Eseme's Den

I am trying LJ mobile on my Kobo Arc. I am hoping this will make it easier to hop on daily, and catch up on everything since early April.

What has happened to me since April? I spent much of April emptying a storage unit with most of two bedroom's worth of stuff into one bedroom. Also April and May had a lot of sorting and unpacking and I am still not done yet! I have a lot of stuff...

Mid May, when I was feeling like the stuff might be starting to be under control, brought the revelation that my beloved PT Cruiser needed more money in repairs than it was worth, and I was suddenly car shopping. I now have a Kia Soul, and thanks to some financial help and an auto loan it is, at 22,000 miles, the newest car I have owned. I love it, it is Alien Green.

My new job is less new. I still have a lot to learn, and there is a lot of stress at times, but it is overall good and I like it.

I have spent the time since buying the car sewing a dress for a friend to wear at an upcoming convention (next week) and taking stock of my hobbies.

I hope everyone is well!

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Hi.

So, I do exist. Unpacking, work (great new job, lots of work to do), and the new Pathfinder Role Playing Game has really sucked up a lot of my time. Oh, and I also found a local D&D game at the local store.

I'll put up a real post at some point, possibly after I get back from vacation. Said vacation will be taking me to Rochester for part of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (the 5th-7th). If you would like me to crash your Labor Day weekend, do speak up.

This caught my attention today. I know I've got a number of comic-reading friends, so I must ask: do you think this is a good or bad thing? I'm not thrilled, but maybe a comics geek has a better perspective on this one. Cory? Netbard? Anyone?

Disney to Acquire Marvel Comics for $4 Billion

So Mr. Car Repair Guy, you're saying you need to replace the entire steering rack?

Great!

And this should be covered by my warranty?

Fabulous!








Argh!!!!!

I know people are curious about my first week of work. And I will post about that, under some sort of friends-lock... at some point.

Right now I've just completed an unsuccessful search for my hammer. It has to be somewhere with my good screwdriver... and I can't find it anywhere. Possibly it is still in the Panther's Lair, and I can retrieve it in the future. Which doesn't help me now, when I want to assemble two bookcases which will have cardboard that gets nailed to the back of them.

I'm going to have to buy another hammer, because I just can't sit here with this many boxes much longer. The local hardware store is going out of business (the owner is retiring) so I can get one at something like half off. But still, buying another hammer is silly.

I've been hemorrhaging money, trying to either replace things I couldn't take out of the apartment in Buffalo (like bookcases) or get new things that I need in this apartment due to space issues (storage thing for the bathroom because it is half the size of the one I had in Buffalo, and a fake closet unit so I can store costuming stuff).

*sigh* I just feel like I'm not getting anything accomplished here, and there will always be boxes.

The drive yesterday sucked. We were up at 8:00, and left the hotel around 9:30. Then chipped ice of the vehicles for half an hour. We arrived in Sidney around 2:00 - the drive was long and slow and icy and scary. We got to see a jack-knifed tractor trailer on 88 (thankfully it was southbound and we were northbound). The trailer was still going southbound. The cab was going northbound right next to it on the edge of a steep embankment. The driver was very lucky not to have gone over and rolled. As it was the local police looked to have no idea how to get it off the edge. It continued to rain as we unloaded the U-Haul trailer.

All the stuff is in the apartment. I just need to excavate. Dad says it is sort of like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom...

One thing I really need to find is the hardware that holds together the futon I slept on in Buffalo. My parents gave me another one, so I've got that set up for my bed. But it would be nice to have a sofa-like thing int he living room, plus lissa_dora might want to sleep on it when she visits. I'll still have my nifty fold-out chair, but I like to give guests options. And I can't find that hardware- not int he "Useful Stuff" box, and not in a few other bags and boxes that have screws and other hardware. I know it will turn up, along with the screwdriver I use to assemble to futon, but I'm not sure WHEN it will show up. Dad recons I have a month of unpacking ahead of me...

The kitchen is mostly done though- just need to go buy food for the fridge and pantry shelf. The tea shelf is rather full, as is the mug shelf. I have obvious priorities.

Today I hope to get most of my clothes situated- which will involve moving closet-organizer stuff around.

I plan to try and get my TV and bunny ears set up too. It would be nice to watch the Superbowl at home so as not to meet any rabid Giants fans. But Fox is channel 40 around here, and bunny ears are often not that good at getting high-numbered channels.

I'm getting internet at my lovely local library, who were nice enough to let me work in someone's office (it was that or the reference desk as all the other computers are reserved- and I don't start work until Monday).

No more internet for me until after work on Monday.

Moving is like an abyss, but without cookies. Hence the icon.

Moving sucks. The current game plan:

I work today. I may get a few more boxes packed. This is my last day of work.

Monday I pack. I madly pack. All must be packed.

Tuesday Dad acquires a U-Haul trailer. And we load it up with the stuff here in Maine. This includes some furniture which I either bough from the L.L. Bean employee store, or was handed down from my parents or grandparents.

Wednesday Dad and I drive to Small Town, New York. I'm not saying where that is in a public post- do not tell the internet where you are. We unload the trailer as fast as we can and try and drive to Syracuse by 8:00 or 9:00 PM to sleep.

Thursday we drive from Syracuse to Buffalo and all my stuff in storage. We work very hard to get it all packed up, so that I don't have to pay for another day of storage (this would be the 31st of January). Then we drive to Rochester to get stuff from the Panther's closet. He will now have a closet again. Then we go to a hotel and sleep.

