I can has interwebs?

Pardon my disappearance from the blogosphere—we’ve been busy moving into OUR NEW HOUSE, which until today did not have internet, as we had to wait on the stupid Verizon cable guy to come hook it up. Also I started my new job at MIT. Here are the salient points:


1. The house (which we’re renting) was clearly designed by a retarded person on crack. No offense to the mentally disabled, as I think they’re still smarter than whoever was in charge of constructing this house. The kitchen cabinets and closets were never finished (it’s bare plywood on the inside, and let’s not even discuss the closet doors), the dropped ceilings downstairs are too low, the vent fan over the stove hits at neck height, there are at least two extra doors to the garage that have no reason for existence, and the bathtub was never glazed (it’s ROUGH. Whoever heard of a rough bathtub?). And there’s a window in the shower—with a wooden sash. Which is already half-rotted. Nice work, genius.

Plus, the last tenants apparently never cleaned. The kitchen cabinets are all sticky. Really, really sticky. Ewwwwwwww. No one ever bothered to scrape off the price tags on the light fixtures, there were layers and layers of (uncleaned) contact paper stuck onto the unfinished plywood cabinets, the windowsills are filled with some unidentifiable sticky black gunk, and there was AN OLD USED CONDOM on the top bathroom shelf. Who throws their used condom onto the top shelf of the bathroom instead of, say, in the trash can? AND THEN LEAVES IT THERE?

And there was a dead mouse in the toilet on the day we moved in.

And the curtains are god-awful.

2. However, with a good cleaning, new contact paper, new light fixtures, new curtains and curtain rods, and strategically placed furniture/artwork (to hide the 1973 décor), I shall almost succeed in making the place liveable. If I can get over the trauma of accidentally touching the old used condom.

3. Our conversations are now things like, “What do you think of a big paper lantern to cover up this chandelier?” and “What sort of desks should we get?” But that’s a vast improvement over “Where the *%&$^ is the _____?” (insert common household object here). The decorating/furniture acquisition portion will take a while, but the unpacking part is 75% done at this point. So that’s definite progress.

4. Working at MIT is really cool. I like working in academia a hell of a lot more than working in finance, and it’s MIT, which is cooler than working at, say, a community college. Let me tell you, there is some serious nerditry on this campus. There are industrial-sized vats of liquid nitrogen in the hallways. Some of the labs have armed guards and eye-scan security systems outside. There are literal rocket scientists. There is a department of Planetary Science, in which one of the required classes is Molecular Biogeochemistry. And my MIT ID gets me into the library. Oh yes. You may touch me now.

5. The commute’s a bitch, though. I’m now a slave to the train schedule, which means I have no life outside of work and my house. Especially this time of year—even if I take the early train home, it’s still full dark by the time I hit the train station, which mean a mile-and-a-half walk home through dark suburbs and crunchy leaves and 45-degree wind. DH has been dropping me off at the train station in the morning; soon we will have to work out a system to pick me up at night, as well. The upside is that I don’t have to drive an hour each way on I-95 to get to work, like he does. Once his company moves to Providence, his commute will drop back to 20 minutes (still on I-95, though).

That walk will be nice in the spring and summer, though.

And boy, it’s the ‘burbs. We’re right next door to the country club. But at least there are sidewalks all the way to the train station.

6. My Thanksgiving plans are getting all screwy. I was hoping to go visit my sister in Gulfport, but I’m not sure that will be possible now. Stay tuned.

7. I’m going into New York this weekend to celebrate my birthday. It’s a fairly significant one, and even though I should really be spending my time/money on all things house-related, I can’t talk myself into spending my birthday unpacking and mopping. I’d much rather spend it with my friends.

8. That means my birthday is this weekend. Feel free to send presents.