forgot to look what thickness of plywood I was going to need (ans: minimum 3/4" / 19mm) and how much two sheets of it were going to cost (ans.: a fuckton).

SO INSTEAD: I bought three boards, on which I am going to rest some bed slats, which in turn I have just bought off Amazon. Or to put it another way, I am reverting to the classic Me approaches: ghetto-rigging it, and continuing to fund Jeff Bezos's phallusships.

OK, the next time I move I'm taking two days off before my moving date for packing, and three more after for unpacking and stuff-I-forgot and cleaning, and I don't care WHAT vacations or familial obligations have to be cancelled to make that happen.

I am - reluctantly - back to thinking about moving out of Somerville.

Basically, the landlady crunched the numbers and found out that the new solar panels aren't paying for as much of the electricity bill as she'd expected, and so she's gotten nervous about finances. (I guess?) So she'd going to talk - next month, which for reasons that I'll explain, is inconvenient - to a financial advisor; if the financial advisor is remotely worth his fee, he's gonna tell her to hike the rent.

Now, we're planning to negotiate this: we can go back to paying our own electricity, say; and then there's the aforementioned fact that this apartment hasn't been properly redone in like twenty years, and the plumbing's getting dodgy as well; and she may just decide to continue in her policy of not wanting anything to do with the ridiculousness that is Boston-area rental prices. But if this doesn't work out...

< Additional details to be added when I have more time >
_________
The key issue is leaving Somerville. Hey Somervillians! What do you think? Should I move out to Waltham, or should I actually stay in the same town as you guys? 'Cause that's really the deciding factor.

Ugghh.
It's 1 April.

Some disconnected thoughts:

1. This is not, of course, a joke post. (I would have thought that the thing about the Anglo-Saxon antibiotic *was* a hoax, but it came out like two days early, and after Mom's manuscripts article in Trends in Genetics, it's not like I don't know that these kinds of bizarro interdisciplinary projects don't happen.)

2. It's also Wednesday in Holy Week. Not sure where I'm going with that, but I wanted to throw that out there. It's obviously on my mind; it certainly was when I originally contemplated that:

3. In one version of events, I was supposed to be moving into the Somerville apartment today. The fact that I am not is rather depressing.
I mean, I'm too thoroughly broke to pay the security deposit on it right now. Though then again, I'm going to be even broker in a month unless something comes up on the job front; but then again, it COULD. (It better.)

3a. Ever wake up in the morning and have a sudden urge to drink a quart of PBR?
As it is, I'm trying to make a couple cups of tea and some cocoa do the work of an extra hour of sleep and a lot less anxiety.
(Also, Hypnos? What's with you apparently demanding overtime from me?)

3b. Apparently the packing urge is coming on me anyway. Yesterday I suddenly had the urge to pack up all my silverware and just make do with Mitbewohner's for the next four weeks.*

4. Things I have been doing too much recently: listening to First Aid Kit; anal-retentively creating ever-more detailed maps of (and base map collages for) my "Germany 1920, as it would have been if I'd gone back in town with a death ray"


* Admittedly, Squigamunk has been starting pruning their stuff for weeks, despite the fact that they're not moving til June. One of us is apparently radically bonkers when packing is concerned.

So here's my life for the next week:

Thursday, 4 August:
4:30 Get home, find out what new disasters have happened in the rebuilding of our apartment, mail SECOND copy of rental agreement to landlord in Germany. gnash teeth. Go running to forget all this.
5:30 Pack, cook dinner
7:30 Grace gets home, hot and sweaty from day of planting trees
7:45 Dinner
9:00 Consume vast quantities of ice cream with assorted friends.
11:00 (we hope): My brother appears with enormous U-haul full of his stuff. Find place to PARK said U-haul. Move dresser from U-haul to bedroom; replace with the one that we currently have. Install brother on couch in room that's being rebuilt (hopefully...)

Friday:
7:30 Heave self out of bed. Persuade brother to do likewise. Get on the road.
9:00 Eat enormous breakfast at O'Rourke's in Middletown.
Drive to Maine. Or rather Dan drives.

Friday-Saturday: Meet up with parents. Stay up til 2 AM cleaning EVERYTHING out of family house. Hold enormous tag sale for some of it; put rest in U-haul.

Sunday, 7 Aug: Drive U-haul south to Portland. Hope brother has apartment. Grace joins us to move Dan into the apartment (if it exists) and put everything else in storage or Dad's girlfriend's house. Collapse.

Monday: Drive back to CT, making stopover at Grace's godparents' summer house to relax. Dinner with Grace's family; say goodbye to crazy sisters-in-law, before one of them decamps to London.
People I know moving to Europe is getting to be a theme. I wonder why...

Tuesday: Frantic last-minute packing, clean out carrel.

Wednesday: Throw last things in bags. Take Connecticutt Limo to JFK. Fly to Germany.


So if you're wondering why you don't hear from me between now and whenever, you'll know why!