I have moved to Illinois. Despite having little to nothing to do with my time — a job has yet to be offered to me — this is the first I’ve touched this site since before I left Virginia. A kind of a torpor has settled over me that has nothing to do with the weather, though we’re covered in a layer of very hibernation-worthy snow at the moment. My time has been frittered away with trips to the grocery store and bouts of Chibi-Robo and Puzzle Quest. I think, perhaps, I wanted some sense of accomplishment to offset my lack of success in the job hunt.

Or maybe I’m just lazy?

So, Chicago’s pretty all right so far. My exploration has thus far been focused on the areas of the city I can reach by foot, so that’s basically a two mile radius of our apartment. I’m thrilled to be able to take care of almost everything I might need without getting into my car.

I think I’m going to like it here.

It is currently Thursday, November 1, 2007. One week from today I will have quit my job. A few days after that I will have moved to Chicago, IL.

I’m a little nervous about this.

The move itself, while stressful, is nothing I cannot handle. I’ve moved a total of seven times in the past ten years. Three of those moves have been across states. The packing and the loading and the unloading and the unpacking are obstacles fairly easily overcome. One would think, incorrectly, that I might have learned a lesson about accumulating so much stuff.

The lack of employment, and subsequent financial crisis that it entails, have a much more worrisome effect on my state of mind. Sure, I’ll find work in due time but lord-a-mercy does it agonize. The wife has a job that more closely resembles her dream job. I have a sour twist in my stomach.

Ahh, but the destination! That’s the key. Years of listening to This American Life have definitely keyed me in to Chicago as a place to be. Yes, I have heard that it gets cold up there.

We load the truck on November 9th. Boxes in varying state of fullness litter our tiny house. It’s hard to see if we’re anywhere close to ready to pack it all up.

At least I don’t feel as if I were ready to throw up quite so often. That’s progress, right?

So why, after six months of silence, do I feel the need to start babbling on again in a public forum (a potentially public forum at any rate). I suppose it has to do with my most recent effort to make sense of my life. This isn’t intended to be a wrenching soul-searching endeavor the likes of which everyone hates to be forced into listening. It will probably turn into one. The best laid plans. . .

So, as I said before I’ve moved some 500 miles from my last residence, started living with my girlfriend (Staci) and her two pets (a dog named Leroy and a cat named Milo), and taken a new job that requires me to wake up around six-thirty in the morning rather than sometime before two in the afternoon. I’ve essentially turned my life upside down. Many of the ideas I’d had regarding this arrangement have turned out to be untrue. For instance, combining two similar incomes towards bills, rent, and food has not entitled me to a seemingly inexhaustible font of cash the likes of which can be used to procure both goods and services at a whim. Also, while the great majority of events both special and otherwise that a person may attend does increase almost exponentially when said person leaves work in the afternoon rather than the dead of night the early morning awakening does not really leave this person with a great deal of energy to pursue them. See also: misconceptions about financial abundance.

See, I used to work the evening shift. I’d wake up around, oh, 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. I’d sip coffee for a good hour or so while reading websites, watching DVDs, or playing World of Warcraft. Then it was off to work, where I’d see folks leaving in the evening announcing plans to go out to eat, to a movie, or just to go home and lay on the couch with their sweethearts watching television. I’d be more than a little jealous, and think “Boy, you sure do get to do a whole lot more when you work day shift.” And I suppose I do, that I just don’t remember it as well because most of the days I don’t do anything more than come home and wait for Staci. That, and I kind of miss being able to slowly sip a couple cups of coffee without having to rush off to work. I’m better off this way. Working at night would make for a pretty miserable relationship.

As for the money issue: I really thought when I decided to move that I’d see a considerable bump in my spending cash. After all, we’d be combining groceries, splitting bills, and chipping in for necessary expenditures. We ought to have more, right? Well. . . maybe, but not nearly as much as I must have expected. I still tend to wind up pretty close to broke at least twice a month. I haven’t exactly been able to just buy whatever I like either (as I thought I might). A couple of times I’ve taken a look at my collections of things and become inexplicably depressive. Now that I’m starting to type this it sounds a bit spoiled in my head. . . but let me explain.

All my conscious life I’ve been obsessed with things: namely the continual acquisition of them. This drive should no doubt be familiar to any of us who grew up feeling socially awkward in the 1980s and 1990s. I used to tape the little product inserts that came in packages of Transformers to my dresser as best to fantasize about finally having all of the parts to one of the “gestalt” robots (I can distinctly recall wanting to collect Superion particularly badly, though I never did. In fact, I never managed to collect all the parts of any of these toys which turns out to be portentous.). I also hung on to the LEGO catalogs, both the large ones that showed every set by theme for the year and the tiny fold-out posters that only gave you a taste. Once I reached a certain age I probably spent almost as much time looking at other things I might buy if I had the money as I did playing with the toys I already had. “If I could just get this entire set,” I’d often think, “that would be great. Think of how much fun that would be.” I never, ever did. Before I could even come close I’d find some new collection of toys that I absolutely had to have.

