Is This Thing On?

Hm. A blog.

Yes, I used to have one of those. Poor, neglected thing, lost and alone wandering the Intertubes. Oh, I'm a bad blog owner. And this is probably the 1,217th time I've tried some apology for not turning up on the blog and suggested some vague commitment to being better about it.

I have no excuses. Not because I don't want to have one, but because I don't know what the reason for the the neglect really is.

Maybe it's the move. Certainly that'd be a good excuse. No one could fault me for ducking underground because I took a new job and have been planning a move. I should use that one. Mental note. No, I've been scattered. I'd better not trust a mental note. Someone take that down for me.

Thanks.

Or maybe it'd be because of the conference we were planning. That was crazy busy. Balls were dropped. Balls were picked up. Dinners were planned and a good time was had by all. That'd be a good one, too.

Or maybe because of leaving a good program at an okay university in a place that feels dubious and students who I've grown to enjoy for the unknown. Well, not the completely unknown, but you get the picture.

The point is, I don't know why exactly the blog has fallen to the wayside. Some days I feel really bad about it. Some days, I think about it not at all.

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The move is in 15 days.

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The big struggle with the university is mostly done. They still haven't paid me for last summer, but, oh, they've paid dearly for this one. I am not popular at the moment, but I have been paid.
If nothing else, bureaucratic revenge feels nice. It'll feel nicer when they do the right thing once and for all.

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My father wanted to come help with the move. I, of course, opposed this.

My father, with the heart and respiratory conditions, all 73 years old of him, wanted to come help me move. All I own is books and a bed. Right now, my office is packed (12 boxes of books). There are boxes of books under my bed (10). I have books yet to pack (???). My apartment looks like I knocked over a paper supply company. And into this, my father - with my mother's blessing (no, with my mother's boot in his ass) wants to come help me move. My family, as ever, is crazy but sweet. I'm blessed.

Fortunately, he can't come. But I do appreciate the thought.

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The other day I bought a couch. This, I feel, marks me officially being old.

When I move in here, I got rid of my furniture - what furniture there was - except the stuff for the bedroom. Paying off bills was a priority; having my own stuff wasn't. So my roommate got to keep his furniture and got to choose how the living room worked. But now I'm headed off to the new job and to my own place, and it was time to replace the stuff I got rid of.

For a long time, I had a policy that I'd not own anything I couldn't move myself. A couch clearly violates this.

This hurts me worse than the fear that I'm approaching 40. It distresses me just a little more than my most recent thoughts about buying a cell phone.

A couch. And a matching chair. Grownup. Scary.

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I am so excited for this move. And I'll try to keep you posted.