The Long Haul

[After a weekend of phenomenal effort, two days of gut-wrenching illness and sloth, and a humiliating walk-thru, we are officially Out of The Downtown Apartment. Huzzah.]

[John and I (and Sean, the first of over a half-dozen roommates) moved into the D.T. Apt. almost exactly five years ago. It was our first place together, and, no matter how flash our new pad, the thought of leaving it reduced me to hysterical tears only once in the last few weeks. Sentimental slob...]

[We are packrats, and five years of packratting in a relatively small apartment amounted to a lot of...Stuff. (You thought I was going type "crap." So did I.) We were so excited that the New House is just around the corner from the D.T. Apt. that we didn't worry too much about moving most of the junk; when Jessica was in town a few weeks ago, and with the help of Sean, Allen, Arthur, Andrew, and a hastily rented U-Haul, we got most of the big stuff down to the New House, and have been moving the, uh, Stuff in dribs and drabs. After all, we didn't have to worry about being out of the D.T. Apt. until the day before yesterday. I'd made a point of making at least one (one!) trip a day, in between my "real" life, hauling stuff from old place to new. Plenty of time...]

[So why, pray, did I find myself at 1:00 Monday morning, making my thirty-fifth fully-loaded trip down the street and around the corner? Why, by Monday's early light, during what was supposed to be our final clean-up, did I find myself ready to burst into unsentimental, absolutely exhausted tears when John found a cupboard full of junk that I somehow missed and would be obligated to haul? (Thank the powers-that-be for John; once he saw my mental and physical state, he sent me home with the lightest of loads and made that last haul by himself.)]

[Yesterday's walk-thru was humiliating. We thought we'd done a pretty good job cleaning the D.T. Apt., but the Manager made what I assume is the usual tut-tut noises as she led me around the various boo-boos John, the many roommates, and I had made and left behind. It occurs to me that I've never done the move-out walk-thru ceremony with an apartment Manager before: either I've moved out in the dead of night, and received some small fraction of a security deposit (I think of my first couple of apartments in Santa Barbara), or only moved out of my room, leaving behind some fraction of the household that was. This ceremony isn't particularly fun, and I think it's preperatory to receiving somewhat less than the full deposit we were hoping for.]

[(Sidebar, Your Honor: Why is it San Franciscans feel so free to ask how much rent you're paying? This fairly scuzzy guy whom the Manager uses for maintenance projects at the D.T. Apt. knows where John and I have moved (everyone in the neighborhood knows about the House; it's the only residential building in many blocks that isn't an apartment), whom we know only by sight and occasional grunt of greeting when he emerges from his lair, asked me without any preamble how much we're paying. (And I told him!) Is it just me, or is this a pretty personal question?)]

[Anyway, the endless trips this weekend and the lack of sleep and the piles of...Stuff that now litter our lovely new home (sorry, no energy yet to put anything away) made me take to my bed for the last couple of days. I feel a bit better now, but either I'm never moving again, going to move more often so I can get used to it, or going to learn to travel more lightly thru this vale of tears. Anyone feel like coming to a garage sale?]

Previously Next

[Later: Disappointed in myself...]

["You scored 13 out of a possible 21. Don't let these indecisions take you from behind. Trust your inner vision, don't let others change your mind."]

[(Take the Guardian UK's 80s pop music quiz.)]