Wiped Out (Part 3 of the Beat Series)

My apologies upfront if I make less sense than usual. In addition to continuing my mad pace of packing and moving stuff into storage, on Tuesday night I got sick. It hit me very swiftly about an hour before I went to bed. I didn't even notice until I crawled into bed, at which time I realized that my throat had been hurting for about an hour and my sinuses had been drippy. I hardly slept a wink that night. I went to bed shortly before 3 AM and gave up on sleep about 7 AM, at which time I went to the store and stocked up on medications. I swear by Zicam and have been taking those tablets ever since. Now, almost 48 hours after the onset of this cold (or whatever) my throat is still a bit sore, but my sinuses are mostly clear. My fingers are crossed that my recovery will continue swiftly.

In the meantime, I have continued work on the house. I finished the back rooms on Wednesday after one trip to the storage unit. After that I jumped to the living room, which I then finished today. Tomorrow I will finish the kitchen and be done... barring anything unforeseen. Keeping up with this pace of work in the returning heat— with this cold— has really taken a lot out of me, though. There are times when I feel like I can't move a muscle.

It was decided a day or two ago that my DVDs would have to go into storage. That made me temporarily sad... until I realized that I rarely watch them. With Hulu and a new TV season starting up, I won't miss them that much. If I need to, I can restart my Netflix subscription. The DVD decision was not as ugly as the CD decision however. Yesterday I put all the CDs into boxes— and quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to transport them to NC. There are just too many. So I worked out a deal with my friend Dale. I took them all to his place. He's going to start ripping them to MP3 format for me. In a month or two, I'm going to send him an external hard drive for storage. When he's done, he'll send the hard drive back to me and then he can keep the CDs to do with as he pleases. I believe it's an equitable deal.

This deal also gave me an excuse to go see Dale a final time. I was trying to figure out how to do so as my last few days fill out. We shook hands a few times as his oldest daughter, Katie, now in 8th grade, kept telling us that it would be OK to hug. It was amusing. There are many friends— male friends— that I feel comfortable hugging, but the handshake felt right with Dale. As he pointed out to his daughter at one point, we've known each other a long time and have never hugged.

So, of my circle of closest friends— Pat, Dale, Ken, and Clayton— I'm halfway finished. Tomorrow I hope to have dinner with Ken and say 'Goodbye' to him. I will see Pat on Saturday... and knowing me, I expect to see him on Sunday as well. Leaving Pat and Lisa is going to be very, very hard.

Speaking of dinner, after I left Dale's I decided to say 'Goodbye' to Alfredo's. Alfredo's is a traditional Italian restaurant in a seedy part of San Bernardino. (Maybe I don't need to say 'seedy'!) I've been eating there since 1982, shortly after I moved to the city. At the time it was a small restaurant, sharing a wall with a flower shop. A few years later the restaurant acquired the flower shop and knocked down the wall. The food has never been spectacular. Rather, it has been exactly what you think of in an Italian restaurant. Tonight I ordered ravioli with meatballs and received ravioli in marinara. The server was frightfully out of sync with her tables or I would have asked for the meatballs. At least I can say I went there one last time.

Well, I'm here at Starbucks much later than normal, and they're starting to clean up for the night. I believe I'll go back to my empty-ish apartment. I'm just counting hours now until Monday morning. I'm looking forward to spending Saturday out with friends— but Monday morning is my real goal. I hope to get up about 7 AM and hit the road by 9 AM, stopping for breakfast somewhere.

Back soon!

"It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like."— Jackie Mason

Exhausted (Another in the 'Beat' Series)

I am again quite exhausted. I was able to sleep in today and catch up on a little sleep. I rolled out of bed a bit after 10 AM and discovered that the temperature was still very reasonable. So, after showering, I set to work on my house again.

