My Stuff and Where It Might Be

We have been here 36 hours. Number of boxes unpacked: 0. We did find the alarm clock this morning because it went off, thereby leading us to its hiding place. Our move took about three times as long as I thought, mostly because I thought we had less crap. Our movers were terrific and did not demonstrate that they were put out by the fact that a 3 hour planned move took 8 hours. In fact the only thing that sucked about moving day was my car.

My brand new, first ever car that I love dearly even though we have been together a short while. The spiffy red car that has miles only I have put on it that I swore I would not park on the street in my neighborhood Friday night. No, said I, I would not permit my lovely new car to be sat on my hooligans, broken into, or stolen outright (though I might enjoy watching the mouth-breathers from my neighborhood attempt to drive a manual); instead, I would put it into the only reputable looking garage in the neighborhood, pay the 20 bucks for safety and security, and pick my car up in the morning no worse for the wear. I have just now returned from the Port Chester train station in his car, after dropping him off because my car? Still in the garage. Why, you might inquire, is your car still in the garage when you have been a suburbanite for 36 hours? That is an excellent question for which I have a terrible answer: the elevator at the garage is broken. So my shiny car is on level 2 with no way of getting to level 1. They don't know when the elevator will be fixed and given that the garage is located in my old neighborhood where things operate on UST, Uptown Standard Time, it could be many a moon before Big Red (not ACTUALLY the name of the car because I don't name cars or private parts) is reunited with me. This sucks.

Our living room and bedroom are the only two currently functioning rooms. I say this because I am typing this port from a computer that sits atop my dresser. As the movers were planning to move my desk out of my old bedroom, we realized it was no longer structurally sound and left it there, leaving me one desk short. The dresser desk is a temporary solution which is hard on my knees (they are what's currently pressing against the drawers). Instead of unpacking, yesterday we shopped, and for the most alluring of items: laundry hamper, trash bags, shelf paper, garbage cans. The shelf paper is what is confronting me today. This is an older house and before I go unwrapping all our gear, I'm going to repaper all the shelves - this job fills me with so much apprehension, I'm considering calling my mom for help (I'm not really great at a) straight line cutting or b) adhesives).

I'm also debating the Great Book Unpacking of 2009. Even with the 300 or so books that didn't make the cut - I'm looking at you high school copy of Macbeth - there are a number of boxes of books. Our movers commented on this several times. What stops me from diving straight into the books is that, technically, this room, my office, can stay unpacked longer than, say, the kitchen. It's not an essential room. as is obvious from the fact that it is an office with a dresser for a desk. The kitchen should be dealt with because it helps us eat; on the other hand, nothing in my office requires shelf paper.

My early review of this house is I love it. It's definitely big enough and I foresee lots of multi-level shouting since his office is downstairs and mine is upstairs. It had been raining quite a bit preventing us from doing all the backyard frolicking I had foreseen (the presence of neighbors with children will most likely prevent all the types of frolicking that could go on), but I smoked my last cigarette in the backyard right before bed on Saturday, and it felt nice to have a before bed outdoor area that didn't have other people blasting music in it. The living room is shaping up nicely. We liberated a chair, ottoman, and rug from my "mother-in-law" and as soon as we locate a rug pad (oversight, I know), I think the rug will be a welcome addition. It's seriously ugly, but in a way that completely matches the room (the room isn't ugly per se, it's just very retro - I promise pictures when things are better looking than they are right now).

So I commence papering. This is a lie. First I am going to unpack the espresso machine and have a cup of coffee; then I am going to contemplate the great papering. I just thought I should be honest.