OW hell

I seem to have pulled something (?) in my back, sort of below the left shoulder blade. Yeah, I just lifted a box of dishes, but seriously I've lifted much heavier things in my day. In the last two days, in fact. Ugh. It feels like the kind of thing that a good stretch and a couple of days should fix, but right now it twinges whenever I move my arm. Convenient.

Didn't Hilaire throw her back out--much worse than this, I believe--right in the middle of moving? The Curse of the Cardboard!

News from the Moving Front

So I'm mostly packed, but there's still plenty of stuff kicking around my apartment not knowing what to do with itself. I also need to repot two plants and...oh, what was that other thing? Something else. Then there are the miscellaneous errands: closing down my local video store membership (I want my deposit back!), recycling plastic bags at the grocery store, giving the department secretary my new address, and so forth.

One thing that's been a feature of my last couple of moves is the Destruction of a Large Metal Object. Last time I moved, it was a two-drawer filing cabinet that had become jammed in the process of being moved. I needed to extract all the files from the top drawer, and the only way to do this was to rip the drawer apart with a pair of pliers. Obviously. It was an immensely enjoyable and cathartic experience. This time, I had to tackle a set of window bars (you know, of the thief-deterrent variety). The situation is this: The stairs to my apartment are narrow and winding. My dresser had to come in through the window; it will have to go out through the window. In the time that I lived here, I had some bars installed over my windows (because there's an easily accessible fire escape out there). Boyfriend and I were able to put the bars in in the living room, but the bedroom proved somehow impossible: the wood of the window pane was too hard, or something. So my landlords did it for me, putting the bars in wrong and only getting a couple of screws in, but whatever. Anyway I needed to remove the bars so that the movers will be able to get the dresser out again. (Enjoying this story?) Yesterday I tackled the project with a drill, three screwdrivers, and my trusty pliers--which ended up being the key ingredient, as several of the screws were stripped and I had to pop their heads off by violently wiggling the bars back and forth.

I love doing this kind of thing. It says: I am strong! and self-sufficient! Or perhaps there's just an inherent pleasure in destruction?

Less triumphantly, I had a couple of sad goodbyes yesterday. First I went to see H off on her move; she's actually moving to sort of the same part of the country as I am, but will be 7 hours, instead of 2 blocks, away. It was a tearful affair on both sides. Then I had lunch with my advisor, which was very pleasant, but as we were parting she gave me a hug for the very first time ever, and I realized how much I'm going to miss meeting with her. She taught my first-ever medieval literature course, and I've worked closely with her for five years now (even though there were times, of course, when I went three months or more without seeing her). So that was sad.

And then last night I saw my problematic friend, and it was fine. In fact, I had a nice time. He still complains a lot, but somehow these things are more easily handled in person than via email.

Okay, it's 10:15, and despite my fervent supplications the boxes are not, in fact, packing themselves. And I have three more farewells coming tonight, so I'd better get going.

I've Packed Myself into a Corner

(I have since managed to clear a path out of the study. The trouble is that I'm selling my bookcases to my bartender, and they're being picked up today, so I had to move them out of the study--past the mountainous boxes of books--then move the books back into the study so that the bookcases can be moved down the stairs. It is all very complicated.)

Oh, but yes, how I do hate moving. I used to love moving. Can you believe that? There is something satisfying about purging the old crap--I still like that part--but wrapping up and lifting every single item that I own, now that I own a fairly large number of items, is less than pleasing. Yeah, that must be it. I used to like moving because I didn't own anything, and moving was basically just an exciting new re-decorating activity. Not so much these days.

This move is complicated by the fact that I have to keep three sets of boxes separate: the boxes that will go into storage (by far the largest pile), the boxes + cello that will go into my mom's house (not such a large pile), and the boxes that will move with me to Field Town. They're all labeled, obviously, but I don't trust the movers (which I will have for exactly 2 hours, including their travel time, so I don't know how much they'll actually get done) to carefully check each label before setting the box into the truck. Because I'll need to remove things from the truck in a fairly specific order, so--oh, I'm giving myself a headache.

