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I like to move it move it
Sep. 3rd, 2013 10:25 pmSince I've had people asking me when I'm going to post again: I am posting now!
All right, where did I leave off? Oh, early August, fantastic.
My housemate and I found a new place about five blocks east and four blocks north of where we were. The landlord seemed very sane and professional, so even though it was a little out of the price range I wanted, we went for it. Signed the papers and turned in the damage deposit on the 15th, headed down on the 16th -- and I packed most of my stuff for the move beforehand (admittedly by dumping most cloth things into garbage bags and vacuuming them down a couple sizes -- they expanded a bit in the end, but it was mostly workable.
Hit Seattle briefly, then headed north again for a wedding rehearsal! I was not part of the wedding party, but they let me chill nearby while they rehearsed (I got a spider on me), and then go with to the dinner. Then Andrew, Gavin, Michelle, and I all went back to Andrew's place so we could hang out and Gavin and Michelle wouldn't have to take the ferry back across the water only to come back across again the next day for the wedding.
That night, I introduced them all to Welcome to Night Vale, a podcast produced by Commonplace Books, which I highly recommend everyone check out. It's a fictional community radio show set in the town of Night Vale, which is a small desert town where all those crazy conspiracy theories come true. I've seen it described as "A Prairie Home Companion as narrated by Rod Serling" and "the news of Lake Wobegon as read by Stephen King", but for me it's sort of "where The Addams Family goes on vacation when they're looking for dry heat". It's weird and quirky, and the music is fantastic. It's also free to download, and each episode is between twenty and thirty minutes. Also, characters explicitly of color (woo!) and characters who are explicitly not straight (woo!) -- so, signal boosting for the win.
The wedding was beautiful and I cried and the officiant (Gavin) did not include "blah blah blah" at any point in the vows, in spite of the fact that "blah blah blah" was still in his script within an hour of the wedding. I also had a great talk with a woman who'd just finished a huge damn paper on women and gaming, and heard some good stories about LARPs past. I also hung out with the Guy Who Is Taller Than Anyone I Hang Out With, and most of the guys I hang out with Stateside are at least a foot taller than I am.
A week later, I saw the extended family on Mom's side for Grandma's Memorial, which was nice. I also learned that there is really no way to just "dust" human ash off your hands; so there was a brief moment of awkwardness where I was offered some of Grandma's favorite candy and couldn't take any because, well, it would have been way too close to cannibalism for comfort. We all went out for a late lunch afterward and all of the "Cousins" (my generation) sat together and all our parents sat at the other table. That's many years of family dinner training kicking in there. We discussed whether or not it might be possible to get one of those yellow plastic Fisher-Price tables sized for adults. Also, my cousin Brian's wife is pregnant! They were mostly kidding when they asked when the rest of us were going to be providing their kid with second-cousins.
Unfortunately, even though I wanted to hang out with people in the area, I spent the next week feeling anxious and icky about the move. Housemate asked me to look into getting a vehicle for moving (yeah, I know, late in the game to do that!), but then found one herself for cheaper than we could find one. Weird.
My parents picked Andrew up on the way back to Vancouver so they and he could help with the move. Parents spent the night in a hotel, Andrew and I spent one last night at the old place, helping my housemate pack up a last few things. Then we slept and then the next day we moved! Lots of moving! 7AM is an awful time to wake up! But we actually managed to move all our stuff to the new place between 9AM and 11:30AM, so we left my housemate to drive it back to the rental place and got lunch. She spent the next hour looking for the key to the van, which was fortunately discovered - and bonus fortune, the rental place didn't bother actually checking her in, so we didn't have to pay extra for it being late! (They hadn't even had anyone needing it, since she realized she forgot her phone in it and had to go back, and it was still there.
I let the cleaning people into the old place (because it would have taken way more energy than we had to move everything out, move everything into the new place, and clean the old place all in one day), and then went and tooled around on campus for a bit. Then we went back to the old place to pack out a few odds and ends that had been stacked out back while we were concentrating on the stuff we'd need the van for. Then keys were turned in and we were...having to organize our shit into some semblance of "moved in".
Andrew made he and I pizzas and we discovered that the fire alarm is very sensitive. This is good, because my room has an extra door into my housemate's room instead of a window for escaping in case of fire.
Then I mooped around for a few days in my pajamas because TIRED OF ALL THE STUFF. Also, my desk broke the rest of the way during transit, and I'm missing the piece of my swivel chair that keeps the top part from going all the way down to the floor. The former worked out fine because my housemate had an extra desk that she can no longer fit in her room (she got two desks back when she thought she was going to do a thesis). The latter is still a problem. I may just get a standing mat and see if I can transition to mostly standing. I can also borrow one of the dining table chairs if I really do need to sit.
