Psst.

I'm in Adventure City, folks. Orientation starts tomorrow. I see students. Remember, if you want to read about the detailed and undercover adventures, you gotta email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com for the secret invitation. There's so little I can say here, folks, except that I miss my blogoverse friends!!!

Big Surprise

As seen over at Maude Lebowski's:

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Aphrodite/Eros
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Feeling Angsty

Okay, here's the thing: I'm nervous and on edge about this move. And then there are all the other things going on (OPL). I just don't have any extra resources right now. I spend every day trying to get control of the chaos of packing and everything -- while trying not to go nuts, since my life has changed and is changing in a number of ways: my heart is big and huge and vulnerable, I've just completed a dissertation, I'm moving to my first post-graduate student job. I'm nervous and scared about everything. I don't know how much I can console other people about the scariness of the future right now. GAAHHHHHH!!!!

That said, I've spent the morning on the phone trying to arrange things. I think I've run out of people to call. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do today since I ended up totally wasting last night with worry. I'm having a moving party on Saturday, so I know I need to clean up, since things have gotten very messy as every area is some kind of staging area for packing. I need to put out the books that I'm giving away so that people can see them -- and probably put away the things I don't want people seeing. I also need to clean up the kitchen and do some darn laundry!!! Maybe laundry will be the big task for the evening -- which means today should, I think, be devoted to clothes and the closets the world forgot. (Does everyone have to write in order to organize themselves, or is it just me?) And then I do need to do some prepping, which for now means reading and taking notes.

Tomorrow I will need to really prepare for having people in my house. Though I have lived here for five years and I love love love my apartment, I've never had a party here. And if you saw the place right now, that would make sense to you. Everything's everywhere. A total nightmare. I'm not going to be able to get it to the point that I won't be embarrassed about it, but I think I'm going to go for lack of complete humiliation. And floor space. OY! Not everyone is so forgiving as Maude Lebowski and OPL, the last two people who overnighted here. And Fabulous Friend is too sweet to ever say anything about my obvious and complete lack of organizational and cleaning abilities when she comes over. Dishes, reorganization, closets for laundry. Ooh, and I need to go to the store to get more bags.

I'm so nervous that even a Starbucks latte makes me sick. Or else I'd be over there getting one. Of course I might go anyway. OY!

***Update 1:30pm***

Hurrah! I'm going to get to share my madness with Angry Incredible Writer Friend! She's going to let me come over and do laundry, laundry, laundry, which means I have to go into the Closets that Time Forgot and get all that organized. Which means I have focus. I also did the dishes. And I really should go out and get bags and maybe even something to eat. This is totally ridiculous, my need to make public my doings. OY VEY!!!

Packing Is Like Dissertating Is Like _________?

As I was looking at my poor front room last night, I came to a major realization: packing is like dissertating. You work hard every day hoping that you're going to be able to feel the progress, that watching the pages accumulate will make you feel like you've done something. But actually for the first two-thirds of the project, you feel like you've got so far to go that if you focus on how close you are to the end, you'll go comatose on your bed staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how long you can lie perfectly still just as you did when you were a child. So you figure out that you need to not look at the big picture, but recount and exult in the little bits that you did each day. And you find yourself blogging your page count and how you feel like shit because you wrote only three pages, instead of the impossible six you were planning. (And even six feels like it will be forever until you're done, so you feel like super-crap and find it hard to forgive yourself that you had to watch that movie marathon, had to spend two hours on the phone, had to browse the internet or whatever.)

In all fairness, it was Witty Sardonic Friend, who I totally miss, who told me it would be this way. He said: work every day and it will feel like you're doing nothing and then all of the sudden you'll be almost done. The thing that is so annoying and wonderful about WSF is that he is often right. With my diss, I did suddenly feel like I was almost done. Though I had been slogging through for months, it felt like a surprise. Oh, that's what all this work was for. I get it now. So as I was looking around at the simply impossible amount of stuff I have everywhere, I figured out that I've just got to work at it every day and then suddenly in like a week and a half, it'll be almost done. What's more, the movers will come and hurriedly pack whatever I've left.

I wonder what else is like dissertating and packing. Maybe all big projects are like this? You work and work and work and are sure you're going to die before the project is over or at least it's going to kill you and then suddenly it's almost done. (I will say that often that last third feels like pulling teeth compared to the nice clip you realize only in retrospect that you've been going at for months. Case in point: Works Cited -- gahhhh!) Maybe all those books that people like Dr. Crazy and Maggie May have been writing? Perhaps remodeling a house, like Dr. Four Eyes?

So in the spirit of blogging wee progress, I thought I'd fill in the rest of what I did last night: I went through all the desk drawers and organized them (though I didn't bother packing the stuff away because I can just slip the drawers back into the desk after it's moved), another big "everything" kind of drawer, boxed a set of my notebooks (I have notebooks and journals and writings going back to when I was a girl -- I always imagine that I'll go through them and come to terms with Little Earnest when I am pregnant -- until then, I'm carting them around from place to place), and reorganized some stuff I'm taking with me to Adventure City.