My place is roughly divisible into quarters. There is a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom connected to the bedroom via a small hallway. I hesitate to use the word 'hallway' to describe the space between the bedroom and the bathroom. There 's only one step between the doors of each room. Along one side of the hallway is a long closet, and there is a second closet space at the end. So, it's not so much a hallway as it is a walk-in closet with an attached bathroom. I think of the bedroom and bathroom area as the 'back half' of the house and the living room and kitchen as the 'front half.' My goal today was to finish moving stuff out of the back half of the house.

When I moved into the place about 12 years ago (more on that later), I moved from a very large place. At the time, Clayton and I were sharing a 4-bedroom house. It was very roomy, and I had the back two bedrooms to myself. (The furthest back bedroom could only be accessed through another bedroom, making them a package deal.) Moving into a much smaller space, I put most of my books and such into boxes and stacked those boxes in my new bedroom. Comics and related items filled most of the long closet, with the exception that there was room to hang clothes. So, for the last 12 years, the back half of the house has been mostly a large storage area with just enough room for a twin-sized bed. I've never even gone into all the stored boxes. Literally, in 12 years I've never opened the shades in my bedroom because there has been a wall of boxes preventing me from getting close to them.

This morning I looked around the back half of the house optimistically, believing I could empty it out today. I made three trips to the storage unit, moving 32 boxes and few assorted unboxed items— and only got half way to my goal. There was/is a lot of stuffed stored in my bedroom and closet area! While much of the stuff is already in a box, I went through every pre-packed box that i touched, making sure that it was packed full and of a weight I could manage. All of this packing and re-packing took quite a lot of time between car trips. Fortunately, if I put in as much effort again tomorrow, I should be able to finish the back half of the house. My goal after that is to use Tuesday and Wednesday to clear out the living room, followed by Thursday and Friday in the kitchen. There is not as much stuff stored away in these two rooms, and I should be able to sweep through them pretty quickly. If I can adhere to this schedule, then I can 'finish' on Friday and take things easier on the weekend. (Saturday will be spent completely away from the house, in San Pedro.)

I have been maintaining a high level of excitement about moving... but there has been a level of unreality mixed in there. Part of me hasn't really believed it would happen. Now that the actual drive across country is getting closer, the unreality is turning into a bit of a scared feeling. It's been a long time since I've made a move like this, and I've never done it alone before. This is definitely one time when being single really blows. I would love to have someone with me while I'm cleaning the house and then later for the drive. Sadly, my place is such a cesspit that every time I think about having someone else around, I realize that I'd be too profoundly embarrassed to let anyone see my place. I promise to never let things get this bad again!

Yesterday I spent the day relaxing. I went over in the early afternoon to Pat and Lisa's so I could watch the girls play in their first soccer games of the season. Along the way I picked up some new boot laces at Workboot Warehouse. That is one place I'm going to miss. I'm hoping to find someplace like it in Raleigh. Honestly, I don't have a shoe fetish, but I really love boots— not cowboy boots or other tall boots, but a nice 8- or 10-inch boot. The boots that I got earlier this year are the best I've ever had, and I wear them nearly every day now. If I could, however, I'd have lots of different boots to wear. (Sadly, they're so expensive!) Whenever I walk into Workboot Warehouse— which I really only do once or twice a year— I am overwhelmed by all the boots I'd love to have. It always takes me a long time to find just the pair I want on that visit. And most of the time I can't afford a pair so I leave empty-handed. I probably only get a new pair every other year or so.

Anyway, I eventually made it to Pat and Lisa's and spent the rest of the day there. It was great fun to watch Katie and Jessica in their games. As the games were at the same time, I moved between the games while Pat and Lisa were each stuck watching only one daughter. We Uncles have the best privileges at times! Afterwards, we watched "Rat Race" on TV and later in the day Pat and I watched the first half of "Hellboy 2". (We had planned to watch it all, but things changed...)

So that pretty much brings you current on my life. Clayton called me this afternoon while I was working and asked me if i wanted to catch dinner with him. He is leaving town this week so I won't see him immediately before leaving. We said our goodbyes and shook hands. He is such a really good friend and one of the people I will miss most.

Back soon!

"The man with the boots does not mind where he places his foot."— Irish proverb