The Mid-November Packing Report

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These are my notes from mid November about the process of packing the house and the other things that need to happen, more or less right now.

I could imagine someone doing a short film about the drama and emotional complications of packing up a house, to leave forever, and to move anything important to storage. The end of the film would be the protagonist closing the door on the storage area, closing the door to the house and driving away in his car packed with a few belongings and driving away forever.

I have no idea how close I am to packing up the house and to get ready to leave.

Although we have processed a tremendous amount of paper and processed most that I know about. But its not done, and what is left has mostly been processed once already and that means that they are the papers that have emotional content or need to be filed in an intelligent way so they can be found again.

I know I have to spend a week or two now on various applications due the middle of December or so. I know I have to engage a lawyer to try and get my driver's license back. I know that I have to get my car smog checked, find the car title and try to get the damn thing registered and then insured. I know I have to finish the math review, which is unexpectedly entertaining, and take my GRE.

I also have to spend not less than two days attending the memorial service for Lance Williams. One of the artifacts of being poor is that it is not at all clear that I have what I need to attend a formal service of this type.

I guess that has to happen around the beginning of December.

Ideally I would have this done by mid December and be out of here by December 31. Right now that doesnt look very plausible.

We are definitely making progress however and if at some point I need to cut and run, then hiring a moving company to put the boxes downstairs and a little scrambing and at least the house would be packed.

What I Have Learned About Stuff

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As my readers probably know, I am moving out of here at the end of the year. Almost everything will go into storage downstairs, and by everything I mean my books, my papers, my photographic negative, proof sheets and equipment, various computer parts and some furniture. The way this usually works, I never see this stuff again, but there is some possibility that one day I will have a stable place somewhere and will send a moving truck for it all.

This is not entirely true.  I will keep with me one car's worth of camping gear, books and hopefully my bicycle.  At least one laptop and maybe two.  But everything else needs to be thrown away or put into storage. 

I feel that I have learned my lesson and I hope you will learn and profit from my mistakes. The moral of the story is: “Buy less stuff”. In particular, unless you are in control of your living space, and know where your library will be and/or can afford to pay professionals to move things when that time comes, do yourself a favor and buy less stuff.

Second, when you have stuff that you do not absolutely need, throw it out now before you have to deal with it one future day.

Do yourself a favor and heed my words.