Move Update And Sign Off

* Reached my primary goal of getting everything to the storage unit that's going to the storage unit. Have a nice staging area of things going to my mom's house. However, did not reach primary goal of having everything that's garbage bagged and ready for the garbage man tomorrow. On the other hand, I'll be shocked if the garbage man takes all of the bags and boxes and other items I'll be leaving for him. My first trip with the U-Haul tomorrow may be to the landfill.

* Probably two-three hours left of work before everything is ready to go, though if I fall into "box it up and sort it out later" mode that could shorten considerably.

* Last post from North Liberty - the computer will be taken down and moved tomorrow. Not sure what kind of access I will have at night from here on. So good night for now, and talk to you all later.

Move Update

* It is easier to unload than to load.

* The correct answer to the question "Will this fit in the car?" is always "How badly do you want it to fit?"

* Garage is clean, except for approximately a pick-up truck load at the front of stuff that needs to go to the landfill, which was not open on Sunday. I found that out the hard way, by jamming the car full and driving there. I should have looked online. The pool shed and the pool chemical room are empty of our stuff, though there are some things in there that were there when we moved in. My, our?, bedroom is empty of everything but the bed, the nightstand and alarm clock and lamp, and my clothes. The only other things upstairs are in the display cabinet in the hall. I'm saving those for among the last things I do - the cabinet is full of very nice, very fragile, very meaning laden things. Ditto the pictures on the wall. My last load, which I finished about a half hour ago (and just got out of the shower), was from the kitchen. Everything is out of the kitchen except for the things I will take to my mom's house. That leaves the computer room, which, considering the cds and dvds and some of the books and some of the albums and the three bookcases and one cd case were moved out Friday, basically just means the computer desk and the computer. On the other hand, I've taken to using the room as something of a staging area, but the things I am staging are already boxed and waiting to go to Williamsburg. On the third hand, there is a big closet off the computer room, and that thing is PACKED. It's at least an hour's worth of work.

* My goal for tomorrow is to have everything that is going to the storage shed in the storage shed by the end of the evening. I plan on getting a U-Haul on Tuesday and moving the rest of the stuff going to my mom's in one load. This supercedes the previous plan of relying on friend's trucks - there are at least three pick-up truck loads, so better to take one U-Haul than three pick-ups.

* I still need to place the cats for four nights, from Tuesday to Saturday. Any takers?

Random Moving Thoughts

* Got a storage unit about five minutes from the current house. Proximity is good.

* On Friday, I moved 6 long boxes of comics, 14 short boxes of comics, 5 milk crates of comics, 14 milk crates of books, 6 milk crates of albums, 3 milk crates of video tapes, 6 milk crates of dvds, and 7 milk crates of cds. By myself.

* Milk crates are the perfect moving carrier for things like dvds, cds, books, and comics. But man, that many are heavy.

* Friends are good to have. Friends with trucks are better. Thanks Matt! Everyone, give Matt a big round of applause.

* On Saturday, Matt and I moved eight loads with the truck, taking everything out of the house that needed to be moved by truck except for the stuff going to my mom's house. Oh, and a baker's rack. Cause I didn't have it cleared.

* I moved eight loads on my own in addition to the eight loads Matt and I moved. Indeed, except for a half hour when Matt and I had lunch at Subway, I spent twelve hours Saturday engaged in moving activities. I am way ahead of where I wanted to be at this point, though there is still plenty to do. The basement is empty. The boy's room is empty. The living room is practically empty. We even got the home entertainment center, which I thought for sure was going to have to wait so I could break it down.

* Nice to have an extra hour of sleep tonight. I can really use it. I am sore, sore, sore. My arms, particularly. I'm not sure which is worse. The eight loads we moved by truck were heavy, but the most items we had on any load was six, for a total of around 30 items. As a result, we got those eight loads moved in 2.5 hours. If you do the math on the milk crates alone up top, you get 61 milk crates (thanks decades of restaurant work!). As a result, my arms feel rubbery.

* Left to move? My bedroom, kitchen, computer room, toys, and one really jam-packed closet. Left to clean out? The rest of the garage and the pool shed. Tomorrow will be another busy day.

