Another A Razor, A Shiny Knife dinner

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New York!

DH and I spent last weekend in New York. It was the first time I'd been back since I moved to California. The dramaturgy department at Columbia was having an alumni thing, so my friend L (who is getting her PhD at Harvard) and I roadtripped into town. It was also the first time all the dramaturgs from my year had been together in...three years? More? I figured since I was in town anyway, I might at well make a weekend of it.

I saw a bunch of old friends, and while I missed some people, I'm hoping to see them on the next trip. I walked all through my old neighborhood, saw my old apartment, had a drink at my old bar, explained the glories of Brooklyn to DH. I also took him to an underground restaurant event, his first. You can read about that tomorrow (I'll post the link); you can read about some of my favorite bars here.

It was expensive; it was exhausting; it was exhilarating (at least for me). And it was great to see everyone again. But you know what? I didn't feel a need to move back. Home is where my husband is.

You know what Frank Sinatra song I'm thinking of

I've spent most of the week interviewing, and I've had a couple of good ones. I've also had a chance to really explore Boston; walk the Freedom Trail, go to the various museums, and get a good sense of the public transportation system. All good things. I also got to have brunch with my dear friend L on Sunday. I hope to do a lot more of that!

But what's really got me fired up is that I'll be in NYC all weekend! I'll be able to see all my friends there for the first time in a year, see my old stomping grounds, introduce my hubby to everyone, and best of all--another A Razor, A Shiny Knife dinner Saturday night! Could life get any better? I think not.

Thoughts on Providence, RI

Yesterday DH and I drove around Providence, to scout the area.

Here's my official response: Meh.

It's a cute town, with a lot of interwoven history, and there's a really exciting burgeoning food scene there. Plus a lot of crazy kids at Rhode Island School of Design. But it didn't have the character or energy of a big city like Boston. I still like Boston better. I'd still rather live there.

Fortunately, downtown Providence had juuuuust enough going on to make it at least palatable, if it came to that. If we lived right downtown, within easy distance of the various local-food restaurants, wine shops, cheese shops, bookstores, and Trinity Rep, and I could take the main commuter rail line to Boston every day, that might be okay.

Living like a refugee

It's hard to settle in when you're living like a refugee, but we're trying. It's a bit surreal living in a hotel--don't get me wrong, in many ways it's awesome. There's a gym, a heated indoor pool, we never have to wash or change sheets and towels, there's free cable. But it's weird not being able to clean up after myself (no broom, no sponges, they take the trash out), the windows only open two inches, and while I've had studio apartments smaller than this hotel room, it is a bit small for two people and two cats. King-size bed notwithstanding.

Also, this part of Massachusetts is hell and gone from anything interesting. No offense to it, it's quaint and residential and stereotypically New England, but there's not much else. There are the standard big-box chain stores, a mall, a few local restaurants/watering holes, and that's it. We went out to dinner at a place called Kennedy's Pub last night, with DH's coworkers, and the place closed at 10. 10! On a Friday night! DH's biggest complaint so far is the commute--nearly half an hour of weird, windy, narrow residential streets. There's no rhyme or reason to how streets are laid out here.

I've been taking the commuter rail into Boston to interview, and so far the interview process is looking promising. (Although the nearest train station is a few miles from DH's office, in the opposite direction, so I have to be dropped off/picked up at the beginning and end of the day.) I have a job interview lined up for Monday, and all the agencies assure me that it won't be any problem to get back to my old New York salary, or more (I had to take a 35% pay cut to work in San Diego). Boston is a lot cuter than I thought it would be. I'd been to Boston before, but never any real extended touristy visits. I've been spending my interview days walking around downtown/Beacon Hill, exploring the historical sites, the museums, becoming reacquainted with public transportation. Ah, public transportation. I didn't know how much I missed the subway until I got on it again. SoCal's weather is great and all, but there's no hustle, and nothing even vaguely resembling convenient public transpo.

My consensus is that (winter aside) I could definitely live here. Boston's got a lot of great stuff going on, good restaurants, good theater, culture, museums, historical whatnot, and let's not forget the cheap seafood. And the public transportation. We still haven't decided how to work the commuting situation; do we live in Boston and DH reverse-commutes to Providence? Or do we live there and I commute to Boston? Or somewhere in between and we commute in opposite directions? Frankly, I'm all for the first option, but we're going to thoroughly explore Providence and southern Massachusetts to make sure we've covered all our bases.