Andrew went home yesterday and I mostly finished organizing my room. Once I've cleared the clutter, I'll take pictures and post them. I have also determined that I need one of those dawn simulating alarm clocks because again: no windows. I'll be able to use it in rooms with windows in the winter too, so I'm looking into what's best for the money rather than just "what's cheapest".
I like the new place pretty well. The one downside is that there are bitty spiders, like, everywhere. I have extracted all of them from my room, but I removed two from the living room today -- one via the window, the other via the toilet because I didn't want that one crawling back in the window (I'm calling to get screens for our windows tomorrow, with the landlord's permission).
Today was my first day of classes! Unlike Mondays, which will start next week, my Tuesday class is at 2PM. I went with the 2 bus route today instead of trying to walk the 9 blocks to the one bus, but we'll see how that ends up. I leave about 15 minutes earlier than I did from the old place. Since I have an 8AM class on Mondays, I think I'll just roll out of bed and into clothes and head out the door. After I get out of that class, I don't have another until 6PM, so I can come back and shower and suchlike here so I don't end up just buying food on campus.
But today's class! Today's class was "New Media for Children and Young Adults", and it looks awesome. It's also taught by my advisor, he's cool. Sadly, none of the PBS videos we will be watching for this class are Bill Nye clips. But "fandom" is ON MY SYLLABUS. Fuck yeah.
After class, I attempted to meet some buddies up here for a movie and so I could give them the T-shirts they ordered and had sent to my parents' place (I offered) because shipping to Canada is RIDICULOUS. My facebook status will tell you how that went:
On the upside, going to the wrong place meant I got to wander around the Japanese dollar store there and pick up a few things like dish gloves and a sheet of glow-in-the-dark stickers for my keyboard (they're supposed to help prevent eye strain when you're typing in dimly-lit rooms. I mostly just want glow-in-the-dark stickers on my keyboard).
And that brings us up to today! I shall once again try to post more frequently, if only so it doesn't take this long to write up what's been going on.
Also, I am going to attempt to put on some muscle, because one of my friends may go the self-publishing route with his book and thinks that I'd be a good model for one of the characters as long as I'm alone in the shot so you can't tell how bitty I am. I need to do some resistance training anyway, according to my doctor.
All right, where did I leave off? Oh, early August, fantastic.
My housemate and I found a new place about five blocks east and four blocks north of where we were. The landlord seemed very sane and professional, so even though it was a little out of the price range I wanted, we went for it. Signed the papers and turned in the damage deposit on the 15th, headed down on the 16th -- and I packed most of my stuff for the move beforehand (admittedly by dumping most cloth things into garbage bags and vacuuming them down a couple sizes -- they expanded a bit in the end, but it was mostly workable.
Hit Seattle briefly, then headed north again for a wedding rehearsal! I was not part of the wedding party, but they let me chill nearby while they rehearsed (I got a spider on me), and then go with to the dinner. Then Andrew, Gavin, Michelle, and I all went back to Andrew's place so we could hang out and Gavin and Michelle wouldn't have to take the ferry back across the water only to come back across again the next day for the wedding.
That night, I introduced them all to Welcome to Night Vale, a podcast produced by Commonplace Books, which I highly recommend everyone check out. It's a fictional community radio show set in the town of Night Vale, which is a small desert town where all those crazy conspiracy theories come true. I've seen it described as "A Prairie Home Companion as narrated by Rod Serling" and "the news of Lake Wobegon as read by Stephen King", but for me it's sort of "where The Addams Family goes on vacation when they're looking for dry heat". It's weird and quirky, and the music is fantastic. It's also free to download, and each episode is between twenty and thirty minutes. Also, characters explicitly of color (woo!) and characters who are explicitly not straight (woo!) -- so, signal boosting for the win.
The wedding was beautiful and I cried and the officiant (Gavin) did not include "blah blah blah" at any point in the vows, in spite of the fact that "blah blah blah" was still in his script within an hour of the wedding. I also had a great talk with a woman who'd just finished a huge damn paper on women and gaming, and heard some good stories about LARPs past. I also hung out with the Guy Who Is Taller Than Anyone I Hang Out With, and most of the guys I hang out with Stateside are at least a foot taller than I am.
A week later, I saw the extended family on Mom's side for Grandma's Memorial, which was nice. I also learned that there is really no way to just "dust" human ash off your hands; so there was a brief moment of awkwardness where I was offered some of Grandma's favorite candy and couldn't take any because, well, it would have been way too close to cannibalism for comfort. We all went out for a late lunch afterward and all of the "Cousins" (my generation) sat together and all our parents sat at the other table. That's many years of family dinner training kicking in there. We discussed whether or not it might be possible to get one of those yellow plastic Fisher-Price tables sized for adults. Also, my cousin Brian's wife is pregnant! They were mostly kidding when they asked when the rest of us were going to be providing their kid with second-cousins.
