Mountains Made Low

This week has been exhausting. But my mom made a good suggestion yesterday: since I had left my cat at Mom and Dad’s house, I should stay the night when I went back to get Tigger. I’m happy I did, because I got a good night’s sleep, and I’m ready to face the drive west and the task of organizing and unpacking that’s ahead of me.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve said a lot that I’m tired but happy, and I’m standing by that, except that I’m really not tired right now. Happy, yes. Sore, yes. Exhausted, yes. But I got a good night’s sleep after my tiring day yesterday, and I’m ready to go back to my new house and begin the process of unpacking, organizing, and setting up.

Also, I had some really good help yesterday. I’m afraid I overworked my parents a little bit, but they really did help. And my Uncle Ken, and my cousin, Jeff, came out to help. We unloaded everything in a few hours in the morning. Then everyone else left, and I did a little setting up and organizing. But there’s a lot left to do.

Right now, I’m sitting in Mom and Dad’s living room, enjoying the last reliable Internet connectivity I’ll have until Wednesday (though I may well make it to the library tomorrow or Tuesday). But that’s how moving works. And I’ve got plenty to do without surfing the Web.

Besides, I get most of the online stuff I can’t live without on my phone.

So, anyway, I’m about to head back to Fremont to get to work on setting up my new house. I’m sure I’ll continue to be exhausted, for the next couple of days, at least—moving is exhausting. But I’m also content with this new place and the new direction in my life and my work. We’ll see what happens, of course, but, so far, so good!

I went to grad school at Purdue with a guy who was known for his ability to pack a moving truck. There were several people, one notable individual in particular, who moved often, and there was a crew of regulars who always helped out with the move. Most of these regulars had things they were known for in the process—I was one of two known for strength and general “manly competence”—but there was one guy who was known for his moving-truck-packing ability. It was said that when this fellow arranged things on the inside of your moving truck, you couldn’t fit an additional playing card on the thing.

Hyperbole aside, though, and will all due respect to this other guy and his skills, I think I equaled that accomplishment in moving-truck-loading yesterday. Granted, between my moving truck and my own truck, I didn’t quite get everything (which is okay, because I know there’s at least one trip back to NC in my future—and probably two or three, in reality—anyway). But it wasn’t for lack of trying. The 17′ Uhaul truck is full, and I mean full, and it took every ounce of strength, “manly competence,” and spatial reasoning ability that I had to get it that way.

Then this morning, I loaded a few more things into my truck, loaded my truck on the trailer, and drove the moving truck towing the trailer with my truck to my parents’ house—with a pissed off cat riding shotgun. And tomorrow it’s the almost-2-hour trip to Fremont and the unloading.

But a certain irony of this struck me midday yesterday, as I stood there facing the empty 17′ truck and the prospect of loading it—sofa-bed, appliances, and all—by myself. And knowing that on Saturday, I’d have plenty of help unloading (parents, uncle, cousin): one of my expressed reasons for this move was the idea of being closer to family, and the fact that I’d felt isolated all this past year in the mountains of NC. My move out of the mountains gave me just one more, very practical illustration. I’ve got family to help on this end, and on that end, I loaded alone.

I promise, there will be pictures of this project when the whole thing is finished. And I’ll admit, it feels weird to be talking about (and working hard at) “home improvment” projects when the home I’m improving won’t be mine for much longer (I hope).

But I did spend the day today working more on this whole “curb appeal”-oriented project with the front porch. And while I won’t go all gushy and nostalgic, and back to my roots, here, I will say that it is nice to have the opportunity to do some light carpentry every once in a while, and just general physical labor.

Today, for instance, I started out by transforming my front yard into the look of a yard sale, by taking everything from the porch off the porch. I proceeded to tear up cruddy (nasty) indoor/outdoor carpet that someone’s brainstorm had put on the porch floor, and the ten or so floorboards that were showing the worst of the wear and tear, and went on securing the other boards that were loose.

It may not sound like much, but it was hot, sweaty, dirty work. Some with power tools, some with a hammer and flat iron.

I hope I can get the carpentry part of this project finished up tomorrow, so it’s ready when the paint crew show up to work on Saturday—my sister, her kids, and her niece are showing up to help me paint. That should be a hoot!

But when it’s done, it will be the last thing I’m planning on doing to he house (knock wood) before I move, and then I can focus on the packing and loading and actual moving.

And like I say, when we’re done on Saturday, I’ll take pictures!