Slow, But Certain, Progress

So today I managed to get the storage unit and move about twelve boxes into it. It's not much, considering how many books I have, but it' s a start. I also finally returned about twenty books to various people around campus -- and I got some things lined up for an updated dossier.

You know it's bad when you can sum it up in a few short sentences. But things are progressing in that slow terrible way. My back is killing me -- and my legs don't want to work because I did this insane workout on Sunday and I'm still not recovered. So I'm going to sit around, burn CDs, and read this one book from my advisor that I think will help me prep. Oooh, and most likely catch up some more on my blogreading. I'm comin' over. Watch out!

Blogging Progress???

More like blogging the fact that I'm a total lazy slob. Today I woke up really groggy and sore. And immediately I had moving and storage people talking to me, which half jump-started me onto the idea that I really better figure out that stuff. So I did that. And I've done some other stuff -- burned CDs (number forthcoming), copied the stuff out of the three books from the library, went through an extraordinary amount of paper -- but all this pales in the presence of the solemn vow I have sworn to not get caught in the magazine cycle again. Let me explain: I know some people read magazines on a regular basis. They leave out Newsweek and The New Yorker and visitors actually read them as they, for example, go read their bedtime stories to their four year-olds. But these visitors are occasionally on crack in thinking that just because they soak up this fascinating The Economist article and find the articles in this week's The New Yorker very engrossing that they should subscribe. And this, folks, is my doom. I love magazines. I hate them. Weeklies come way too often. Utne Reader (at least old Utne -- I haven't read it since it changed hands) was perhaps the only one I could really devour. Even if I didn't read the articles, I was interested in knowing what they were. With Newsweek and Time's dismal headlines starting at me, forget it. If anyone wants a fairly complete collection of near-pristine (mostly) news weeklies, let me know. It's ridiculous in here. I'm not getting caught in this guilt-inducing magazine consumerism again. I'm going to buy magazines where they should be bought -- at the co-op and the airport!

Mostly I feel as if I've sat around mooning. OPL said he wouldn't call for a few days -- it's a lot of work having all those mental conversations with someone you can't call. I did manage to rebox some things that needed to be reboxed. But here was the moving coolness for the day, which happened early and was probably the reason I mooned about so much later in the day: when you put stuff in storage, it doesn't have to be packed up tight as when you're actually moving your things. (Yes, I'm putting most of my stuff into storage because it's really the most convenient thing to do in this situation. Sorry I can't be more explicit.) So I've been looking at the way I live my life -- and actually I have a lot of stuff in boxes -- not terribly secure we're-moving-halfway-across-the-country sturdy boxes -- but more precarious really-ought-to-be-reboxed-and-organized boxes. Which means that if push comes to shove, I just won't rebox them. And as I look around at my house, I wonder how much really needs to be put into boxes or reorganized. So much could go as is. I have this weird sense that if I needed to do the whole thing in three days, I totally could. On the other hand, I am going through a lot of stuff, because I have so much crap after five years of graduate-studenting, but part of me just needs to SEE more progress. I have boxes and stacks and stuff, but it doesn't look like a hole in the place yet. Tomorrow I will pack up the car with the few boxes that will fit, go over to the storage place and deal with paperwork, and move my first boxes into my new storage unit.

So in order to not go to bed completely depressed (what's surprising is that I'll get to bed before 4am), here's what I have accomplished:

1. Scheduled movers at a reasonable price.
2. Found a storage unit.
3. Resorted and reboxed some book boxes.
4. Discovered that deep in the closet that the world forgot there are still many boxes from when I moved in.
   
5. Went through and burned the bulk of 27 CDs.
   
6. Looked through countless piles of paper for an old receipt that I need for reimbursement. (Why, oh why oh why???)
7. Began the process of requesting an official copy of said receipt.
8. Sent emails to all my recommenders asking them to update my dossier. (You never know.)
9. Made copies of all library materials for prepping.
   

Here's what I haven't done. I haven't made a big enough dent in this whole thing. I haven't done any intellectual work nor any actual mental prepping. I haven't left the house except to go to the car. And I haven't worked out at all because I am still so sore that moving around hurts. My goal is that by Friday, I'm going to have made a significant dent in this whole thing. I especially want to go through my clothes very soon. And I really need to deal with my office, which is overgrown with books and papers. Luckily I won't have to bother with taking that stuff home. I'll just take it directly to the storage unit, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Mr. Tabby now needs his medicine and I'm contemplating an early night. Mr. Tabby was pronounced reasonably okay (we needed to increase the dose of one of his medications), but he's lost weight and he doesn't do anything. He spends way too much time in dark areas. I don't like this.

With Memes Like This, Who Needs Therapists?!