Unfortunately, even though I wanted to hang out with people in the area, I spent the next week feeling anxious and icky about the move. Housemate asked me to look into getting a vehicle for moving (yeah, I know, late in the game to do that!), but then found one herself for cheaper than we could find one. Weird.
My parents picked Andrew up on the way back to Vancouver so they and he could help with the move. Parents spent the night in a hotel, Andrew and I spent one last night at the old place, helping my housemate pack up a last few things. Then we slept and then the next day we moved! Lots of moving! 7AM is an awful time to wake up! But we actually managed to move all our stuff to the new place between 9AM and 11:30AM, so we left my housemate to drive it back to the rental place and got lunch. She spent the next hour looking for the key to the van, which was fortunately discovered - and bonus fortune, the rental place didn't bother actually checking her in, so we didn't have to pay extra for it being late! (They hadn't even had anyone needing it, since she realized she forgot her phone in it and had to go back, and it was still there.
I let the cleaning people into the old place (because it would have taken way more energy than we had to move everything out, move everything into the new place, and clean the old place all in one day), and then went and tooled around on campus for a bit. Then we went back to the old place to pack out a few odds and ends that had been stacked out back while we were concentrating on the stuff we'd need the van for. Then keys were turned in and we were...having to organize our shit into some semblance of "moved in".
Andrew made he and I pizzas and we discovered that the fire alarm is very sensitive. This is good, because my room has an extra door into my housemate's room instead of a window for escaping in case of fire.
Then I mooped around for a few days in my pajamas because TIRED OF ALL THE STUFF. Also, my desk broke the rest of the way during transit, and I'm missing the piece of my swivel chair that keeps the top part from going all the way down to the floor. The former worked out fine because my housemate had an extra desk that she can no longer fit in her room (she got two desks back when she thought she was going to do a thesis). The latter is still a problem. I may just get a standing mat and see if I can transition to mostly standing. I can also borrow one of the dining table chairs if I really do need to sit.
Andrew went home yesterday and I mostly finished organizing my room. Once I've cleared the clutter, I'll take pictures and post them. I have also determined that I need one of those dawn simulating alarm clocks because again: no windows. I'll be able to use it in rooms with windows in the winter too, so I'm looking into what's best for the money rather than just "what's cheapest".
I like the new place pretty well. The one downside is that there are bitty spiders, like, everywhere. I have extracted all of them from my room, but I removed two from the living room today -- one via the window, the other via the toilet because I didn't want that one crawling back in the window (I'm calling to get screens for our windows tomorrow, with the landlord's permission).
Today was my first day of classes! Unlike Mondays, which will start next week, my Tuesday class is at 2PM. I went with the 2 bus route today instead of trying to walk the 9 blocks to the one bus, but we'll see how that ends up. I leave about 15 minutes earlier than I did from the old place. Since I have an 8AM class on Mondays, I think I'll just roll out of bed and into clothes and head out the door. After I get out of that class, I don't have another until 6PM, so I can come back and shower and suchlike here so I don't end up just buying food on campus.
But today's class! Today's class was "New Media for Children and Young Adults", and it looks awesome. It's also taught by my advisor, he's cool. Sadly, none of the PBS videos we will be watching for this class are Bill Nye clips. But "fandom" is ON MY SYLLABUS. Fuck yeah.
After class, I attempted to meet some buddies up here for a movie and so I could give them the T-shirts they ordered and had sent to my parents' place (I offered) because shipping to Canada is RIDICULOUS. My facebook status will tell you how that went:
Today, I am thankful for the fact that my friends think my friendship is worth such misadventures as "so, I was coming, but I got lost and then I figured out where I was but I went to the wrong place. I would have contacted you, but forgot that I hadn't actually finished putting everyone's numbers back into my phone yet".
Sorry again, guys. Hope you enjoyed the movie!
On the upside, going to the wrong place meant I got to wander around the Japanese dollar store there and pick up a few things like dish gloves and a sheet of glow-in-the-dark stickers for my keyboard (they're supposed to help prevent eye strain when you're typing in dimly-lit rooms. I mostly just want glow-in-the-dark stickers on my keyboard).
And that brings us up to today! I shall once again try to post more frequently, if only so it doesn't take this long to write up what's been going on.
Also, I am going to attempt to put on some muscle, because one of my friends may go the self-publishing route with his book and thinks that I'd be a good model for one of the characters as long as I'm alone in the shot so you can't tell how bitty I am. I need to do some resistance training anyway, according to my doctor.