Friday- well, we might end up getting stuff from the Panther on this day, depending on how loading the U-Haul went the day before. We then drive back to Small Town. We unload as much as we can. I would love to return the trailer to U-Haul on this day, so we pay for one less day of use. That may or may not work out.

Saturday we either keep unloading the trailer, or start arraigning my apartment. By this point it will be a sea of boxes and unassembled futons. Dad will have to leave sometime around 1:00 PM as he has an early-morning appointment in Massachusetts on Sunday. This is when I would have liked Time Warner to show up and turn on my cable and internet, but they don't do house calls on weekends (so I've decided to give them less money in return for less service).

Sunday I will try and listen to the Superbowl on the radio while I unpack. My parents are Patriots fans, living in Maine and all. My mom is a bigger fan than I knew- Dad bought her a Patriots sweatshirt and she wears it while she watches games. I find that a little alarming... Anyway, this really matters to her, so I want to know what's going on. I'd rather not go to a sports bar or something deep in Giants country and root for the Patriots. Sounds hazardous to my life. Besides, this way I can unpack at the same time!

I start work Monday.

People reading this in Rochester or Buffalo might think: "Hey, she'll be in town. We could have dinner with her or something." That's a great thought. But I'll be insanely busy, and will likely be moving stuff until after dinnertime, then sleeping and getting up at hours my father considers morning and I really don't. Plus all this fun will be happening at the worst possible time of the month for me to be doing heavy lifting. So I'll be frazzled, snippy, and possibly screaming at times. Plus, we might not even have time, given the schedule we will be working on. Sorry!

I hope to make it to Rochester for SimCon, but I may not have any vacation time then, so I can't be sure at this point. I do know I will have a small housewarming party later in February, consisting of me and lissa_dora. Hey, I said small! This will be kind of odd for me.

I don't get visitors. When I lived at RIT, I had people other than me in my apartment about twice in the year I lived there. When I lived in my first off-campus apartment I had visitors more often, but tended to weird them out by being a hostess. I'd try and have nice food and stuff to do- for them it wasn't an occasion but it was for me since no one ever came in my place and saw my stuff. But I had people other than me in my apartment maybe ten times out of that year.

Visitors were common at Frank and Suzzanne's place, but they were generally in the public areas of the house, not my little room. I dated a viking who turned out to be smarmy- he saw my room but almost no one else did. I had no visitors while I lived in Buffalo at all, with the exception of one weekend when the Panther came and by then the apartment was such a mess that he was kind of alarmed. "Can't move, stuff might eat me." Well yes, but when you live in a place where no one else has been for over a year, you get in the habit of leaving piles of stuff lying about because it is easier than cleaning up and no one else will see. And since I was only in that Buffalo apartment for about half the week anyway, I wasn't really living there myself.

So, a new apartment, and a visitor who has never seen any of my belongings. My inner hostess is channeling Martha Stewart and trying to decorate, thinking about what china I have and do I have wine glasses, planning some sort of menu, and trying to make me nervous a month in advance. I'm trying to shove her in a box. We'll see if that works. Someday I'd really like people dropping by to be a normal thing as opposed to an occasion.

Done packing. Done driving.

I drove to Maine yesterday. I ended sleeping on a friend's floor Sunday night, when I could not drive to Maine (as I didn't want to arrive at 4:00 AM) but could not stay in my previous apartment (due to having handed over the keys).

Interview was this morning. I think it went well. I'm one of two candidates. Wish me well.

Here is my goal, with commentary on if I got stuff done:


Tuesday
2-5 work for Library Student Journal Yes
Finish packing crafts most of them, not sewing machine
Pack remaining books Some, but still books here
Move more furniture (possibly bookshelves) Moved one bookshelf Tuesday and one Wednesday
Pack up linens realized I won't pack linens until I move the bed, but all linens now in same room

Wednesday:
Pack up most of the kitchen Working on that, should be done by 2:00 AM
Pack up candles and knick-knacks candles mostly done, one small box knick-knacks
Take over camping gear nope, not yet
Move some small tables Moves TV table and foot locker
Move papasan chair (lash it to roof of car with 50 feet of rope) Yes

The heat is what is hampering me today. Washing dishes in an 80+ degree apartment is no fun. So I'll be working into the night when things are a bit cooler. I can hopefully load the rest of the kitchen and some knick-knacks into the car before I go to campus to work on my directed study from 2-5. If I am lucky I can get in two loads (the second being tables and camping gear).

I graduate at 9:00 AM tomorrow.

I *thought* I had 2 1\2 weeks to pack up and move.

Then I got a phone call. The job I applied for last week wants to interview me. In Maine. Around the 28th of May. Well, that cuts out some time. And the person who is retiring will be around until the end of June to help train the new hire. Which means if I got the job it would likely start a week or two after the interview.

Which would mean it would make more sense to just move most of my stuff to Maine rather than Rochester.

And I could have another interview, for the island position, around that time as well.

Of course with my luck, both positions would say "We've decided to hire someone else" and then I would be stuck with most of my stuff in Maine but no Maine job.

Or, alternatively, I would get offered both jobs and have to choose between a very cool two year stint on an Island not getting paid much, versus a job that pays OK, is on the mainland, and given that the person who phoned me today said "I've been here ten years and it's like I'm the new kid on the block" is very likely to have longevity.

Either way, not sure what to do - drive a U-Haul up to Maine and then if I get neither job drive back to Rochester with a carload of clothes and other necessities?

Plus this means I could vanish out of Rochester much faster than I was planning to. ... Or not. It's very hard to tell as these are just possibilities, not definites.

I'm not thrilled with the uncertainty.

*looks at her poor life, all turned upside down and sideways, such a confused little life*