Thursday Song

Top of the World
Dixie Chicks

I wished I was smarter,
I wished I was stronger
I wished I love Jesus,
The way my wife does
I wish it had been easier,
Instead of any longer
I wished I could have stood
Where you would have been proud
That won't happen now
That won't happen now

There's a whole lot of singing that's never gonna be heard
Disappearing everyday without so much as a word somehow
Think I broke the wings of that little song bird
She's never gonna fly to the top of the world right now
Top of the world

I don't have to answer
Any of these questions
Don't have no God to
Teach me no lessons
I’d come home in the evening,
Sit in my chair
One night they called me for supper,
But I never got up
I stayed right there,
In my chair

There's a whole lot of singing that's never gonna be heard
Disappearing everyday without so much as a word somehow
Think I broke the wings of that little song bird
She's never gonna fly to the top of the world right now
Top of the world

I wished I'd of known you,
Wished I'd of shown you
All of the things I
Was on the inside
I'd pretend to be sleeping,
When you come in in the morning
To whisper good-bye,
Go to work in the rain
I don't know why,
Don't know why

Cause everyone's singing, we just wanna be heard
Disappearing every day without so much as a word somehow
Wanna grab a hold of that little song bird
Take her for a ride to the top of the world right now
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world,
To the top of the world

You Know How I Know You’re Stoned?

You deposited your bag of pot at the bank along with the night’s receipts from the pizza place where you work. Course, that also could be how I know you’re stupid.

Police arrested a Pizza Pit employee after he allegedly deposited some marijuana at the bank last month.

Adrian Michael Hilton, 25, of Coralville, is charged with possession of marijuana, a serious misdemeanor punishable by no more than six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Coralville Police department:
Employees at American Bank and Trust told police they found a bag of marijuana in the Pizza Pit deposit bag dropped off in the night deposit box Sept. 17. Pizza Pit employees identified Hilton as having made the deposit.

So Where Were We?

I'm moving. It's a matter of financial necessity. I'm going to my mother's basement.

Yep, 47 years old and living in my mother's basement. But at least it means I'm going to be going to get Ethan soon, and I can't begin to tell you how much that means to me. I missed his birthday, damnit. Not that I forgot it, or didn't talk to him and send a card (saving the gift for when he gets back), just that I wasn't there with him on that day. He was a c-section birth, and I was the third person to hold him in his life, and I wasn't with him on his birthday. I cried a lot that day.

And now I'm moving, having to be out by the end of the month. It's tough to pack up what's left of a life together; tougher still when you're packing up what remains of your family. Every object, it seems, has a memory attached to it, and the better the memory, the harder it is to pack away, put it in some box and seal it, never knowing when you might release that memory again. It's like slogging through a deep, snowy field, knowing you have to reach your destination but getting more exhausted with each step. And so you put it off, and put it off, and put it off, hoping that in condensing the time to accomplish the task you can also condense the pain and heartache of the task. But it doesn't help. It just adds a nice layer of panic to the sadness.

So, that's been my life lately. Haven't had much to say - well, that's not true. I have a lot I could say. Haven't had much I want to say. I'm kind of private like that. But I know that this pain has been building, and this day has been coming, and it has colored my life and my existence for so long, manifested itself in so many ways, and I hope that sometime in the future, maybe even the near future, I can start being a little more of who I think of as myself. I mean, the last time I played poker with friends, I freaked out over a hand and was a complete and total asshole, and I still haven't apologized, still haven't said I was sorry because everytime I start to compose an email to say so I start crying and drop it. I start crying a lot these days. I cry in the car sitting out front of stores. Cry in the car sitting in the parking lot at work. I cry before I leave for work and on the way to work and the way home from work and at home after work. I run into casual friends who ask how things are and I have to fight back the tears. I can't even manage an "Okay" for most of them. I'll often say "bad" and just leave it like that, hanging in the air, and then I'll go and cry. There's a phrase in Paul Simon's Slip Sliding Away that captures it perfectly:

She said a good day, ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed and think of things, that might have been

I just want days with no rain, with no tears. Haven't had any in a long time, not sure how long it will be before I have one again.

And that's who I am right now, and that's not who I want to be, cause that's not who I believe I truly am. So I'm moving, and boxing up a life and storing it away, and maybe after that's accomplished, maybe after my son's back, I can at least start to rebuild, start to reform, start to live again, live and not cry. That's my dream, and I hope it will be my future.

TAR Summary Written And Posted

New TAR summary up here.

"Who did it? Frank?"

I am not normally a big Norm Macdonald fan, but this is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in quite some time. I love Stewart's reactions to this.