You Are Death

You symbolize the end, which can be frightening. But you also symbolize the immortality of the soul. You represent transformation, rebirth of a new life. Sweeping away the past is part of this card, as painful as it may be. Your fortune: Don't worry, this card does not predict death itself. Instead it foreshadows the ending of an era of your life, one that is hard to let go of. But with the future great new things will come, and it's time to embrace them. Mourn for a while, but then face the future with humility and courage.

What Tarot Card Are You?

No wonder I've felt so much like death lately. This morning I feel like death warmed up.

Blogging the Moving Progress

I know, I know these kinds of posts are the most boring in the world. Look at me try to stay accountable by blogging the progress. I'm sorry if you totally hate this, but I got totally addicted to blogging the progress with the dissertation, so now I'm hooked. Blogging progress is my need! So here goes. Here's what I managed to do today so far:

1. Copied or decided against copying 44 CDs, at least half of which I did copy.
   
2. Did 15 minutes of yoga without the tape, which is also good because for unbloggable reasons, I need to scale down my stuff and can't afford to buy the DVD to replace the tape.
3. Emailed movers and storage for quotes.
4. Wrote in journal about teaching, making me feel all confident and excited about teaching at my new gig.
5. Picked up three books on teaching from the library that I intend to copy (on my no-charge at-home copier -- ha!) fruitful productive teaching things out of, which actually makes me feel much much better -- and is in line with that prepping I said I would do, except that I told myself I wouldn't do it on the weekends.
   
6. Worked out for an hour. (Yes, I realize this means that I've worked out twice today. I did the same thing yesterday. I'm going on the mantra that an hour of exercise equals 50 mg of Zoloft. Though today was a much better happier day.)

Now, I'm going to watch French Kiss (yes, the irony, I can't stand it -- let's not talk about it) and try to pack up some clothes or go through papers (much easier to do in the living room).

Breakthroughs in Packing!

It actually happened -- I actually started packing. It's amazing. Two bookshelves equal something like 15 boxes. Totally ridiculous. But I also managed to both stay on my butt and contact movers at the same time. Really, I'm finally getting things done, partly because Self-Reflective and Fabulous Friend came over and let me make her margaritas and use her wunderbar puzzle-box skills to box up books and partly because I finally don't feel like a complete zombie. I also went over to the library today and got some books that have already helped me get my head back into teaching. So, even though I promised myself that I wouldn't really work on writing/publishing or teaching on the weekends, I actually feel pretty good about prepping for teaching.

Packing and moving is a bit of a different story: though I borrowed beaucoup bucks from the fam, it's clear that I'm going to have to beg for more from someone. I'm trying to do this move on the cheap, but I've got so much stuff that I can't possibly lift. A lot of antiquey-type stuff. The kind of stuff that makes me so nervous about moving it that I MUST pay someone to deal with my anxiety and backseat moving. This is the first move I'm really trying to do on the cheap, so if anyone has any ideas about free boxes or whatever, I'm all ears.

Chasing Butterflies: More Beauty Blogging

This is what happens when you begin to leave a place: you finally start taking pictures! I thought y'all needed some pictures of the sweet little garden on the campus that I'm leaving. I was actually trying to chase some of those little white butterflies, but it's futile! They won't have their souls stolen!

Attention Regular Readers

If, after all the whining, there are any devoted readers left! I really appreciate y'all's support lately. I know I have not lately been the charming and sardonic hostess I promised.

Because specifics around Adventure U will be very difficult and burdensome to mask, I'm going to be moving to a new password-controlled blog. This new blog will likely be academic, but also somewhat personal (as if this one isn't personal), including reflections on Adventure City and pictures and the like. If you want to continue to read my adventures in absurdity while at Adventure U, please email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com -- and I'll give you the blogaddress and password information when I get it altogether.

The Don't Look Back Program

Okay, so the title is melodramatic, borrowed from the only movie that really makes sense to me at this moment, Something's Gotta Give. OPL came and left again. I don't know what's going on. Neither does he. I don't feel like I can answer any questions. All the answers are maybes. I just don't know. I'm pretty devastated, but I've also decided to remember one of my favorite quotes: Writing is like loving. You think that the real boon is the publishing, when actually it's the writing just like you think that real boon is being loved, when it is actually loving. I'm a big fool, I guess. I've decided to keep on loving. (It's better than being hate-filled, I guess, though perhaps hate is more entertaining.) But I also have mucho to do and that is where you blogoversians come in. I have three weeks to get things done. Big projects: moving, teaching prep, writing/publishing. I figure I'll do a little bit of teaching prep and writing/publishing in the morning to early afternoon, then pack, pack, pack in the afternoons. Maybe some exercise in the evening. A wee drinkie or three after that. Look at that! It's a whole life. And I'll be blogging the misery for you, folks! Don't you worry!

Mr. Tabby is not looking good. I'm taking him to the Fabulous Vet Doctor tomorrow. Oh and by the way, I turned my dissertation in. I actually ordered my academic regalia (yes, totally late so now I'll be hooded in a rental -- whatever). Life is moving forward, sort of.