As I got older, the objects I longed to own changed (though not all that drastically — I bought more LEGO sets during and after college than at any given time in my childhood) but the cyclical nature of my obsession never did. One month I simply had to own all the seasons of Smallville. The next it might be as many different chapters of Final Fantasy I could get to run on the PlayStation 2. I’d run out and get one, spend far too much time looking at places I might buy more, and then forget all about it when I found something new or rediscovered a past obsession. The simple fact is I am addicted to thinking that some complete set of something or other I can buy will make me happier. I’m addicted to finding new collections of things to be obsessed over. A few months ago I took stock on how many first seasons of television shows I had bought and how much it would cost to finish them. In short, it was a lot of money. A lot of money I now don’t want to spend on that. . . It really made me feel awful in a way I cannot adequately explain. I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete. Nothing that makes me say “Aha! So that’s why I felt so awful!”

I thought maybe typing it out this time would help me come to realize it. So far. . . not so much. Some time soon, perhaps.

God damn! November? It’s been six months since I last posted anything here? What happened? I guess I just plumb forgot.

Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past couple of months:

• Moved from Charleston, SC to Richmond, VA.
• Had a very difficult time with a very large, very heavy, very green couch.
• Became a stepfather to my girlfriends two adorable furry children
• Started a new job at a new hospital
• Embarrassed myself, Staci, and her friend Amber at a Sleater Kinney show in Washington, DC.
• Went out to see the movies Land of the Dead, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Junebug, Thumbsucker, Capote, and Everything Is Illuminated (not necessarily in that order).
• Drove to my family’s cabin in eastern West Virginia twice and to Asheville, NC once.
• Watched the first season of Lost
• Walked the streets of Richmond, VA dressed as a zombie along with several dozen other crazy bastards.
• Mowed the lawn several times, washed the dishes many times, and raked leaves once.
• Fell asleep on the couch watching zombie movies at least three times.
• Woke up every morning next to the woman I love.

(I had intended to have more photos to share, but Flickr is just not cooperating today and I don’t much feel like setting up my own photo gallery. As soon as it starts acting better I’ll get you some visual aids.)

The move draws ever more imminent. As does my last day of work. This has been a difficult week to stay focused. On the one hand I don’t want to leave a bad impression, and on the other hand my mind is 500 miles away (just as my heart has been for the past 7 months).

My last day is tomorrow, Thursday the 26th of May. I had intended it to be Friday, but my letter of resignation left some confusion. I really didn’t mind putting in another day, but honestly, at this point, I find it hard to care. My coworkers have put a bad taste in my mouth.

I thought I was putting in my notice at a fairly opportune time. Another tech had just been hired for my shift, albeit with some fairly different responsibilities. I thought that they would be able to transition fairly smoothly over. But, I put in my notice and another tech decided that this was a sign that it was time to depart and is heading out the door soon after. So, now they’re down two. I know I shouldn’t care, but I guess my loyalty chip is set too high and I cannot help but worry.

And worry I do. Not only about what my departure means to my former employer, whom I’m certain will be able to figure something out, but about the move itself. Have I packed enough? Do I have enough boxes? Will I be able to get it all done this weekend? Again, I know the answer is yes, but god damn, the nagging worries.

I am currently living amidst a teeming pile of boxes, some stuffed full and cinched tightly with packing tape, some half-full and hungry for more, and still some wholly devoid of objects acquired over the past year either purchased or shipped from the still impressive stash in my parent’s home in WV. I have quit. My two week’s notice is chipping away, and I am soon to bid a farewell to the balmy shores of SC for a more northerly locale. So, I felt like talking. . . some four months after my last update.

The delay from my last post does bother me. I feel guilty, though I don’t know what compels me to feel as though I owe the Internets an update. I want to maintain a website, yet I don’t particularly know what I aim to get out of it. Catharsis? Community? Is it simple vanity? The first two don’t quite fit, because I don’t feel as though I’m particularly honest with these things and I certainly don’t get visitors, comments, or messages. Neither does vanity for that matter. Somewhere along the way I seem to have picked up the notion that nothing I do or say is particularly interesting or special. I missed out on all that self-esteem jibber-jabber in my childhood. When I sit down to write this I can only think “Someone out there is doing this better, more efficiently, and more attractively than I am.”

But yet, I feel as though I must. I simply must have a website. What’s more, it has to be mine, and mine alone (though, I have made the concession to build this with Textpattern), i.e. no LiveJournal or BlogSpot with their prebuilt set of (potential) readers. I have to make it on my own steam, so to speak.

So. . . that out of the way. . .

As I mentioned, my apartment is a cluttered mass of corrugated cardboard at the moment. My job, my internet, my electricity, all of these things have been scheduled to be terminated by the end of this week. I am leaving. I’m leaving a state that recognizes CSA day for a state that recognized Lee-Jackson Day (actually, they cram Martin Luther King in there too now: it’s Lee-Jackson-King Day and I honestly don’t know which one is more embarrassingly funny). I’m also going to be breaking the law.

Tantalizing, eh? See, the deal is I’m moving to Virginia, and in the state of Virginia (which, of course, U.S. State wonks might gleefully point out is technically a “commonwealth” and not a state if such people were any more imaginary than dragons or flying unicorns) as well as a handful of other states the law against cohabitation is still on the books. North Carolina is the only one that sees fit to actually do anything about it. Oh yeah, I guess it would bear mentioning that I’m moving in with my girlfriend, and her two special-needs animals.

That’s next weekend, err, this weekend I reckon. Anticipation runs high. I’m getting anxious to finally get that big rented truck packed full and headed up 95, but I’ve got a work week to get through before that. . .