Made a U-Haul reservation today. Pick up moving truck and trailer thingy for hauling pick-up truck on Thursday, July 24. Load truck Thursday night, July 24. Drive truck to Ohio on Friday, July 25 (to Wooster). Unload truck in Fremont on Saturday, July 26.

Other part of the plan? Get ass in gear between now and then. Seriously.

If you’re local/around here in NC, can I get a little help on Thursday the 24th? Either with picking up a U-Haul truck or loading it or both? Thanks!

I was writing a message on Facebook this afternoon to an old acquaintance whom I’d recently socially networked with on that wonderful site. And I came to a startling realization as the words rolled off my fingers in that message. It was a couple of exchanges to get there, but the bottom line is this: with all I have to do these days (in the next couple of weeks), my coffee pot is the love of my life right now. Which may be ironic when you consider one of the comments on the first post I wrote about coffee, almost two months ago.

The final comment there—what more could anyone add after that?—indicates that, even then, this deep-rooted love was coming through, though I wasn’t aware of it yet.

And you can bet, when I move at the end of next week, I won’t do what I did when I moved last year. The first morning I live in my new place, this time, you can bet I’ll know where my coffee pot is, and I’ll be able to enjoy that first morning with good coffee (fill in the rest of the comment’s description here if you like).

I went in to the office at the old job, yesterday, and by the time I left, it was no longer my office. I removed about 10 boxes full of books and journals and office stuff (which is now sitting, still, in the back of my truck, waiting to be brought into the house for later reloading on a moving truck—and not much later, at that).

I also turned in my keys to campus security. The security guy on duty didn’t seem to know what to do with them, but he took them, and I have to assume that they’ll get to the right place—he seemed to think that the guy who would know what to do with them would be in today.

The last thing I did was to go to the campus post office, check my mail (one thing that had been there for about three months, apparently, and reroute the packages of textbooks—desk copies for instructors in the rhetoric program—to my immediate supervisor. He told me that I didn’t need to bring them back up to the office, but that I should, instead, have them directed to him…. I’d have brought them up, because now he’ll have to go and get them, at some point (or wait until there are work-study students back on campus).

And that was the weirdest part of the whole day: running into people. My direct boss, I kind of planned on seeing—because of the nature of his job, he’s in the office most of the summer, and his office is three doors down from where mine used to be. But in my meanderings, I ran into other people, including the provost (my boss’s boss).

I explained, as best I could, without going into a lot of details, the reasons I chose to move again so soon, and the reasons why I didn’t use the new job offer as a “bargaining chip” with the people at the old job (beyond the fact that, well, that’s just not me). I understand that “personal reasons” only go so far in situations like this, especially when the personal reasons you’re willing to talk about are pretty thin on the ground (being closer to my parents who “aren’t getting any younger” is all well and good, but when they’re only in their mid-60s, that, too, can seem pretty thin).

And I don’t have the kind of personal reasons for this move that people in the academy are more used to…. It’s not a spouse or partner kind of thing—after all, moving when and where a spouse or partner does is pretty common among academics, and moving from a job which has separated you from a partner to one that’s closer to them, perhaps even allowing you to live in the same house, is even more so. That’s a “no questions asked” sort of situation.

But my real reasons, the reasons I had a hard time discussing with them, while personal, are different. The move to a community college has been a long time coming for me. My PhD training has been fighting against my desire to actually make a difference, and that desire has finally won out. Going to a place where education is available to all and (mostly) affordable to all is really important to me. That’s one of the things that my “year in the wilderness” has taught me.

Also, I’ve been really lonely. While I like spending time with myself and my thoughts, and while the vast stretches of time spent with me and my mind in the past year have done me a world of good, I’m done with that. I’m trying to put myself in an environment where I might be better equipped to develop a social network. Granted, that will still probably be difficult, because I don’t meet people or make friends easily, but it will be easier living in a town than on the side of a mountain. All of which is to say that it’s hard to tell your bosses that loneliness is part of your reason for leaving.

There are other things, too. I’ve been generally discontent with my situation here for a while—all of it…. And even when things seemed to be looking up or going better, I was not happy with the situation. And as much as I did (or tried to do) to change what I could in that situation, it didn’t seem like I could make enough change fast enough—for the satisfaction of those I worked for or for my own happiness.

So I’m moving, and in that process, I am done with the old job.

Or at least with its topography…. Yes, you’ll note from the picture I included in my post about having located housing in that part of the state that I have found a house that is, apparently, located on the only hill in Fremont.

What is it with me, anyway?