This post is pure procrastination. I have never worked as inefficiently as I have lately. I will pack one box, making a careful list on an index card, which will then be taped to the side of the box, of every book contained therein (I think I've gone a little crazy this week, too), and then I will sit on my floor or in a chair staring at the wall for approximately 15 minutes. There is nothing in this apartment that I want to deal with at the moment. And the movers come on Friday. And between now and Friday, I am having 1) lunch with my advisor, 2) a drink with an old professor, 3) dinner with two friends, 4) dinner and/or drinks with a different friend, 5) at least one yoga class, and 6) whatever I'm forgetting. I may have actually planned more dinners than there are nights this week. Time is short; it is short indeed.

Ugh! Send motivating thoughts my way, please please!!

Inexplicable

Because I can't be bothered to pack, I decided to do this quiz that I saw linked on New Kid's blog. Here are my results:

Your Score: Older Futhark

You scored

Language of the Norse, Older Futhark! Thirty symbols, all told. And no hardier, more warrior-like tongue has ever graced the longships of the Viki or left the Celts and Saxons in such quivering fear. There's only one drawback, that being you died 800 years ago.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Oddly enough, this is what NK scored, too.

Oh, the Astonishment!

This morning, I am awash in a peculiar mixture of delight and alarm.

Alarm:
because in less than one month, I will be teaching full-time.
because I begin moving one week from today.
because the summer feels effectively over--at least, the nice relaxing putting-things-off part of the summer.

Delight:
because I actually seem to be on top of things.

Maybe I just set my standards really low, and that's how I've been able to check off most of the things on my to-do list; even the un-checked-off things, like the conference paper draft, are well in the works and should be finished before courses start. (In fact, I do have a draft; I just don't feel it's good enough to get credit yet. Soon, soon, I tell myself. I've been researching for a few hours a day all week and with luck can beef it up before I actually move. Wait--I move in a week. Who am I kidding?) (See! Delight and alarm at work, within the text itself!!!)

Yeah, so, things are strangely under control. I have two of my three syllabi; the third is supposed to be determined by committee before we start teaching this fall (everyone teaches the third class), but I'm a little nervous about it because it's a comp class, I've never taught comp, and I wish someone would just send me the syllabus already. But anyway. That class actually shouldn't require too much advance-reading time, so it'll be okay. I have a reasonably well revised draft of my book proposal, which I hope to show Advisor early next week. I've updated my CV and job application cover letter template. I still need to review my writing sample, which has changed somewhat since last year, but that shouldn't take too long, I don't think. And I might redo my dissertation abstract--wait, do I even need one? Now that I've graduated? See, those job search workshops in grad school don't tell you how to do round 2 of the job search! It's very annoying.

The move is mostly coming together, too. I'm in the Metropole, formerly known as the boyfriend's city (I decided that it needed a more concise name), until Sunday afternoon; not the best timing ever, but I had to get in one last visit before leaving this quadrant of the country. Yesterday I packed up the Kitchen Cupboards of Mystery, which actually contained far fewer mystery objects than I'd expected. I have not yet undertaken Pandora's Desk Drawers or Cornucopia Closet, which will doubtless leave me utterly boxless and panicked, but my books are mostly packed up and perhaps I'll even get everything done in time to go to one last yoga class next Thursday night. I hope!

At the moment I'm rather sleepy, having awakened at 7:30 for the last two days after not going to sleep very early, and am trying to stay awake and alert for an upcoming yoga class at noon. Wish me luck.

I would just like to say:

--that getting the proofs for my first article gave me a very nice feeling. The kind of feeling that Anne of Green Gables would have called a "thrill."

(Even though I'm not terribly thrilled with the article itself anymore. What's that thing that familiarity breeds, again?)

It Was Bound to Happen

The wireless that I've been stealing for the last 5 months or so has disappeared.

Well, if it was going to happen, the timing was pretty good--I'll only have about 7 days of an internet-free home. Already I feel my productivity increasing (although it's annoying, I confess, and I spent the morning haunted by the feeling that there was a Really Important Email Or Something that I didn't know about. Of course, there wasn't. The only even remotely interesting email I got today was the proofs for my first article--which was exciting, but hardly required immediate attention).

Blog-reading will probably be light, though, at least until this weekend, when I'm back in the uber-wireless Metropole.