We're here!

I feel like a piano landed on my head, but we're here, finally. In one piece. The car did fine, the cats survived, nothing broke.

Dealing with the movers was much more of a pain in the ass than I expected. There was a separate packing crew, to deal with packing the flat-screen TV and a few odds and ends (for insurance purposes, I wasn't allowed to pack the flat-screen TV myself). They dripped some sort of motor oil/grease/industrial lubricant ALL OVER the carpet, which means I'm now involved in an ongoing battle with their insurance company to make them pay for cleaning it up. They claim I did it and I'm trying to place the blame on them; to which I reply, I don't own anything with motor oil! Moreover, everything I own was packed in boxes before they arrived, and the drips were nowhere near those boxes. Now the apartment complex informs me that whatever the substance was, it's now actually burned through the carpet in those spots.

But eventually the movers came and took everything away, and we were able to hit the road. Goodbye, San Diego! We spent the first night in Vegas, simply because we couldn't have driven any farther after dealing with movers/carpet issues all day.

The next day we hit the road about 7 am, for a 24-hour haul to Columbia, MO. The route took us through Utah and Colorado (I-15 and I-70), which was some of the most gorgeous, uncomplicated driving I've ever been involved with. Amazing scenery, empty highway, 75-mph speed limit, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. I never really fell in love with San Diego (weather aside), but I am a little in love with the scenery of the West. Crazy rock formations, pointy mountains, weird salt basins, national forests, the Rocky Mountains...well, you get the idea. Utah may be full of Mormons, but it's really, really beautiful, in a way that's completely unlike anything on the East Coast. Don't even get me started on the open spaces.

We hit Denver about sundown, which was fine, because we were just going to spend the next ten hours driving through Kansas anyway. I've now driven through Kansas in the summer, the winter, and at night. And if you thought it was boring during the day, let me tell you. It was EXTRA boring at night.

We got to Columbia about 7 am, slept a bit, then spent the day with family (and getting our car's first oil change!). It was great seeing everyone again, and we got to drink some of the beer my brother-in-law made for the wedding. Good times. Then we slept for 12 hours.

Back on the road again at 9 am. Remember how the previous day's driving was beautiful, and uncomplicated, and awe-inspiring? Well, then we spent 22 hours driving through Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Then we drove through Erie, PA. Then Buffalo, NY. Then the NY State Thruway. Then the Massachusetts Turnpike. Oh, and it was pouring rain for much of that. There was nonstop roadwork. The cats were tired of being in the car and were picking fights with each other the whole time, I'd done something to my shoulder during the move and it was killing me, and the landscape made me want to stab myself in the eye with a plastic fork. Why is it that the interstates east of the Mississippi have to all look the same? The same trees, the same fields, the same truck stops and signs and grey, flat, cloudy industrial suburban byproducts. I haven't seen the sun since Denver, quite literally. If it weren't for the Mormons, I might seriously consider going straight back to Utah and setting up shop somewhere within sight of a pretty mountain, with no people around anywhere.

But lots of that was just road-weary crankiness. We got to our temporary housing in the western 'burbs of Boston around 6 am Sunday, and spent the day unpacking/sleeping/recuperating. We went grocery shopping, bought some booze, ran to Target, and got DH ready for his first day on the new job today.

Here are my first impressions of Massachusetts, in no particular order:

1. It's cloudy, grey, and already sweater weather.
2. Despite that, someone told me today--without being sarcastic--"Beautiful today, isn't it?"
3. Booze is way, WAY more expensive than in California. Like, $10 a bottle more expensive.
4. But gas is 40 cents a gallon cheaper.
5. Seafood is abundant, fresh, and cheap. That may be the saving grace of all this.
6. The urban layout is weird. The roads are oddly laid out, there's no rhyme or reason to where things are (Sam's Club in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Why not?), everything is jammed close together. Imagine New York City, only you have to have a car.
7. The cats are ecstatic to be out of the car.
8. The car now smells like cats, and not in a good way.
9. I'm not so old I can't do long-haul driving like that, but I'm definitely old enough to not want to do it.
10. The next person who says the word "moving" to me is going to get punched in the face.

