A Perfect Picture

I am so tired that I cannot move. Literally, I am typing this laying flat on my back, my lap top on my stomach, and the exertion needed to move my fingers is somewhere on par with pushing a heavy boulder uphill.

I have just completed a most unrelaxing Memorial Day weekend. I packed up my life and put it in storage. I moved into my apartment almost seven years ago (a ridiculous amount of time in one place for someone in their twenties) with two bags of clothes and that was all. And well…I have acquired much since then. My two bags seemed to the have been spit out of the Mysterious Multiplying Jar and seven years later I have many many more bags. But the master packer has crammed most everything into boxes and lugged them all to storage.

Now, I feel like I’m in one of those movie shots designed to show how lonely or depressed a person is - the camera pans away and a person is sitting in the middle of an empty room in a lone chair watching the only other thing in the room, a TV. Except in my in shot, I’m laying on the floor staring at a screen two feet in front of me that is balanced on my stomach. The room is totally bare, but the floor is strewn with random and strange things I don’t even remember buying and don’t know what to do with. And far from depressed, I’m celebrating, jumping up and down…or would be if I wasn’t so darn tired.

The Eagle Has Landed

The car has arrived. It is true. I got the call that my car had completed it's journey and was waiting for me. I went down, signed all the papers, and promised them my first born. And the pending question of how I would react...well at first sight I was in total joy, but then after an hour in a white washed room with an overly tan man whose teeth were as unnaturally white as his false hair line, which resembled something more like the crumpled mesh from a tutu than actual hair - to say the least, after exiting that room I had a little melt down.

God bless my friends who drove me a out there to buy it, sign the papers, and pick it up. They will never have to cart me around again.

And without further delay....



Ain't it a beauty! Cross item one off the list of things to do before I leave on this little journey.

Still waiting

My car still has not arrived. This has become the greatest game of patience I have played in a long time. And I'm losing. The car people tell me that they now expect it next week. The delay is pushing everything back and getting mighty close to when I have to move out. All those things I was waiting to do until my car arrived are getting squashed into a very short time. The first trip my car may make is to drive off the car lot to my apartment, packed up with stuff, and driven to the storage place. That ought to break it in nicely.

Hopefully that was the last "it's coming next week" phone call I get.

The car

For all those interested in the seemingly unending car saga, it has reached our western border and begun its cross-country trek. I bought my new car, a Honda Fit, in the beginning of April and have been waiting for its arrival ever since. It was born from an assembly line in Japan on April 12th, braved the Pacific Ocean in a tanker ship, and has now officially landed in the US. I got the call yesterday that it is in Montana, making its way to the east coast. It should be arriving in Boston sometime mid next week - only to be packed up and driven back across the country the other way.

People keep asking me if I'm excited for the trip and my response is always the same, "It doesn't feel real yet. It'll be real when my car gets here." And when I think about things I need to do to pack and move, I say, "I'll do that when my car gets here." So next week when my car gets here...it's going to be great or it's all going to hit me. I hope it's the first one, but if it's the second one - there will be drinks.

It's starting...

...to freak me out. I'm hitting the road. Moving out of my apartment in Boston and driving around the country for the next few months. When I made this decision, it seemed like there was plenty of time to change everything in my life. I plan on this trip being rather liberating, but right now it's just a lot of planning—one too many big kid things to do. I have to move out, move into my car, get a car, buy a map. You know the basics.

The impetus for this little trip came from an idea I had for a book. The book is titled Fat Chance. I know I know a title before the book is even written is a little backwards, but I'm going with it. It may change as I chase down this book, but regardless this will be my Fat Chance America tour.

The Fat Chance America Tour starts... oh sometime in the beginning of June. I'll keep ya posted.