However, I have three interviews tomorrow with three different staffing agencies, and I'm already making plans to hit NYC next weekend to see all my friends.

So to comfort myself, I'll make a big pot of crawfish etouffee tonight with fresh crawfish, and watch some free hotel cable, and try not to think about how long it will take for my hard-won tan to fade.

On the road again, again

Everything's packed, the car is loaded up, the refrigerator has been emptied. It's that time again: time for me (us, this time) to hit the open road in a cross-country move. We're leaving tomorrow!

After the movers take everything away, we'll spend the night in Vegas (only about five hours away, a short drive) and then take a 24-hour straight cannonball run of driving between Vegas and Columbia, MO, where we'll spend a night with family. That drive will take us through Utah and Colorado, some of my favorite (and most scenic) driving. After a night in Missouri, we'll do another 24-hour straight run of driving between there and Boston, which will take us through Indiana, Illinois and Ohio--some of my least favorite driving. We hope to wash up in Massachusetts sometime very early Sunday morning.

So I'll get a blog update up sometime Sunday or Monday; until then, watch Facebook for updates. And pray for us, and the cats. And call me, whenever. I'll be up.

"The things you own end up owning you."

A little quote from Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Here's another:

"It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything."

Why am I quoting Fight Club, you wonder? Well, mostly because my apartment looks like a box factory exploded. I'm 80% done with the packing for this move, which means pretty soon I'll be able to quit stressing about packing and can instead start stressing about driving cross-country with two cats and then finding a job. Let's recap, shall we?

Last Labor Day weekend I moved from New York to San Diego.

This Labor Day weekend I'll be moving from San Diego to Boston.

At this point, I'm almost ready to sell everything I own, just so I can quit worrying about packing. And moving. Freedom like that is a powerful drug.

But I'm not going to, and here's why.

Don't get me wrong, 50% of me would dearly love to sell everything, and go hitchhiking around South America with nothing but a backpack full of clothes (and a laptop, and a Kindle, and the new iPhone, and a much spiffier camera). At least I'd never have to move again, not like this, anyway.

The other 50% of me looks around my apartment right now and thinks (right after, "Holy crap, how did I get this much stuff?"), "Hey, I have some pretty awesome stuff. That I've dragged all around New York, to Virginia, back to New York, then to California and now to Boston. My stuff has more mileage than most people's cars."

And I look around at the things that have avoided all the purges so far. The $800 knives, the few tattered paperbacks that had too much sentimental value to relinquish, the photo albums, the red leather chair. The shoes from my wedding. That poster my friend Jenn gave to my friend Peg who gave it to me when I was in college, and is now proudly framed, next to my bed, still sporting college dorm room tape in the corners. The cast-iron skillet my mom gave me. The handmade cutting boards my sister gave me. The stained, torn road atlas that took me through last summer's road trip.

And then I look around at the stuff that's been purged, waiting for the Salvation Army to come pick it up tomorrow. So much dead weight, so much crap that the two of us somehow accumulated, thinking we couldn't live without it, and now clearly we can. (Nothing forces you to purge like having to move cross-country in two weeks.)

It makes me think about the difference between stuff, and crap. Crap is just that, crap. It's too many t-shirts, weird cleaning products you tried out and never threw away, those acid-washed jeans from high school, video games you played once or not at all, poor-quality cookware that has now officially died.

Then there's stuff. Granted, my stuff does not define me. I do not define my stuff. But right now, the thought of my stuff, safely stowed away, gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about this move. I'll be parted from my stuff for a little while, but soon, we'll have a home again. Our home will be populated with our stuff. I will have once again faced down my stuff, separated the wheat from the chaff, proven which things are important to me and which are not. Every time I do this, the same core items make the cut. The red leather chair. Those few paperbacks. The good cookware. The photos. The memories.

Deep in packing hell

The good news is that with all the offloaded furniture, and my packing skillz, our move estimate is now officially under budget. So we can have professional movers, after all. The bad news is that I have to do all the packing. So I'm packing. And purging. And running to Sam's to buy more bubble wrap and tape. And packing some more.